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Hey fam, I think we are live now. Janice is struggling with getting her audio connected.

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Welcome everyone, good to be with you. We're going to be talking today about

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the spiritual and emotional pathways, which is going to be fun.

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So we'll just hang out here for a little bit, kind of relaxed and let you guys jump in.

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And we are going to, we're going to have a good session. So whether you're live or delayed,

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some of you might be watching on Facebook world too. So just,

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yeah, we'll just check the old Facebook world here and

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should be live in here. There we are, we're live. Cool, cool. So as always, oh look at this,

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our buddy Raewyn. Cool, Raewyn. Hey Raewyn, welcome. Hey guys. How are you doing? I'm good.

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That's good. That's good, all the way from Vietnam. So cool. Yeah, it's just on five o'clock,

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so I'm a little bit waking up. Yeah, absolutely. Well done. Great work on getting up for 5am for

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the session. Stoked to have you with us. Now you can see Janice here, her audio is just kind of in

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this no man's land. I'll just shoot her a message on Facebook as well, just to let her know.

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She probably knows, but what is ahead for your day? Well, we're still in lockdown, so our days

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are pretty much, yeah, we've been eight weeks of, no, probably nearly 10 weeks of initially just

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online schooling with able to go out, and then initially it was kind of distancing and

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that sort of thing, and then they closed the restaurants, and now we're only allowed out,

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not even for walking, for a while we were allowed to walk, we're only allowed out

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to go to the supermarket. So yeah, and they're pretty tight. Yeah, we get chewed back in.

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Do you live in an apartment, or do you have some outside space?

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We're in an apartment, which is kind of crazy.

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How are you doing, Alicia?

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Well, Alicia, great to have you with us.

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I'm sure you're close. Cool, fam. Well, hey, hey. Oh, good to see you. Good to see you both.

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Hi, guys.

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Hey, great to see you, and great to see you, beautiful baby.

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Gorgeousness.

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Now, we haven't properly met your husband before, so you want to introduce?

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So, this is Zephanias.

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Zephanias, nice to meet you.

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And he's from Southland.

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Pardon?

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He's from Dunedin.

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From Dunedin?

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Yeah.

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So, he's probably wearing shorts right now.

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Yeah, thanks for that one, nah.

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Nah.

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It's actually cold in Taupo as well.

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And you guys are based now in Taupo?

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Yeah.

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Wild. Very cool. That is awesome.

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I love seeing your chats, just your comment on the chats last night,

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as you were catching up on some of the sessions. So, that's cool.

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And we're going to have lots of fun in this session.

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So, we're going to pray, and then we're just going to have like a bit of an open Q&A vibe.

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And then we're going to chat about the spiritual and emotional pathways and how they roll.

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And if there's anyone who hasn't received the link yet for the

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the book, then the link, I've put it in the Facebook side of things. Veronica, welcome.

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But it's also here in the chat as well. Well, I don't think that is actually all of it.

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Hang on, let me copy link.

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Here it is in the Facebook, sorry, in the chat here. Anyway, so if there's anyone who hasn't

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had the book, hadn't had access to the book, that link will give you the ebook,

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the audio book, the couples workbook, and the singles workbook.

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So most other people are paying for that, but you guys can get it for free.

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Sweet. So Zephanias, would you like to pray for us to open up?

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No, no, he was terrified. He's run.

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Veronica, are you there? Can you hear us?

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Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

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Yeah, I can hear you actually. You're a little bit quiet, but would...

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Oh, hang on. I was going to ask you, but Zephanias is back.

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But Veronica, it would be great if you want to pray for us to kick off,

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and then we'll get Zephanias to pray as well.

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Yeah, sorry, my computer just shut down on us.

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No, no worries. We'll get you both to pray.

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But Veronica, if you want to start, that'd be awesome.

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Okay. Was it just opening up?

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Yeah, just opening up prayer. There's nothing specific, just for fun.

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Okay. All right, Father God, we just thank you for this time

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and this space and being able to come together and to just communicate and share

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and also to learn and to access your heart and your desire for us this morning.

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And so it is blessed this time, and I'm looking forward to it, Lord.

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And yeah, just bless everyone in this space at this moment in time.

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Thank you, Papa.

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Beautiful.

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Yeah, Father, thank you so much for the privilege of

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being able to intimately know the things of your heart.

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And together as brothers and sisters from all over the place,

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we get to share with each other.

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Thank you for this platform where we get to connect with each other

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and talk about Jesus.

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What better thing to talk about?

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I just thank you, Father God, for this opportunity.

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I pray your blessing upon Benji and Lana, Lord God,

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and as they impart them to the session,

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if all those who are tuning in live or later on,

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Lord, I pray that they will receive a massive blessing

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and a massive download of your heart for them.

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In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

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Amen. Cool, guys.

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Well, hey, Veronica, nice to see your face there.

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Thank you. It might go off every now and then.

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That's all right. No worries.

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Well, so welcome.

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This session is Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy,

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session number five.

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So if you want to catch up on any of the previous ones, feel free.

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Let me share my screen with you for a second,

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just in case there's anyone who's not familiar with how this group works,

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and then you'll kind of understand how to find everything.

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So this page won't tell you anything.

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Okay, so this page here, hang on, minimize this, get rid of this.

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Okay, so when you jump into the Online School of Sonship group,

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this is where you arrive.

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Something cool is that we're currently spending thousands of dollars

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developing our own platform that's just for this.

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So you'll be able to log into our own platform in the future

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and get all this stuff.

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But for now, you jump in here,

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and then where you're going to find all the stuff that you want

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is right here in the Guide section.

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Okay, so you click this guide.

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There's a bit of an orientation there.

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There's a Foundations course there.

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Then there's the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy here.

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And then there's Open Heaven Masterclass,

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which we're going through at the moment as well.

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This is week 8 of week 12 of this.

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So this is where you find all the stuff in the Online School of Sonship

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if you want to track this stuff.

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You go up here to the Guides and ta-da!

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That's where you'll find the good stuff.

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Hope that's helpful.

