Blaine Neufeld [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Change the God podcast. It's the same old trio, but it's a new environment, which we're excited for.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:05]:
We're closer. We're closer together now.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:07]:
Right? Right. We are excited. It's a busy week for me.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:13]:
You don't know the tagline, do you? Marriage. Here's the thing about Blaine. Family. He's hosting, but he doesn't know the tagline. Welcome back to Change the Odds, the.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:20]:
Podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be a game of chance.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:24]:
We're growing. Thank you.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:25]:
Yeah. We are growing. I'm excited. We're excited. Actually, before, I just wanted to share how excited I was at home when I rearranged my girlfri garage this week. Oh, just waited, you guys, to hear that. I'm very proud of this.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:35]:
She knows. Adrienne, do you care about the garage?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:38]:
I like it when it's tidy.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:40]:
Jenny would be fired up by this. To have a husband that would do anything in the garage would fire her up. She would love this.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:47]:
I can't tell you just how satisfied I am to walk in. And I have a little bit of a couch scenario in there. I'm doing some stuff. We're doing guys night tonight, and it's going to be in the garage. It's a lot of fun, but I needed the space, and it's nice to clear the mind.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:01]:
That does feel nice.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:02]:
That moved us into clearing our mind this week and learning a little bit about what we have to do.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:06]:
That would do nothing for me. That would cloud my mind. It would irritate my mind. Yes. No. I remember years ago. So when Jenny and I first got married, we're in Arkansas. We have three acres mowed and so riding lawnmower.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:19]:
But, yeah, it would take like four hours. And so I mowed the yard one day, and Jenny and I are sitting on the front porch drinking our tea or whatever, and she's like, man, doesn't it just make you feel good to look out there and see what your hands did? And I go, no.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:34]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:34]:
It literally did nothing for me. And she couldn't comprehend.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:38]:
And you were probably drinking Coke, let's be honest, not tea.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:40]:
That's true. I didn't have tea.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:41]:
I had coke.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:43]:
I love it. Well, let's get into today. We are talking about growth.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:47]:
That's right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:47]:
We're excited about this, Kev. You got lots to talk to us about. But I just know that you've always said this. It's like a foundational piece of a marriage of growth as a couple. Talk about it.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:59]:
So I think it is the foundational skill whenever we look at relationships. So you can almost think about marriage like a two story house. That on the bottom story, this is where we live life. This is where so much important stuff happens. That bottom story is the idea of connection. It's attachment. We've talked about this before. You have to develop that.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:18]:
And if you don't develop that, there's always gonna be consequences from that. But once connection is established, then you can build a second story. And that second story are skills and relationship, in part, are just a series of skills. Now, here's where I think a lot of people get it wrong. And this is even where counseling got it wrong. In the 70s and the 80s, they fixated so much on skills that they never built attachment or connection. And so what you ended up with is people who could handle money, right? People who would have intimacy the right number of times per week, who could communicate. Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:50]:
They'd use all these I statements, but they still felt this great disconnection. And I've always said it this way about, let's say, the skill of communication. I can teach y' all how to communicate properly, but if I do, I don't change your attachment or your connection. It just means the divorce is going to be much more peaceful, really. Right. And so the concept here that I think we need to focus in on, even as we talk about a skill today which is so important, is that has to be built on a lower story of connection and attachment. Now here's the truth. Skills help build that.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:21]:
So if you can learn these skills properly. Previous episode we talked about living inside the window of tolerance. Skills can help keep us inside the window of tolerance. And then specifically, whenever we look at skills, we're talking about money, we're talking about communication, sex, parenting. There's a thousand different communication skills and things like that. But I think the foundational skill is this one, and it's the idea of growth. When you and Adrienne as a couple can grow, then there's no limit of what can happen in Yalls relationship. But when you don't have the ability to recognize we aren't where we want to be, to learn new things, to try new things, to change behaviors and habits, then even if you're married, which is great.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:02]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:02]:
You are one negative thing away from being destroyed. Because if the wrong thing came into your relationship, you wouldn't know what to do about it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:10]:
Right? So where is your foundation? Right? So when you're talking about growth, are you talking about the big things? The small things. Both things. Like, I'm just looking at our marriage and how I do feel like we have grown a lot. And when I look back five years or 10 years, I'm like, oh, my goodness. But I don't always see the in between of like, we're growing daily and we're doing things.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:31]:
What's your so. So whenever I think growth, I think about it in the concept of it is the intentional learning of new ideas, new behaviors, new habits, and adapting to change. In the end, growth could be summed up as an intentional pursuit of bettering ourselves individually and then also together. Now I think you hit an important part. I do think for most people, life itself is gonna be a classroom in which they're going to grow and people are generally going to grow to some extent. What we're talking about today is now to intentionally do so with the purpose of assisting our marriage and our relationship and honestly creating the life that we actually want. And so this isn't just leaving our growth to chance. This is now being intentional of we actually want to create this muscle, this skill, so that we can leverage it in a thousand different areas.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:28]:
Right. I'm looking at it and I'm thinking about it as a listene listener viewer right now and saying, okay, do an assessment on myself. What are some warning signs? What are some cues to know if I am growing or I am not? Maybe I'm stagnant In our season of time. What are some indicators there?