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So that's where you find all your replays

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and past courses and things like that.

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For now, we are going to just open it up.

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Open mic now for anyone who wants to chat about Q&A,

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just anything, got any questions or any chats

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around the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy,

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relationships, anything like that.

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Open mic.

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Alicia it's open mic it's Q&A space right now I know you were going through

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videos last night so things might be fresh for you but anyone who's got any

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any questions can go for it yeah I didn't have really any questions but I

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just really enjoyed hearing because I've already watched kind of the first one

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and a half videos but enjoyed hearing your guys story and journey and yeah

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like pursuing purity or something that was really important to us as well and I

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grew up kind of similar to Alana so yeah it just was really cool to hear

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you guys journey and all I know is in our relationship that it's hard to keep

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an open heart sometimes because in life you just want to sort of well this is

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the most intimate person that you're ever gonna be with I reckon and so yeah

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sometimes I have to really like in my heart go no I'm gonna stay open with him

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even though it's challenging but yeah I haven't got far enough into the book or

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into the videos to really get into like the actual seven things yet but looking

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forward to doing that. I've got a question. You mentioned last night that I watched it last

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night but you mentioned that it wasn't until you got to a point of pain that

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you finally decided to take extreme ownership and so that really resonated

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with me especially like taking responsibility for your stuff but could

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you share a little bit more of like what was that area of pain that you got to

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that you realized it probably has something to do with what I'm doing as

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well because you mean at the beginning you said all the stuff happening in a

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marriage was all my fault and then later on you mentioned I got to a point where

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I realized perhaps there's something in here that it's actually part of my doing

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that's actually affecting my wife and so could you share a little bit of what

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that was for you?

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One of the things we put the question we put on the front cover of our

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book is how did a narcissistic husband and a depressed wife create a beautiful

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marriage? Exactly because I feel like that sometimes because I feel like you

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speak my language I'm I'm so full-on all the time I forget that I'm actually

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married to a soft gentle hearted holy spirit filled hot lady and so how do I

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cherish that? Yeah that's really cool so but did you want to chuck anything on there or should I jump in?

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No you go for it now, I've had my two cents on this one.

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So some people have some like just like on a couple of Facebook posts people

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been like oh this guy's not a narcissist and they've kind of made this have this

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mindset that narcissistic behavior or narcissistic tendencies requires you to

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you know just to be and like the full extreme but it's a it's a it's a

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spectrum right it's a scale like you could be on on the low end of the scale

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or you could be on the high end of the scale now obviously if you're an extreme

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narcissist then the level of chaos that you're going to create in your world

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will be through the roof but you actually don't need that much narcissism

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to wreak a marriage you know and that's where I was we might I might have been

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on the lower you know low to medium level of narcissism and same with a

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lot of depression maybe the lower to medium side of a scale but you don't

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have to be that depressed and you don't have to be that narcissistic to

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completely wreck your marriage and like if you've got both of those things

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happening and you're bouncing off one another and it really doesn't take all

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that much to really wreak the marriage and so you know if you've watched our

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stuff so far you kind of will have seen that I thought that the reason that we

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had problems in our marriage is because Alana's bad attitude towards sex now

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Alana did just make up some really bad lies about why tonight wasn't a good

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night which was so obvious and I was like you know like maybe you know like

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maybe if it was a genuine reason but when you blatantly lie to someone who's

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desperate I sort of obviously had the issues and that it was obvious that I

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was depressed that I was struggling I admitted that I was struggling she had

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ownership of that I knew I knew

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that I had a problem and he knew that I had a problem.

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So she's the problem.

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Yeah. And so therefore I became the problem

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because it was obvious and it was easy to blame me in a way for everything,

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because obviously I was the one that was struggling.

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And I was a revivalist.

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So, boom, I'm sorted.

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So, so, so this to me,

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this was the real issue in our marriage was me.

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Yeah. Our sex life was the problem in my head.

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That's what the problem was.

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And the problem with our sex life was Alana.

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So in my mind, the equate the math was easy.

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It's like, obviously, she's the reason for everything.

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You're like, obviously, she is the source of all of our chaos.

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And so when I was praying for our marriage,

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or thinking, you know, like, God, how are we going to have a marriage?

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It was never like, oh, I wonder what I'm doing wrong in the marriage.

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It's creating chaos.

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It was always focused on Alana's problems.

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It was always focused on sorting out. Yeah, exactly.

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And so Alana had at least ownership and admitted.

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We honestly, we talked to everybody we knew who we thought could help me.

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We traveled the world and we met people

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who we thought could like help me have breakthrough.

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And so we were doing everything we could on my behalf.

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Yeah. To fix the problems.

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But for me, for me,

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it wasn't. I probably wouldn't have come across to people as a narcissist,

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you know, because I was working really like I just, you know,

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we did so much in ministry and we were trying to help so many people

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and we're doing so many things in missions.

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But that didn't actually mean that I wasn't, you know, like,

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it was just that I was secretly judging her.

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You know, I had a good attitude about most things, but in my heart,

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I was like, you're the problem.

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And so what that meant is it was really easy for me not to take ownership.

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And this is the thing with someone who's got a narcissistic mindset,

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is that you're blind to all your issues.

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You're pretty much perfect.

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And everyone else has the problem.

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And it was in our private moments that that came out rather than publicly.

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Yeah. So obviously, everyone's trying to be do the best they can with life.

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But this was just actually our reality is that in my heart,

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I made I was like, you're the problem.

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And so I was blind to see any of how any of my behavior

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was actually creating the chaos in our marriage.

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But what what what I hadn't realized is that it was all the chaos

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that I was creating was actually creating the context

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for Alana to have a bad attitude about sex.

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Right. Like her bad attitude towards sex didn't just come out of nowhere.

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And this is what I had.

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And this is what I couldn't see, right, is I couldn't see that it was all the chaos

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that I was creating and taking no ownership for.

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That was creating the context for Alana to have a bad attitude towards sex

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because he is a guy who's creating all this chaos and creating all these issues

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in our relationship and taking no ownership for it and blaming her for everything.

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And so she's not really.

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I actually don't really want to have sex with you right now, Benji.

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I'm not stoked on our marriage.

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And it had been years to get to the point of there to be enough pain

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for Benji to be like, I can't handle this anymore.

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What has got to change and for him to realize that it was him.

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I think one thing to add in there, too, is just the motivational star.

250
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I don't know if you have ever come across that, but it's at six points.

251
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Yeah. Dave Riddell's got six points to his motivational star.

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And then if you look at my stuff, I've got eight pillars of motivation as well.

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But in both of them, one of the big motivational pillars is pain.

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And it's where the pain of change is less than the pain of continuing.

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Is that's the motivation to change.

256
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So the pain became so great to continue

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that it came to the point that he had to face the pain of change.

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And that pain of change was him realizing that maybe he had something to do with it.

259
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Yeah, and it was

260
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one of the I think one of the big things as well, it's just blindness.

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It was it was probably I think for me, it was more the blindness of it.

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You know, that's one of the things about the narcissistic dynamic

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is it just makes you blind to your issues.

264
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So but when I finally but like the pain drove me to ask the question

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that I'd never thought to ask, right, because I just made the assumption

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that it was all Alana's fault.

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But pain got me asking all these questions like we tried all of these things.

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We tried this and it didn't work. We tried this and didn't work.

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We did this and that didn't help. Nothing's helping.

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And so the pain is driving me to ask all these questions like, what is wrong?

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Like, where's it going?

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And then it was finally like the pain that drove me to ask the I finally asked

273
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the right question, which which I'd never really asked seriously before.

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I wonder what I'm how I'm causing problems in the marriage.

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And I think.

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I feel like a big part for us, I don't know, because we've always been in ministry, so

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I don't know how it is for other people, but I feel like, who do you go to when you're

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in leadership?

279
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I feel like if we were just pure warmers at church, we would know who we could go to,

280
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we would know who's the relationship pastor or who we could turn to, and it would be okay

281
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to do that.

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But because we're in ministry, Benji was leading a hugely successful ministry, you're kind

283
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of, I feel like, I felt like often people put us on a bit of a pedestal, and so therefore

284
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we didn't have many people that we could safely go to and be like, hey, we're struggling.

285
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Or yeah, like for me, I didn't know who we could necessarily go to, to have that conversation.

286
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So I feel like that was quite a powerful part of that equation as well, yeah, and I think

287
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that sucks.

288
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Yeah, totally.

289
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Like when you go it alone, it's always going to be slower.

290
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Yeah, totally.

291
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You know, like, it's always going to be faster, you know, like, if you've got good people

292
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around you, sometimes if you've got dumb, you know, if you've got, you know, dysfunctional

293
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people around you, they're going to give you really bad advice.

294
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So like, we had lots of people coming to us for help, but we didn't necessarily know who

295
00:21:20.800 --> 00:21:22.160
we could go to for help.

296
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And I think like part of this whole thing that we're doing is we want to remove a bit

297
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of the taboo from it, because realistically, most people we know are married in a relationship

298
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or wanting to be in a relationship, and so we need to be able to remove that taboo to

299
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be able to actually talk openly and freely about it and be honest with where we're at.

300
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Yeah, so Zef and I, that was really kind of how it came about, you know, and then when

301
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I finally asked that question, I started getting, I started coming to realise it's like, oh,

302
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whoa, I'm causing an issue.

303
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And then the light started to go on.

304
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I was like, oh, flip, maybe like maybe the fact that I'm punishing Alana with unsafe

305
00:22:02.800 --> 00:22:08.720
emotions and a bad attitude and unsafe atmospheres, maybe that's really not helping our sex

306
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life. Maybe the fact that I'm being a real sulky, victim minded loser in the bedroom

307
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and creating a crapmosphere in our bedroom, maybe this is not good for our sex life, you

308
00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:28.760
know, like, I don't know about you guys, but being sulky is apparently not very sexy.

309
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:36.880
I don't think it ever worked, you know, like, because my sulking really was just about

310
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trying to manipulate Alana into sex.

311
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And even if it did work, it didn't work in the long run because it didn't achieve the

312
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intimacy and the closeness that I wanted out of it.

313
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Just get bad, bad sex, you know, like maybe a couple of times that it did work, we still

314
00:22:51.800 --> 00:22:57.400
regret it to this day because it's like, that's not good sex, that's bad sex, manipulation

315
00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:03.160
and control going on is not leading to anything that we really, really want.

316
00:23:03.280 --> 00:23:05.360
I'm just going to hit this report button.

317
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And when he realized that he might be part of the problem, he actually over a little

318
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bit of time, it wasn't even that long, came to the conclusion of, I'm not going to

319
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manipulate you anymore, I'm not going to manipulate you anymore.

320
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And so that actually changed the whole atmosphere of our bedroom and therefore, that has

321
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:32.480
changed the whole atmosphere of our marriage.

322
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:37.440
Yeah, it was the thing that took us years and years and years was for me to actually

323
00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:39.600
come to the realization that I was the issue.

324
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And once I came to the realization that I was the issue, I was so hungry to fix things.

325
00:23:44.800 --> 00:23:49.680
Right. I was so hungry and so passionate to fix things, but I just didn't know what to

326
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:55.280
fix. You know, it was it's painfully slow to try and fix a depressed wife.

327
00:23:55.280 --> 00:23:58.000
As a husband, you really can't do much about that.

328
00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:02.000
Like, you have some more vitamins, you know, and you can't do much about that.

329
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:08.880
You have some more vitamins, you know, but when I saw that there was behavioral issues

330
00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:12.640
in myself that could be fixed, I was like, well, that's actually something that I can

331
00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:15.360
control. That's something I can I can take on.

332
00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:19.600
I can do something that I actually have influence when it's my stuff.

333
00:24:19.600 --> 00:24:23.440
That's the issue. And so once I started to realize, oh, well, I'm creating an issue

334
00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:28.080
here, then I was able to actually start like, really, I'm like, oh, cool, find me something

335
00:24:28.080 --> 00:24:30.720
that I can actually do that will produce a change right away.