Kevin Thompson [00:05:43]:
Yeah, I think some easy things. Do you keep on getting stuck in the same issues or can you look back? So you all been married 14 years? 14 years. Can you look back over the last decade?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:54]:
I am here too.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:55]:
Great.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:57]:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:02]:
But can you look back and look at yourselves 10 years ago and go, oh, my goodness, man, that was an issue and it's no longer an issue. And to where there's now. There are some things in marriage that just don't really change. You learn how to navigate them, those kind of things. But there should also be these abilities that we have to where, you know what we do communicate better. Now I can better understand my spouse. I can meet them emotionally where they actually are. We can better now recognize when one of us is overstimulated and needs some help and some assistance.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:34]:
And I know what to do whenever that happens. And we've had some of these early on arguments and fights that we really don't have anymore because we've learned some new things. Another test would be if you were faced with a New challenge today. Would you have a confidence that even though we may not figure it out today, I know we're gonna figure it out, and we're gonna be better in the end?
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:56]:
I'm thinking about our movement.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:58]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:06:58]:
Twice.
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:58]:
Twice. So, like, I remember you say now, if you were asked with a challenge, a new challenge. Okay, we have to move next week. What would you say now? And what would you have said 10 years ago?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:07:09]:
Oh, yeah. Well, 10 years ago would have been like, no.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:12]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:07:13]:
And now I'd be like, okay, well, we'll figure it out together.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:16]:
Yeah. And why. What have we. How have we.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:07:18]:
Well, we've learned to adapt to new situations, and we've learned to lean on each other because, like, in the beginning of our marriage, before we moved, I would always run to mom and dad, you know, if we had an issue, and I couldn't do that. So we learned to, like, okay, we got to figure this out. We're a team.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:33]:
Yeah. Communicating was a huge component of it. Even communicating our desires of, like, oh, this isn't necessarily just my goal. It's our goal now, which I had to change and learn and discover. And so then you take away your mission on work to create a better community. I'm thinking back at our start of our. Our tense couple of years. She had nothing fulfilling her.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:55]:
So then I was able to recognize that through our friend Donna.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:00]:
Donna.
Blaine Neufeld [00:08:03]:
But I was aware, and I'm thinking now, like, I'm thinking about some of the blockers that I would have had. Would have been pride. It's like, I don't want to go there. I don't want to. Or for her fear. It's like, I don't want to be vulnerable. Is that. Are we hitting?
Kevin Thompson [00:08:16]:
Oh, no, Absolutely. And I think you can. You can look at trauma that goes on in life. Obviously, trauma can sometimes. I mean, Siegel's gonna say. Dan Siegel down at UCLA is gonna say that we're either going to go toward rigidity or chaos. So chaos. We can't learn new skills because there's not a discipline.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:34]:
There's not a focus on what's going on. There's so much stress that's happening. But rigidity keeps us out of learning new skills as well. Why? Because learning how to grow specifically requires vulnerability. It requires us to try things we're not used to. And if we're in a rigid state, we're finding comfort now in the rigidity of the relationship, then we're never gon to try anything new. We're never going to have the courage to say, well, what can I do about this? Or what's going on? And so trauma is a key thing, a whole concept too. And this is kind of yalls state of life.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:07]:
Busyness can prevent growth because you're like, oh my goodness, I don't.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:09:10]:
Where do we have room for that?
Kevin Thompson [00:09:11]:
We don't have time for what's going on. But I think one thing to understand within busyness specifically is that growth does not necessarily demand huge amounts of time all at one moment. What it demands generally is small amounts of time consistently over time. In the same way that a 15 minute workout every single day over a period of time can have this tremendous effect physically and mentally.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:09:39]:
Are you doing that, Kevin? What's your 15 minutes look like?
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:42]:
Oh, I thought he was peering into my life where I go the other way. I do one time and I think that it's going to fix it and I'm healthy now. I did one workout.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:09:52]:
Did one workout and cut carbs.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:53]:
Right. Or I think about too, like we talk a little bit about this is people's relationships where he or she has kind of made that error or built or broken trust in the relationship and a guy kind of quickly compartmentalized and say, no, I'm sorry, I won't do that again. But there's broken trust there.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:10:12]:
Right. Like the girl can't just like, okay, move on.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:15]:
Yeah, right. So I know you've talked about that.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:10:17]:
Yeah. And I'm glad you said little bit at a time. Because there's probably some couples thinking, well, like we're not gonna do a big move and experience growth. Like this is where we are, this is our home. And you never know. God can call you wherever, but like you can still grow even if you don't have big life changes.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:36]:
It can be in the day to day, no doubt. And I think another kind of barrier stumbling block to growth can be stress. That whenever we're in a heightened stress kind of concept, we're not gonna have the time, we're not gonna have the freedom, the vulnerability to then kind of learn new skills, take on new things. So those are the major barriers that are actually there. But I think fear is the biggest one. I think even if we don't like where our relationship is, we feel more comfortable in what we don't like than the potential of what could be.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:11:14]:
The change is scary.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:15]:
The change becomes more scary not recognizing the life and the vitality that can actually be on it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:11:22]:
I think it's cool that you say that too, because then I'm looking back at our moves. And we were so scared to make that first move. I was inspired to go and chase a dream. She was trapped in fear because it was leaving all the security and safety from mom and dad and our small community. Then we make the next move. But we know that through the suffering, we're going to be better because we never were better than where we were before we moved again. So now we're like, I don't care if we move again, because we know and there's security even in the adventure. Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:11:52]:
Even though now we're excited to grow, we're excited for opportunity. Whereas before we were totally trapped in that fear.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:00]:
The way I look at that is literally how growth begets growth. Right? It just builds on each other. And then you have this confidence that even if we haven't experienced it before, we'll be able to figure it out and then think about what happens in those moments. Not only are we less afraid of what could change, of what might happen or what are we going to do, but then there's also an amped level of possibility of trying new things, of learning, of, all right, even if we try and it doesn't work out, we're going to be okay. This is what I think is one of the great benefits. Now, Jenny and I married 25 years, and I think at this point where we are. And obviously you can stumble at any moment, but just the idea of we have 25 years of testing each other and going, ah, we're going to figure this out. And this next season is going to be really exciting.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:52]:
Why? Because the previous seasons, we've grown through each of those. That now even if a challenge comes our way, we know we'll be ready for whatever is there.