336
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:34.720
Actually, on that, I think Benji wanted to fix everything and I wanted to be heard.

337
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And him coming to that realization of actually he's got something he needs to work on.

338
00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:44.800
He came to the point where he understood me because I wasn't saying anything different

339
00:24:44.800 --> 00:24:47.280
today, as I was saying four years ago.

340
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But he finally heard me.

341
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And so in a way, it fixed the situation.

342
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But I was finally heard.

343
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And the whole time going through, I wasn't being heard.

344
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And he was just trying to fix it rather than.

345
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.400
hearing me if that makes sense and so there was that tension at play as well.

346
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:11.360
Do you feel like that answers your question? Yeah it does that makes a lot of sense thank you

347
00:25:11.360 --> 00:25:18.080
especially when you mentioned um about being heard I think for um for a lot of for me and

348
00:25:18.080 --> 00:25:24.320
Alicia I think a lot of the breakdown is we're seeing the same thing from different angles

349
00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.520
but we're not we're just not allowing each other to be heard by each other

350
00:25:28.480 --> 00:25:35.440
um but yeah um I love your vulnerability to uh to even share what actually happens

351
00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:42.640
behind closed doors and um yeah thank you Benji yeah absolutely oh no worries no worries um

352
00:25:43.600 --> 00:25:50.000
do you want to do a Dr. Phil moment? Yeah sure how does that work? Um well he usually puts you

353
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:53.600
on a stage in front of people and you confess your deepest darkest secrets and then there's

354
00:25:53.600 --> 00:25:58.560
usually some type of test or something. Sure here's Alicia now we can do it together.

355
00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:05.280
If you want if you want we can we can chat about where you might be stuck if you want to do a

356
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:09.840
Dr. Phil moment we can do that um if you prefer not to that's no worries.

357
00:26:09.840 --> 00:26:10.320
Let's do it.

358
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:15.680
Yeah all right and you'll probably find that when we chat about it you'll probably find that

359
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:21.840
there's a bunch of stuff that's the same you know like that we've gone through as well um

360
00:26:24.560 --> 00:26:28.320
I'll just check this Facebook group and see who's live there as well.

361
00:26:33.600 --> 00:26:45.360
Yeah just check questions um but for you guys um would just be um you know where are you where

362
00:26:45.920 --> 00:26:54.880
are you stuck what's the conversation that you're looping on um yeah I understand that's a real

363
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:59.280
real dynamic space to be in to answer something like that in a live chat

364
00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:03.440
and if you feel put on the spot Alicia then no worries at all but if you want to chat

365
00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:08.880
the type of thing that I would um accidentally put Alana on the spot

366
00:27:09.520 --> 00:27:10.960
Okay how do you feel about this?

367
00:27:14.080 --> 00:27:15.680
I'm probably more likely to do that to Zee.

368
00:27:16.960 --> 00:27:17.440
We love it.

369
00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:20.800
Can I just ask something?

370
00:27:20.800 --> 00:27:23.280
Zeef and Alicia are you happy for me to be on?

371
00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:29.520
This is our dearly heart friend Veronica.

372
00:27:30.800 --> 00:27:32.160
Sorry Veronica what were you saying?

373
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:37.680
I was just asking Alicia and Zeef if they're happy for me to

374
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:41.200
be on while they kōrero because we're quite close.

375
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:44.080
Oh you guys are mates.

376
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:50.000
So yeah I mean I'm happy to disappear.

377
00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:53.040
Oh yeah yeah no I understand so I'd probably

378
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:58.720
like if my mum jumped on here I'd be like oh mum like delete.

379
00:27:58.720 --> 00:27:59.520
We don't want to hear this.

380
00:28:01.360 --> 00:28:09.200
Yeah so just yeah and a huge part of everything that we talk about and what everything revolves

381
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:14.720
around in the whole relationship journey is about creating safe atmospheres so for us

382
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:19.120
if you felt unsafe right now then that's a total fail and we wouldn't be interested in doing that

383
00:28:19.120 --> 00:28:23.760
but if you feel safe and if you're happy and relaxed then we're more than happy to jump in and

384
00:28:23.760 --> 00:28:26.400
kind of do some practical and kind of unpack some stuff.

385
00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:27.920
Yeah we feel safe.

386
00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:33.600
Yeah cool cool if you feel safe then chuck out you know like where you feel like you're

387
00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:37.920
stuck in the combo and we'll see how we can help.

388
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:46.240
Nev welcome as well, Angel welcome, good to have all you beautiful people.

389
00:28:47.440 --> 00:28:48.000
Take it away.

390
00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:54.160
So what was the question?

391
00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:58.880
Um what's the conversation that you're looping on where you feel like you're stuck?

392
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:06.160
Oh I think it's probably to do with ministry like because we worship pastors at our church

393
00:29:06.800 --> 00:29:10.240
and I think like one of the things that we probably get stuck on is like

394
00:29:11.120 --> 00:29:16.400
the way Zeph sees things and the way I see things are quite different so like I have a

395
00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:21.280
thing towards positivity and so even when it's really bad I'm like it's gonna get better

396
00:29:21.520 --> 00:29:29.840
but Zephanias is the like it's not good enough and we need to change it and and and if it's not

397
00:29:29.840 --> 00:29:34.960
good enough then I'm not good enough and then so we sort of spiral around this thing and then

398
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:39.360
he wants to be able to share with me openly when this exactly happened on Wednesday night

399
00:29:39.360 --> 00:29:43.200
he wants to share with me openly all these dark thoughts he's having but

400
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:49.600
like I just can't handle it I'm like it's too much because my positivity it's like it's sort

401
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:54.800
of like slowly like ebbs away at this like belief deep inside of me that God's going to come through

402
00:29:55.760 --> 00:29:59.840
but he just wants to be able to be open like he just needs to be heard.

403
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:05.200
yeah, be heard. And so on Wednesday night, he like told me all this stuff and I like,

404
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.840
I've got to go to bed now and I'm doing the dishes and I'm getting like really annoyed.

405
00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:13.280
I'm like arguing in my head. I'm like, why do you always do this to us?

406
00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:19.040
And by the time we got to bed, you know, I'm like, what is it that you want when you tell me

407
00:30:19.040 --> 00:30:25.040
these things? Like, what do you want me to help? How can I help you? Like, how can I respond to you?

408
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:31.280
Um, and then the next day, you know, he wasn't in that place anymore. So I don't know that,

409
00:30:31.280 --> 00:30:35.920
I don't know, maybe you can share what that's like for you, but that's my, and this, this

410
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:39.760
happens. It doesn't happen a lot, but we do regularly go back to that place.

411
00:30:40.800 --> 00:30:44.080
Yeah. It's the whole area. I think it's the whole area of us leading together

412
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:49.440
and bounce off each other as well. And so that night, all I wanted was, I think I just needed

413
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:53.280
to be heard. And then the next morning, all this stuff spoke to me and then I got clarity straight

414
00:30:53.280 --> 00:31:00.240
away. Um, but I think it was just, it was just a moment of, of, of just like, um, uh, vulnerability,

415
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:08.320
uh, a moment of weakness, um, uh, as a, as a worship pastor, as a leader. And then as a

416
00:31:08.320 --> 00:31:12.640
husband, I felt like I couldn't share with my wife what's actually happening in my heart

417
00:31:13.280 --> 00:31:20.640
because I feel like I shouldn't be weak because it will come because it would, um, uh, be

418
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:27.040
detrimental to the atmosphere of my home. But at that moment, all I needed was my wife to just

419
00:31:27.040 --> 00:31:34.080
the love on me by just listening to my heart. And then, um, I didn't want any advice. I just

420
00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:42.160
wanted to be heard. And then, uh, we, you know, we, we talked, went to bed. Uh, um, um, we chatted a

421
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:46.960
little bit and then the next morning God spoke to my heart and I got clarity straight away. Um,

422
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:52.240
yeah, I think all, all it was is I just needed to get all this stuff out of me. Um, at the time.

423
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:59.600
Yeah. And that's really the main struggle is like, uh, it's all to do with, um, us leading together

424
00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:09.520
and doing ministry together and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Well, what would be the scariest

425
00:32:09.520 --> 00:32:15.520
part of that conversation for each of you? What's the, or maybe put it like this. What,

426
00:32:15.520 --> 00:32:22.880
what feels the most feels like the most unsafe part of that conversation for you both?

427
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:28.320
Oh, that's easy to answer. So for me, it's like, when he's like, I want to quit, I want to stop.

428
00:32:28.320 --> 00:32:33.760
I'm not, I don't want to do this anymore. And I'm just like, but we've like arranged our whole

429
00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:38.960
lives so that we would be doing this, that we've gone all in, you know, we've gone all in for what

430
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:44.400
we feel like God's called us to do. So for him to say, I want to stop doing it. I'm just like,

431
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:49.600
we've not taken jobs. We've not moved places. We've not done all these things so that we could

432
00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:54.480
follow this calling. And now you want to give up that to me. I don't know what to do.

433
00:32:55.840 --> 00:33:00.240
Okay. That is really good information. And what we want right now, and this is something

434
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:07.200
really important to go for guys is, um, you're going to, you're going to see in a moment how

435
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:11.040
this is going to start weaving in like how the seven sacred pathways start weaving into this,

436
00:33:11.600 --> 00:33:16.560
into this conversation. So just hold, hold fast. You're going to start seeing in a moment,

437
00:33:16.560 --> 00:33:23.600
like the different ways that this seven sacred pathways are playing out in this moment, but that,

438
00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:30.400
that right. So first point, say everyone needs to say good information, good information,

439
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:35.520
good information. So good information when it comes to the seven sacred pathways belongs to

440
00:33:35.520 --> 00:33:41.680
the intellectual pathway. Okay. So the intellectual pathway is always about getting

441
00:33:41.680 --> 00:33:47.280
really good information. So if you want to master the intellectual pathway, it's about

442
00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:53.360
mastering good information. Okay. So that's the first thing to really note here is good information

443
00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:59.280
makes everyone in the conversation and it empowers everyone in the conversation.

444
00:33:59.280 --> 00:34:03.280
Okay. So, so that's the, that's the first piece that we picked up here from Alicia is she's just

445
00:34:03.280 --> 00:34:08.480
given us some good information and the good information that that's really powerful is what

446
00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:18.000
makes her feel unsafe. So now Zephanias, what makes, what's the, what's the thing that makes

447
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:28.639
you feel most unsafe about that conversation? Um, I think that I probably felt like, um,

448
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:32.239
this should be the one person that knows my heart more than anyone else in this world.

449
00:34:32.960 --> 00:34:38.239
And in that moment, I felt like, because I'm, uh, I'm the head of the home, I'm the man,

450
00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:44.159
I'm the husband, I shouldn't be, um, sharing the, the weakest parts of me that will make her feel

451
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:50.400
weak as well. And that will, and that will add to, um, well this, um, yeah, that would just be,

452
00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:55.280
just be detrimental to the atmosphere of my marriage. And so I just felt like I couldn't

453
00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.600
be vulnerable with my wife, like be, be really me who I was.

454
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:05.040
that moment. Not exactly it was not exactly all of their finance, but who I was at that moment.