Blaine Neufeld [00:13:00]:
I love it. I love it. So how do we develop these skills then? If we're talking about skills and we're.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:05]:
Yeah, yeah. So a few things we're going to have to think of. Mindset is going to be one of them. I want to talk about that. Let's kind of list through them and then we'll come back. But let's come back to mindset specifically, because Carol Dweck and her book Mindsight, I think it's gonna play such an important role of what's going on. Habits are a pathway toward growth. Just developing and committing to.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:25]:
Here's how we're gonna engage. So let's say you have a desire. We wanna grow spiritually. Okay. You have the mindset that we can grow. You have the desire to do that. If you don't Actually put a plan in place, then it's not gonna happen. You can have all the hope in the world, but it's not actually going to happen.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:41]:
Whereas if you say, look, every night after we put the kids to bed, instead of turn on the tv, instead of going our separate ways, instead of scrolling on social media, we're going to take 15 minutes and we're going to read one chapter of the Bible and discuss it. You do that for a month, you'll be in a different space. I have no doubt.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:14:00]:
Or you're praying together.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:01]:
Praying together.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:14:01]:
Which we're trying to get better at getting into.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:04]:
Jenny and I do not do that very well at all, by the way. So you can teach us.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:08]:
Well, we'll tell you how we grow.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:11]:
We pray individually. Well, but the idea of even the habit of, okay, I'm going to develop a small group. We're going to commit to go to the small group, as irritating as it is to get the kids there, the hassle and all those things. But for years we hosted a small group in our house. And especially when the kids were little, I mean, we'd have 20 kids running around upstairs and all that. And every single Sunday afternoon, I'd be tired from Sunday morning and I'd be thinking, I do not want to do this. But as it was over, like, oh, so grateful we did this. Just the discipline every single week.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:44]:
And I think within that, we have this idea of the community.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:48]:
Yes.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:14:48]:
Oh, community is huge.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:49]:
Exactly what I wrote down. As you're reading that, like, just to validate this, I'm texting my Thursday night group and we're doing this on a Thursday. Shocker. Okay. It's a hidden secret. But anyway. And I literally texted him. I'm like, guys, remember, 6:30, you won't want to come.
Blaine Neufeld [00:15:04]:
You're going to be lazy, you're going to be tired. But remember, at 10:30pm every Thursday night, you feel, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad I went. Right. It's just like it happens every single week. But it's. We're persistent and we get there and we finally get there.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing I experienced that Adrienne doesn't believe me when I talk about working out. Is that okay? Just because there's no physical evidence does not mean it doesn't happen. But the idea of you don't want to work, nobody wants to work out. But then you get that feel afterwards of, I'm so glad that I actually did that. Right. And so I think that kind of concept and then, well, no, I was.
Blaine Neufeld [00:15:39]:
Thinking about her this morning. She was like, ah, walking around the house, cuz you had worked out and you're in pain, but, you know, killing me. She said, I think I've effectively worked out. Then I feel a little bit of pain, but I'm going to be stronger for it.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:51]:
Properly sore. Properly. That's exactly right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:15:54]:
Hey, can I ask a question? Not to cut you off, but what if one of the spouses isn't interested in spiritual growth? Because that's. I'm just thinking about the couple that's like one of them is desperate and the other one's like, I'm cool where I am, you know, and how do you bring that partner? Like, I think prayer, just praying for them is probably the main thing you can do without being like the nagging. Like, well, we should go, we should go.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:20]:
Nagging is not going to work. No, nagging is not the way forward. Generally what you want to do there is, okay, I'm going to model for them, what it is I want for us. And so I'm going to continue to grow within my own life. I'm going to learn new things, experience new things, all those things, inviting them along the way. But if they reject it, if they stay put, then that's fine. Now eventually there become consequences to that. If one is growing and the other isn't.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:44]:
Distance can be created, no doubt, but you just keep on moving in that direction. But here's Adrienne. What I see a lot is not all couples, but in many couples, where one is growing and the other one isn't. Many times there is a history, a track record of hurt to where. Now what happens is the one spouse is growing, but their spouse doesn't trust that this is gonna last. They've been through this before. He's made promises before. She's tried to turn a new leaf before.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:17:15]:
Or maybe it's even like hurt from the church. It could not even be like a spousal or childhood or some kind of barrier.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:24]:
If we're looking at spiritual growth specifically, but this can be growth in any area. What tends to happen there is. Here's the conversations I will have. The husband or wife will come to me and say, hey, man, I'm growing in all these new ways and my wife isn't and I really want to bring her along. How do I make that happen? And sometimes I know their story, but if I don't, then I might just ask their story. And then you hear, okay, she wanted this for years and he wasn't Doing it. And she's lost heart. And so I encourage him, hey, keep on this path to earn her trust back, and then she will likely join you.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:01]:
And then it's not unusual at all for me. We're going gender stereotypes, but it's not unusual. It's not unusual for me to sit down with a wife and to say, had I told you five years ago that your husband was going to be spiritually entrusted, you would have killed for that. And now that he is, you're questioning it. I get why you're questioning him. But recognize that God has actually maybe answered your prayer and join him in this. But ultimately, we cannot make our spouse grow by any means. And we actually can't experience growth between us without both of us being involved.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:31]:
But what I can do is I can go back to what I'm actually in control of, what belongs to me, my own spiritual being, my own sense of growth. I can keep on learning new skills, modeling now for my spouse, what it is that I hope that we can experience together. And that's the most likely pathway to get the result that I want.