455
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:11.360
I was just in pain. Yeah. Yeah. I was just struggling a little bit. And

456
00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:14.960
the reality is, it's not that I didn't want to quit. It's just that I was just hurting in that

457
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:19.920
moment. And I just wanted to, I just wanted my wife to see this piece of my heart that's

458
00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:25.920
struggling at the moment. Yeah. Okay. I think we had a similar dynamic in reverse,

459
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:32.000
is that I often just needed to say my piece and I'm a verbal processor. And so actually me

460
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:38.640
speaking, it's not what I, I'm not agreeing with what I'm saying. Exactly. I just need to say it

461
00:35:38.640 --> 00:35:43.600
to like process it through. And once I've seen it, it's fine. It's processed, but then he would

462
00:35:43.600 --> 00:35:47.680
take that and he's like, okay, we need to fix it. This is, this is your like final decision

463
00:35:47.680 --> 00:35:52.720
almost because he already processes before he speaks. And so, because of that, he takes what

464
00:35:52.720 --> 00:35:58.000
I'm saying is what I'm actually feeling, what's actually going to happen, when actually I just

465
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:02.960
need to say it. You don't need to say anything. I just need to say it and you hear me and then

466
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:10.560
it's done and I can move on. Here's an interesting piece about me, right? Because

467
00:36:12.720 --> 00:36:19.040
remember good information belongs to the intellectual pathway. So good information

468
00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:29.360
about me is that I plan 10 to 30 years ahead of my life. So the moment she's saying terrifying

469
00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:36.160
stuff to me, I don't want to be in town now. I hate it. I'm trying to process that in my 30 year

470
00:36:36.160 --> 00:36:42.240
plan and she's saying it like she's just processing what she's just processing, but I'm not hearing

471
00:36:42.240 --> 00:36:48.080
that. I'm, I'm, I'm seeing how this impacts the next 30 years and I'm trying to rationalize it

472
00:36:48.080 --> 00:36:53.280
into, into the next 30 years, you know, like of our plan and our destiny and of course probably

473
00:36:53.280 --> 00:37:00.400
a little bit similar to what Alicia's doing. So she's verbally processing and I'm like vision

474
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:06.560
planning of what is not actual information. It's just her going blah, blah, blah, blah. I gotta

475
00:37:06.560 --> 00:37:11.200
like get this out and try and figure out. But I wasn't seeing that she was just going blah, blah,

476
00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:13.840
blah, blah, blah, and just working it through. I'm like,

477
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:26.960
so, so Zephaniah if we come back to how you're feeling, would it, would it be accurate

478
00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:33.360
if we're going to sum it up that the most unsafe part of that conversation for you

479
00:37:35.040 --> 00:37:39.920
is the fear of being rejected for sharing what's really going on in your heart?

480
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:50.560
Exactly. Yeah, spot on. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

481
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:57.920
Yeah. And so, so then for a husband, I mean, not just for a husband, for anyone, but

482
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:03.520
I can really relate to you there is that in this moment you feel like the most,

483
00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:07.520
that the one person in the whole world that should be able to hear you

484
00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:18.080
doesn't want to hear you. And so the sense of rejection that's on that is massive.

485
00:38:19.600 --> 00:38:26.400
And it's multiplied by the fact that you already don't want to be that vulnerable because you don't

486
00:38:26.880 --> 00:38:30.400
want to be that vulnerable because you don't want to expose that weakness.

487
00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:37.520
But because you also have a vulnerable for not hiding and for actually being vulnerable,

488
00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:42.400
letting her see into your heart, you take this extra level of risk and show her this

489
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:46.240
darkness inside that you didn't even want to show her, but for the value of your relationship,

490
00:38:46.240 --> 00:38:53.840
you show her. And so it's like, it's like this extremely unsafe thing that you do out of value

491
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:58.400
for your relationship, but then you feel like it gets thrown back in your face

492
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:03.280
and it just kind of explodes into a whole lot of pain.

493
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:15.040
Absolutely. Yeah. And like I said at the time, like, it took me a whole hour or two hours to

494
00:39:15.040 --> 00:39:20.000
just even say something to her because we were sitting on the couch for ages, staring at the TV

495
00:39:20.800 --> 00:39:26.320
and I was just, I think we were watching social media,

496
00:39:27.920 --> 00:39:33.200
we're watching seven and clear and like, I'm really loving all that stuff that I'm taking

497
00:39:33.200 --> 00:39:36.960
a little in, but at this moment I couldn't take any more in because I was just in pain

498
00:39:37.680 --> 00:39:44.880
and I just needed to say something. And, you know, like we often say, go to God first before

499
00:39:44.880 --> 00:39:49.760
you go to your wife and which I did at the time, but I just needed to be heard physically. I just

500
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:57.840
needed to hear a physical voice speak to me at the time. Now this sucks for me because like you

501
00:39:57.840 --> 00:40:00.000
mentioned Benji, like I'm a husband and I have to

502
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:09.600
I feel like I lead the atmosphere of my home, so I, well we do it together, but I was so afraid

503
00:40:09.600 --> 00:40:15.920
that if I was to share something so dark in my heart that it would make the atmosphere of my

504
00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:26.000
home so depressive, which is why I ran to my wife who should know every dark corner of my heart

505
00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:31.600
and hold it close to you, but I will say though that because that happened it's made our

506
00:40:31.600 --> 00:40:38.160
relationship so much stronger more than ever before. Okay cool, so let me just now weave in

507
00:40:38.160 --> 00:40:42.480
right how, and this is right on point with where we were going to go with our conversation today

508
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:54.880
anyway, is that the emotional pathway, it's, and if you read the book you'll see this,

509
00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:04.080
but the emotional pathway, it's really connected to chemicals, it's connected to brain function,

510
00:41:05.680 --> 00:41:12.080
it's so connected to chemicals, it's so connected to brain function, but probably the picture

511
00:41:13.440 --> 00:41:20.560
that stands out to me the most in the whole area of the emotional pathway is I once saw a picture

512
00:41:20.560 --> 00:41:26.160
of a little baby snail with a mummy snail, and it was like this, they were both really, really

513
00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:30.960
happy, the mummy snail had a little antennae way out and the baby snail there too with its antennae

514
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:36.240
way out, and they're just kind of so happy, it was like they were just these very, very happy snails,

515
00:41:36.800 --> 00:41:45.040
but the reason that the picture stood out to me is that it was a picture of a safe atmosphere

516
00:41:45.600 --> 00:41:52.000
because they're, you know, the moment a snail starts getting a little bit scared,