Blaine Neufeld [00:18:49]:
Yeah. So mindset habits. Okay. Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:52]:
And what I think within the idea of small group and community to even think about. All right, then maybe we need experts. One aspect of this podcast, one aspect of the books that we do, change the odds, all those kinds of things, is that's the community that can help us grow. One of the things, Blaine, that irritates me to the most is in the context in which we work. We'll put on a six week class, we'll have 800 people in the room or whatever, and I'll hear back from a couple in a life stage of busyness. And I get it. They're like, well, you know, I just, I want more fun. Well, okay, great, man.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:32]:
Fun's important. We need to have places of fun. But you know what? In that moment in which you are freaking out and your family is in stress and trauma and your kids are crying and your relationship is broken apart, chances are in that moment, it's not because you lacked fun at Wednesday night. Chances are you could have learned from what it means to stay in your window of tolerance and to recognize that. And so there's this thing here in which people need to surround themselves and put themselves in a climate in which they can grow. And one element of that, not the totality, one element, is good content. And these are things, skills are things that we learn how to do. And so this is where therapy, counseling can be so powerful.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:15]:
This is where A small group can be so powerful. Group coaching is a tremendous thing that we can engage in as well.
Blaine Neufeld [00:20:22]:
You've often said like. Like prehab versus rehab. And this is what you're laying down right now is this. You're in a healthy version of yourself, your window of tolerance. Now that we've discovered what that is, we understand. Let's go after it together. When we're in our window of tolerance versus the rehab, the hurt, the distrust, like all that we were talking about before, it's like, guys, we have so much to learn, and if we're good right now, let's go learn it now. Because she can say something to me and it doesn't hurt me, and I can take it in, and the pride goes away, the fear goes away.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:53]:
There's trust, no doubt. So prehab versus rehab. Rehab is, we've had a problem, now we have to go fix it. You've strained the muscle. Now you're gonna have to do some therapy to heal it back. Prehab is all right. What are the things I would learn in rehab, but I'm gonna learn those things before I injure myself or my partner.
Blaine Neufeld [00:21:13]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:13]:
So what are the exercises I need to do to keep the shoulder so I don't actually injure it to some extent? So let's learn that in prehab. And you're ex. Right. When couples are in a good spot, that's a magical moment where they can learn so much faster, so much easier, with so much less pain, and actually begin to prevent some of the great traumas that could come their way. A good amount of the sorrows that come in the midst of marriage, the affairs, the financial adultery, the bickering, the fighting, all those things. So many of those things are the byproduct of a lack of meaningful connection and an inability to develop the skills that could have helped us navigate that to some extent. If you go through those traumas, you're going to have to learn some new things. Why not learn them before the trauma happens?
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:00]:
Yeah. So you say mindset, habits. I almost hear a little bit of counseling.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:04]:
Community.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:05]:
Community, sorry.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:06]:
More so.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:06]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:07]:
And then I think, finally an idea of just emotional safety. So let's go back to friends, partners and lovers and remind ourselves of trust plus respect equals vulnerability. Friendship built on trust, partnership built on respect, intimacy built on vulnerability. And it's trust and respect then allows us to be vulnerable. Obviously, sexual intimacy is the image of that, but it's more than that. It is the idea of, I get to try something now that I wouldn't Otherwise, try and learning skills growth demands from us vulnerability. So if you do not have trust and respect in your relationship, you're not gonna be able to show the vulnerability with each other in order to learn how to grow, in order to learn new skills. But if trust and respect are present now.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:54]:
Let's go now.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:55]:
All right. I know Adrienne can know I'm gonna try this. And even if I get it wrong, I trust Blaine and respect Blaine that he's gonna trust and respect me back. So I now can be vulnerable to begin to figure this out. Cause let's think about. Think about some of the skills. Thinking about communication, it means I learned to assertively say what it is that's actually on my heart. That takes courage.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:23:18]:
That's hard. Especially being a nine.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:19]:
Yeah, you're having to punch.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:23:20]:
I'm always, like, beating around the bush. He's like, just say it. And I'm like, fine.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:24]:
Is there an example that you can even feel, Adrienne, where five years ago, you would have been much more hesitant to say it, and now you have that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:35]:
Go ahead, Go ahead.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:23:37]:
It makes me look like a bad person.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:38]:
No, it doesn't.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:39]:
No.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:40]:
It's the truth.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:23:41]:
Okay. Well, I've always wanted him to be his healthiest self, so I was like, you know, like, we should be more active. Like, let's do this. And he's like, just say it. I'm like, you need to work out. But five years ago, by the way.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:54]:
I know she says that with her husband. With her podcast co host, though.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:57]:
She wants the best for us, Kevin.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:59]:
I don't know.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:24:00]:
It feels like a naggy wife thing.