517
00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:57.600
it retracts its antennae, and then if it gets really scared, it goes right inside its shell,

518
00:41:58.640 --> 00:42:02.320
you know, and we use that saying all the time, oh you know like they're really starting to come

519
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:13.520
out of their shell, or you know, and with the emotional pathway, everything revolves around

520
00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:22.560
how safe we feel, and if we start feeling unsafe, then the first thing that starts getting retracted

521
00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:30.240
is like our antennae, and then we start going, withdrawing all the way back into our shell,

522
00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:36.960
but what happens when we start feeling so unsafe that we have to withdraw right back into our shell

523
00:42:37.600 --> 00:42:47.760
is we start getting into the space of an amygdala hijack, so the brain, right, the frontal cortex

524
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:53.520
part of your brain is where you do all your clever stuff, or your smart thinking, or your

525
00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:58.560
problem solving, or everything that clever that you do comes out of the frontal cortex part of

526
00:42:58.560 --> 00:43:07.200
your brain, but then your fight-flight part of your brain is the amygdala, and the moment you start

527
00:43:07.200 --> 00:43:14.720
feeling unsafe, your brain starts an arm wrestle, right, and it's an arm wrestle between your frontal

528
00:43:14.720 --> 00:43:20.720
cortex and your amygdala, and if your amygdala comes to the conclusion that this is an unsafe

529
00:43:20.720 --> 00:43:26.960
atmosphere, it actually basically takes control, but when your amygdala takes control,

530
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:36.880
you can't do anything clever anymore, right, you no longer have access to the intelligent part of

531
00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:43.760
your brain, so you're trying to communicate without intelligence, and that's when we start causing

532
00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:50.000
lots of problems in our communication, so Dave Riddell, his language around that is that,

533
00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:53.200
he's like, at that point, all adults leave the room,

534
00:43:55.440 --> 00:44:00.880
but do you want to share, babe, on how that would work for us in our chats? Yeah, so we would keep

535
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:07.040
having the same conversation, which would put me into an amygdala hijack, which we can tell,

536
00:44:07.040 --> 00:44:14.640
and looking back now, in hindsight, yeah, not at the time, and so it was just a point, Benji would have

537
00:44:14.640 --> 00:44:20.640
these questions that he was trying to get me to answer, and every time my question was,

538
00:44:20.640 --> 00:44:26.400
I don't know, I don't know, like, I don't know what you want from me right now, I don't know what the

539
00:44:26.400 --> 00:44:32.080
answer is, and so the whole conversation sort of boiled up to the end of me just, I don't know,

540
00:44:32.720 --> 00:44:40.320
like, paralyzed, I don't know, and we've only just recently realized that that was me in that

541
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:48.000
complete shut down amygdala hijack zone. I couldn't think, I couldn't reason as to what

542
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:53.760
was going on inside me, it was just a, I don't know, let's end this conversation,

543
00:44:53.760 --> 00:44:59.760
I can't handle anymore kind of thing, which was the most frustrating thing in the world.

544
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.680
It used to drive Benji crazy.

545
00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:08.760
Because there I was, like, feeling totally rejected,

546
00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:13.360
totally desperate, totally on the edge of myself,

547
00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:15.080
feeling like, you know, I'm having this bump.

548
00:45:15.080 --> 00:45:15.920
It's really similar to you.

549
00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:18.000
I feel like I've just been completely vulnerable

550
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:20.360
in the conversation about how my heart's breaking

551
00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:21.480
and how I'm feeling.

552
00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:24.040
And then I'm like, babe, can you just respond?

553
00:45:24.040 --> 00:45:25.680
Like, say something, just like,

554
00:45:26.680 --> 00:45:29.440
you know, like, say anything!

555
00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:30.280
And she's like,

556
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:35.520
oh, that was the worst.

557
00:45:35.520 --> 00:45:38.880
I mean, so that to me put my frustration levels

558
00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:39.720
through the roof,

559
00:45:39.720 --> 00:45:42.360
because I didn't recognize what was happening for her,

560
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:45.160
that her brain actually doesn't have access

561
00:45:45.160 --> 00:45:46.280
to good information right now,

562
00:45:46.280 --> 00:45:48.160
because I've created an unsafe atmosphere

563
00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:50.760
where she's paralyzed, right?

564
00:45:50.760 --> 00:45:52.960
And now that I've created an unsafe atmosphere

565
00:45:52.960 --> 00:45:54.280
where she's paralyzed,

566
00:45:54.280 --> 00:45:57.520
I am hating her for it, right?

567
00:45:57.520 --> 00:45:59.840
I'm like, ah, what's wrong with you?

568
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:01.280
You're like, you can't, you,

569
00:46:01.280 --> 00:46:03.480
there's not like, hello!

570
00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:08.480
But, so that was terrible for us.

571
00:46:09.040 --> 00:46:14.040
So bringing it back in for you guys is,

572
00:46:14.280 --> 00:46:19.200
and that's why I asked what's the most,

573
00:46:19.200 --> 00:46:22.000
you know, what feels the most unsafe part

574
00:46:22.320 --> 00:46:23.160
of the conversation?

575
00:46:23.160 --> 00:46:26.000
Because that's something that you have to really recognize,

576
00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:29.160
because the moment that you start feeling unsafe,

577
00:46:29.160 --> 00:46:34.160
your ability to communicate effectively gets lost.

578
00:46:34.360 --> 00:46:37.920
And so you communicate in these really primitive,

579
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:42.360
ineffective ways that end up hurting each other real bad.

580
00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:46.320
So, Alicia, if we bring it back to you,

581
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:47.320
when you're starting,

582
00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:50.200
when you hear him starting to process

583
00:46:50.200 --> 00:46:52.440
these dark thoughts,

584
00:46:52.440 --> 00:46:56.200
and you're doing your 30-year plan based on that,

585
00:46:56.200 --> 00:46:59.920
and you're feeling so unsafe by that,

586
00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:03.200
then like the same thing happens for you,

587
00:47:03.200 --> 00:47:07.720
as well as that your brain starts to switch over

588
00:47:07.720 --> 00:47:10.480
from frontal cortex to the amygdala,

589
00:47:10.480 --> 00:47:14.400
and we start to get in this really unsafe place.