Blaine Neufeld [00:24:02]:
Well, you're. She's all like. And you know this. She's in her head already about what? Yes or no, Blaine? Do I need to get healthier physically? Yes. Just say it. You know what I'm saying? It's like. And don't enable the kindness to let me just go off, like, hold me accountable a little bit.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:18]:
But here's what I also see within this is. Let's get into personality just for a moment. You know, it's my favorite topic ever, right? So here you have adrian, right? Agency Dyadic 9. So her tendency is to decenter herself, to not say what she actually means, to beat around the bush, to be passive aggressive and those kind of things, and then be frustrated when you can't read her mind of what's going on. That's going to be you to a negative on the negative side.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:24:44]:
All right?
Kevin Thompson [00:24:45]:
Which means you need to have more courage to say what is actually on your mind, which to you is going to feel harsh.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:24:53]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:53]:
But to Blaine and specifically Blaine. Agency outward. Right. An 8. Like you're going to struggle to be too harsh with Blaine.
Blaine Neufeld [00:25:03]:
Oh, you couldn't hurt me.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:06]:
Not like that. You can hurt him in other ways. Don't touch him. That's going to hurt him.
Blaine Neufeld [00:25:13]:
Isolate me. I'm broken.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:14]:
Yes, because of your personality. That's a place you need to lean in. Whereas you can have others. So Jenny is a one. Right. So she's now agency inward. So she lives with this constant critic which can ooze out at times, which means she has to be a little bit more aware of, hey, maybe I shouldn't say that because she'll be more prone to say it. So maybe that could come across in a hurtful way.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:41]:
Especially now me. Certainty. Right. Six can be a little bit more sensitive in what's going on. So ironically, you need to lean in and have more courage. You want to make the mistake towards saying something that you shouldn't have said and then learn to back off of that because you're. Most of the time you're going to struggle with you're not saying it. And that's where he's actually.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:26:03]:
Well, because it feels naggy to me if I'm like, saying what I am thinking.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:07]:
But I will say this is. We go back to, like, the. The small steps and the consistency. So in. In our life. Right. It's. You've created a space downstairs where she's working out constantly.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:20]:
And she's not making me.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:26:21]:
Like, I'm not crazy. I'm not, like, I'm not obsessed.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:25]:
Clearly she's not, because she was so sore this morning, she could barely walk around. So apparently it's been a while since she's worked out.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:26:30]:
I try to have a healthy balance. That's all I want for you.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:33]:
Exactly. She's even doubting this. I'm saying facts right now. Okay, so don't work out.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:26:38]:
I don't care. I'm over it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:40]:
I'm sorry I said anything, but it is a thing in our house. And now my son is jumping on the peloton because mom's inspiring us and doing the thing and it's contagious. Indy. She's in there trying to do a few things, and then I sneak in there. I don't want to be left out either, you know? So suddenly this is a whole thing in our family that is happening. It's like I'm being encouraged by the constant little bit of Dripping going on in the house.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:27:08]:
Like, you said, like, model what you want instead of. Well, I think my fear is, like, perhaps I come from a background where maybe. Or a family where it is kind of, like, important the way you appear, or like, too important. You're saying, well, perhaps I want to be careful what I say, but, like, borderline maybe, like, you know, it's a little obsessive at times. So I just. I never want to, like, push that or. Or have people think that that's how I am.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:38]:
And that's great. And your compassion there and your thoughtfulness there, all those things are great. I mean, part of that is. Right. How you attend to the world. You're very aware of yourself, but also others. You probably. I don't know.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:49]:
I don't know your background. You probably also came from a place where you had to be a little bit more careful about your words, because if you said the wrong thing, it could come across the wrong way or wrong things were being said to you. And so even as you were making that statement, you use the word perhaps three times, maybe twice.
Blaine Neufeld [00:28:04]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:05]:
So notice what's happening here.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:28:06]:
I don't like to be definitive.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:07]:
Yeah, you're scared. You're scared to actually say, here's what I think. So on this. That's a place where you can lean into it, because you lean so far the other way, you actually want to lean in the opposite direction. Blaine knows this. So in sports right now, it's a very common thing. If you're practicing a golf swing or something like that, you exaggerate the opposite move so that whenever you do your actual swing or whatever, you're never gonna exaggerate it that much. But you're exaggerating the opposite to get you into the right spot of where you're actually feeling actually supposed to be the same thing.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:45]:
Works for marriage. What is my tendency? So for me, with Jenny, let's face it, my tendency, we're gonna have a lot in common as far as this goes, is she's never gonna feel like she has the totality of who I am, the fullness of my personality. I'm gonna be reserved. I'm gonna be held back. I'm gonna be afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. I don't wanna come across as nagging or anything like that. So I need to exaggerate the opposite of that. And literally, she'll be able to handle it.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:13]:
First of all, she'd probably find it hilarious if I walked in full. My coworkers would love this. As well. Right. But you can exaggerate the opposite. And so here's what I think is so important about this is it shows how what you need to do and what a listener needs to do could be the total opposite things. And we cannot confuse the two. Just because advice is good for you does not mean it's good for them.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:35]:
So if they lean toward a 1, an 8 in a personality concept, sometimes a 5, if they lean toward, they can be overly critical. They need to learn to hush. They need to hold back their words more often and exaggerate the other way because the thoughts are still going to slip out.
Blaine Neufeld [00:29:59]:
Now you guys are talking to each other about me sitting here. What I've learned about my approach. Cause I'm like, I don't want to be too talky. I don't want to get my. I'm trying to get my opinion across or my thought across. I've learned to get my point across. I have to ask more questions so that you get there. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I can't tell her, you need to do this.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:20]:
Why are you feeling that way? What do you want to do? Like, you know? And it draws it out of her, which has been a big win for us, whether we even know that or not that we're doing that. But I'm just like, wow, I get way more done if I do it that way.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:32]:
Well, I love the growth that's there. It is growth we're learning. How do we communicate with each other to make this happen? So let's talk about anytime we talk about growth and mindset and all that, it goes back to Carol Dweck. So she wrote a great book years ago, and contrast now the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. And so this applies in every area of life. And people often forget about it in marriage, but it applies back to marriage. So let's just kind of walk through these concepts. So a fixed mindset is gonna have the belief of, we just are who we are.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:08]:
Nothing we can't change, can't change. This is my lot in life. So we'll even see it in personality. People say, I'm just a nine.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:15]:
Yeah, right.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:16]:
As if you can't be more than that. This now is the totality of who you are. You're telling me you can't learn to speak a little bit more in some way? So it's this fixed idea of who I am, who I am, versus, you know, what? We can learn, we can grow, we can adapt. We can change. We can figure out something new and something different. And so whenever you have that mindset now of I am who I am, that means challenges are gonna scare you, so you're gonna stay away from it. Whereas if you have a growth mindset, challenges now you see as an opportunity. So suddenly, you're gonna lean into things that could cause us to change, could cause us to grow.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:55]:
If you have a fixed mindset, anytime you see an obstacle, you're gonna be quick to give up. So not only will you not lean into trying new things and going after things, if something comes your way, hey, you'll just throw your hands up.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:07]:
Yeah, that was me. Yeah, I struggle with that. Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:11]:
Hear that past tense? That was me.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:12]:
That was me.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:13]:
That is exciting.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:14]:
I used to say dreams are called dreams for a reason, because they never come true.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:18]:
There. Yes.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:19]:
That's kind of like, I want to put that on a shirt.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:21]:
It's counseling.Bayside Online.com is where we're just kidding.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:28]:
Growth can happen in you too.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:30]:
No, but I had friends challenge me on that, because they were like. Like, no. And I was like, yeah, yeah, you'll see who I am.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:36]:
You'll see. Yeah, you'll have your heart broken. You'll see. Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:39]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:39]:
Oh, I totally get that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:40]:
And she uses the word like, I'm just a realist.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:43]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just the other thing that's gonna be on a shirt. I'm just a realist. And you're like, no, you're pessimistic.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:52]:
But notice. But notice here. Notice. It's not. This is not an accident. Using Mary, one of the most opposite, like, annoyingly positive man, Bob, Goth, dream big, baby.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:05]:
Let's go. I'm in.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:06]:
See? And so. So, because I think it's speaking to a truth that you know inwardly but haven't maybe experienced in reality.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:33:13]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:14]:
And you're drawn toward that. And. And then blind people are also drawn toward somebody who. Who. Now it's going to hold you back. No, I'm just kidding. Now it's going to set you on the proper course and to prevent your optimism to being foolishness.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:27]:
Yes. I will never forget when you were talking about. And I don't know the terminology, but it was some form of the attachment stuff, where it was like, we're secure. We're secure now, and we have to recognize. And this is where we get excited about the power couples and the. In the gifts that we have. Because I had a big awakening to how valuable she was to our marriage. And that was big for me, because here my personality is, I got to go fix everybody.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:54]:
I got to go help everybody. I want to help. I want to be wanted. That's one of my big questions. So I'm constantly trying to fix people. And it was like, what are you doing fixing her? She's fixing you, bud. And I get to have that awakening right Again. The pride falls away.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:09]:
And I start to say, wow, man, I'm growing. Why am I growing? Oh, because of her.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:15]:
And, yeah, there are scenarios maybe where one spouse is off the deep end and they're useless, but in most.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:23]:
I'll show you, this is not the.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:24]:
Case in most relationships. It just drives me crazy when you have one spouse who feels like I'm the healthy one, they're the unhealthy one. Okay, okay. If that's true, how'd you marry them? If you're so healthy, how did you fall in love with somebody who is so emotionally, mentally, spiritually sick? It means you're not as healthy as you think you are, and it probably means they're not as bad as you think they are, that there's actually something in them that if we could bring to life now, it doesn't mean people can't make foolish choices, all that. No question. But we generally marry somebody at the same level of differentiation. Emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically as we are. We rarely will get in a relationship with somebody who is that radically different than we are because of that anyway, so.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:17]:
But obstacles, fixed mindset, growth mindset. Think about this. If you're in a fixed mindset, then the next thing you know is, what's the point? I don't need to do any effort. So I talk about friends, partners, and lovers. Many people think that a happy marriage is the flip of a coin. Do I look into it or not? But it's not. It's the flip of a will. Am I going to do the effort or not? And so with the growth mindset, Dweck is going to talk about how they believe effort is now going to be the primary pathway toward growth.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:46]:
This is going to take work, and work is going to pay off. And so a couple who has a growth mindset is willing to go to the conference to read the book, to get involved in a small group to do all the things that are going to produce the outcome of what they want because they understand, yeah, it's going to be hard, but this is the pathway to make it happen. So somebody with a fixed mindset, they're going to look at feedback now as Criticism or an attack. And so they get really defensive. Whereas somebody with the growth mindset is going to see feedback now as this valuable output. So every single Saturday night, he it'll happen this week after I get finished preaching. We'll see everybody out the door and then we get back in the back room and we take the transcript and we'll put it into AI and some parameters that we've given it and we'll look at a report. What was interesting, what dragged, what needs to be improved.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:37]:
There'll be a room full of people and they'll say, hey, I found this interesting. Hey, I thought this was pointless. I thought this joke sucked. Right? It didn't work at all. I thought this was great. Hey, what if you said this? Well, if you sit in that room, room with a fixed mindset, oh, no, you're fighting everybody. By the time this is over, I'm fighting every single person in here. But if you have a growth mindset, then it can become.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:58]:
Even if I don't buy into it, I understand there's some who were in the crowd who felt that way. So are there changes I can make or what's going on? The feedback now becomes this very powerful thing. And then you have this idea of how do you view your spouse? So a fixed mindset is. Is he's never going to change. A growth mindset is. I can see he is changing. And now how can I encourage that? How can we keep on building that up in a meaningful way? So Carol Dweck, I think, as she's not a marriage writer by any means, but her work, I think, has an influence on marriages of just that concept. If you can begin to shift from a fixed mindset into a growth mindset, it can really transform everything.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:38]:
Yeah. That is so good. That's encouraging. Yeah. So what are like the actual steps? Someone is hearing this and they say, oh, man, that's me. What do I do? What are the actual steps? Because you're going to look at your husband or your wife and you're going to say, they can't be changed. But I'm being told that they can. I've tried this 100 times my way.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:02]:
And what do I. Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:04]:
So what do you. I mean, I think it's a very simple process. What do you want? Want? So what's the goal? Where are you now? What will get you to where you want to be? I think it's that simple. And now the complexity becomes in understanding all those things. First of all, defining what we actually want. Most people don't actually know what they want. They have a concept of what it might be. You'll hear this all the time, let's go career wise, well, what do you want? And they'll say, why? Just I want to make this amount of money.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:34]:
Okay. Why? The money isn't what you want. You want whatever it is the money brings to you. What is it, security? Yeah. Most people often come back from a career standpoint of I actually want freedom of time. Okay, that's what you want. You say money. It's not really money, it's freedom of time.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:52]:
Okay, now that you've defined what you want, where are you now? Let's get introspective to see what is my actual reality. So if it's a. The financial scenario, then so what is the number that will get you the actual freedom of time that you want? Well, where am I right now? What are my debts? Right. What are my assets? What's the facts and the truth about where I currently am now? Then how can I take the steps to get to the place? And is it possible that I can actually start experiencing some of what I want even before I get to that place that I think I'm there? That's just a financial example. You take that in any area of life. Let's say it's a spiritual concept of what do we want? We wanna feel spiritually connected with each other. Okay, where are you right now? Well, we're disconnected. Why is that? Let's look at where each of you are individually in your spiritual walk.
Kevin Thompson [00:39:44]:
Do both of you know Jesus? Are there habits that you're engaging in? Sometimes there are, sometimes there's not. And then what's the process that's gonna get you headed in the direction of where you actually want to be? So I actually think it's a very simple concept of how to grow. I think it then becomes difficult of sticking with it and figuring out what is the truth of what's happening instead of buying into these concepts of. Of these surface level answers that really aren't. Aren't the case.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:10]:
Yeah. And the comparison game that people play. Right. I want that. Well, what is that? That that's misleading you.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:17]:
What is it that you don't even know what that is?
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:19]:
That is.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:19]:
Yeah, you don't even see what that is behind closed doors. This is the funny thing about doing marriage conferences now, now all over the country for the past decade is it's not uncommon at all. I'll take a couple books up in the start of the conference, I'll say, hey, who's been married the shortest amount of time, right? And you'll have a couple that maybe they're on their honeymoon or they've been married a couple weeks. And I'll give them a book. And I'm like, hey, read that. Three years from now. You'll understand what I'm talking about, right? And then who's been married the longest in the room? Somebody's been married 50 years, 60 years, right? 65 years. And I'll hand them a book and I'll say jokingly, hey, give that to somebody you think needs it, because clearly you don't.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:53]:
You know what I've learned many times that wife or husband will come up to me sometime during a conference and the marriage isn't good. They're really not in a good place. And so what everybody else in the room is looking at of, oh, I hope we can last that long. You don't want to last that long that way. No, you want something far more.
Blaine Neufeld [00:41:14]:
Survive, thrive, change.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:16]:
The odds is not about. We lower the level of, of divorce.
Blaine Neufeld [00:41:19]:
It's not that.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:21]:
It is. We change your likelihood of being in a relationship that flourishes, that is living and growing. And so, yeah, the comparison game will get you in many times. Let's quickly think as we begin to close out this episode, let's quickly think about what different life stages need. Right? So this concept of as we're going through the lifespan, there are things and areas in which we're going to need to grow. And so I think about early on in marriage, it is this idea that we need to create the sense of us. So I have me, you have you. Let's begin to figure out what does it mean to be we, us, right? And then let's say kids come along.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:58]:
That to me is the place that you start to figure out partnership. I can talk all day long about friends, partners and lovers. You're not gonna truly, I don't think, understand the partnership part of that until you really get into jobs and life. And then if kids come along, what it means to manage kids and how do you now juggle all these plates? That's where you need somebody who has your back at all times, right? And then you get into the season where y' all are just kind of entering into of the chaos of the teenage years. And I think in that moment, what you have to learn is how do we continue to be us even as they're getting like they're becoming full people. Right. Jenny and I were on vacation with our kids, right? So 17 year old and 20 year old. And I looked at Jenny the other day.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:46]:
We were in Hawaii and one of our favorite places. And, you know, the kids. The kids were kids. And I looked at her and I said, do you remember how easy this used to be before they had opinions? Because it was, hey, I don't want to go eat there. Well, I don't want to go eat there. Well, I don't want to eat at this time. Who's paying, right? Any of y' all want to pay? I'll listen to your decision. Oh, wait.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:08]:
Mom and I, okay, I bet you we decide what time we're going to eat and where we're going to eat. But that idea of how do we now maintain this connection of the two of us when there is a good amount of life and chaos happening around us and then the emptiness phase comes. And this is the moment where couples many times get to rediscover who we are. We've lost a sense of ourselves, understandably so. It's been a great season of life, but now we kind of have some freedom that we haven't had before. What does that look like? And then you progress into that. Maybe grandkids come along. Maybe retirement begins to take place and now becomes this idea of legacy.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:48]:
We get to leave something behind. What's that going to look like? That's just a quick example over the lifespan of different places that we need to learn how to grow and to always be. Whatever season you're in, always be looking forward a little bit to what is the season that's just on the horizon. And what can I learn now that will begin to make that easier?
Blaine Neufeld [00:44:07]:
Yeah, I'm seeing it throughout our life already as he's just talking, where it's just like we've slowly. We're slowly building a foundation. And I get excited more so now about retirement in quotations, because I don't plan to ever retire because we're going to be doing some great things, in my opinion. But I'm not scared of that moment when the kids. My identity isn't in my children. It's, yes, in Jesus. But this will last until the last day. Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:44:36]:
Which is exciting for me to know that our foundation is growing because we triumphed a little of the fear. We laid down some of the pride. We understand that there's busyness, but we're okay with the small victories versus these big moments. Right. And I just think it's really, really cool to see that starting in this time.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:57]:
We've never closed this way. Let's close the Unique way. We'll start with you. That way I don't freak. Adrienne, let's close. What is a takeaway? Not the biggest takeaway. Not the most important thing. Just one thing that you walk away from this conversation going, oh, yeah, yeah, I.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:09]:
I need to. I need to remember that. I like that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:45:11]:
Yeah. I think the one I. I wrote down, which I'll say is it's growth is contagious, but it's courageous.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:18]:
I just kind of came up with.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:45:21]:
How do I follow that?
Kevin Thompson [00:45:22]:
Look at the Instagram wheel that's coming right there.
Blaine Neufeld [00:45:25]:
And it. And it is. It's because I'm. I'm so excited about our growth that I'm like, I want more of it. But I also recognize how difficult it was for us to take those first steps in all of it, to say, wow, I'm so thankful we did it. But it was tough, and it needs to be addressed that it was tough. It's not some easy, easy thing.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:46]:
Yeah, that's good.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:45:50]:
So many things.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:55]:
Hey, we'd like to welcome you to this podcast.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:45:58]:
Oh, thank you. I don't know. This kind of feels selfish because of my nineness, but, like, I kind of just realized that I've grown.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:06]:
Okay. Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:46:07]:
In my own life, in our marriage, in, like, communication and big time. You don't always see it until you look back.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:13]:
I love it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:46:14]:
And you're like, oh, we've learned so much. And that's why we're excited to, like, help other couples learn and grow. I think that's, like, our main thing. Like, let's help other couples grow.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:24]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:46:25]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:25]:
That's awesome. And it shows that you still have growth to do. Because you called that selfish.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:46:30]:
Is that not.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:31]:
It's not one bit. Not one bit. And I think that's the beauty of it. And I think that's the power of where Y' all are 14 years in, that at this stage, either the cracks are going to begin to appear, and y' all can start drifting separate ways. And if that's the case, man, you got to get to work and good things can happen, or you've dealt with some things you're on the right path, and now you're going to start seeing the compounding return on investment that were decisions you made years ago, fights y' all had years ago, counseling y' all did years ago is now paying dividends today, and you don't even have to do the work anymore. It's like money that's growing in the bank, and you don't have to do a thing about it, but it just continues to grow. That's where y' all's relationship is. That, I think, is so good.
Kevin Thompson [00:47:17]:
Good stuff. All right. Hey, what's the closing outro?
Blaine Neufeld [00:47:20]:
Do you remember marriage and family were never meant to be left to a game of chance or something like that.
Kevin Thompson [00:47:26]:
Hey, join us next time. We'll see if Blaine can get the tagline right. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you.