590
00:47:14.400 --> 00:47:15.760
But then if you've got two people

591
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:17.960
having an amygdala hijack, like we were,

592
00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:23.920
the conversation is not very productive.

593
00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:26.120
Yeah.

594
00:47:26.120 --> 00:47:29.920
I think I'm sort of aware that he's just processing,

595
00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:32.800
because, you know, this has happened a fair few times.

596
00:47:32.800 --> 00:47:34.880
So I'm like aware,

597
00:47:34.880 --> 00:47:36.960
but I can sort of like go for only so long,

598
00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:38.760
and then I'm like, it's too much.

599
00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:42.560
And then I feel like I'll betray him

600
00:47:42.560 --> 00:47:43.920
if I want to get out of the conversation,

601
00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:45.920
because then I'll feel like I'm not doing enough.

602
00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:47.760
I'll betray him if I want to get out of the conversation,

603
00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:49.280
because then it makes it unsafe for him.

604
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:53.280
I'm like, I can listen to you process this for a while,

605
00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:55.720
but now it's getting beyond that point of like,

606
00:47:55.720 --> 00:47:57.000
I can't listen to this anymore,

607
00:47:57.000 --> 00:47:58.960
because I'm starting to think

608
00:47:58.960 --> 00:48:00.560
that you really believe what you're saying,

609
00:48:00.560 --> 00:48:02.360
and that tomorrow you're still going to believe it,

610
00:48:02.360 --> 00:48:04.320
even though often in the morning,

611
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:05.520
it's not like that again.

612
00:48:05.520 --> 00:48:07.240
And then he'll say things like,

613
00:48:07.240 --> 00:48:09.240
like I'll be like, I think we should just go to bed, babe.

614
00:48:09.240 --> 00:48:10.760
Like, I think you're just really tired.

615
00:48:10.760 --> 00:48:12.560
And he'll be like, it's not that I'm tired.

616
00:48:12.560 --> 00:48:13.480
I'm not tired.

617
00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:15.480
I'm like, oh my gosh.

618
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:16.320
Please be tired.

619
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:19.040
I'm like, can we get out of this somehow?

620
00:48:21.680 --> 00:48:22.520
Yeah.

621
00:48:22.520 --> 00:48:24.120
So here's another thing, right?

622
00:48:24.120 --> 00:48:26.000
So today what we really want to touch on

623
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:28.760
is the spiritual pathway and the emotional pathway.

624
00:48:28.760 --> 00:48:31.680
So it's quite cool that, you know, just in the chat here,

625
00:48:31.680 --> 00:48:32.800
we're actually covering everything

626
00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:34.400
that we wanted to talk about today.

627
00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:38.920
So, you know, the big part about the emotional pathway

628
00:48:38.920 --> 00:48:41.200
is creating safe atmospheres.

629
00:48:43.120 --> 00:48:45.040
You've got to be able to create safe atmospheres

630
00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:46.280
for your communication.

631
00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:48.400
If you don't create safe atmospheres,

632
00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:50.080
then you're never going to be able

633
00:48:50.080 --> 00:48:51.480
to communicate effectively.

634
00:48:53.160 --> 00:48:57.440
So that's the first thing when it comes to, you know,

635
00:48:57.440 --> 00:48:59.200
wanting to have any conversations

636
00:49:00.120 --> 00:49:02.080
or communicate anything deeply is about

637
00:49:02.080 --> 00:49:04.240
how can I create a safe atmosphere?

638
00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:08.720
And so for each of you, or for each of us,

639
00:49:08.720 --> 00:49:13.720
that's got to be our first priority in any conversation.

640
00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:16.880
Okay, right.

641
00:49:16.880 --> 00:49:18.280
How do I create a safe atmosphere

642
00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:20.720
so that we can actually have a conversation

643
00:49:20.720 --> 00:49:24.720
where we don't flip into an amygdala hijack

644
00:49:24.720 --> 00:49:27.040
and damage each other?

645
00:49:28.240 --> 00:49:29.920
But the interesting thing, right,

646
00:49:31.680 --> 00:49:35.360
definitely for yourself, you know, in this moment as well,

647
00:49:36.520 --> 00:49:39.040
is the spiritual pathway, right?

648
00:49:39.040 --> 00:49:43.680
So the spiritual pathway, that's all about identity.

649
00:49:44.680 --> 00:49:49.680
And what I'm just trying to think of how to kind of

650
00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:53.320
summarize the spiritual pathway,

651
00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:56.200
but the spiritual pathway, I think you guys,

652
00:49:56.200 --> 00:49:57.560
a lot of you guys have been onto this,

653
00:49:57.560 --> 00:49:59.400
especially if you've been training for a while,

654
00:49:59.400 --> 00:50:01.480
but the spiritual pathway is about

655
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.400
with us a bit in the Honours School of Scientific because we talk identity here so much, but it's all

656
00:50:01.480 --> 00:50:03.920
how can I create a safe atmosphere

657
00:50:03.920 --> 00:50:06.320
where we can actually have a conversation

658
00:50:04.400 --> 00:50:14.000
about, you know, all of our beliefs, you know, but what you were saying before, and I'm just trying

659
00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:09.240
where we don't flip into an amygdala hijack

660
00:50:09.240 --> 00:50:11.240
and damage each other, right?

661
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:22.560
to make sure I'm picking it up right, but you were talking before about, maybe I'll just ask you to

662
00:50:22.560 --> 00:50:26.560
talk, can you just talk a little bit more about, you know, how you feel when it feels like things

663
00:50:26.560 --> 00:50:31.200
aren't going well for you in the ministry, you know, how do you feel about that, you know?

664
00:50:35.440 --> 00:50:41.760
It's kind of hard not to take it on yourself, so when things aren't going right,

665
00:50:42.560 --> 00:50:49.120
even though it's not really my fault, I always feel like that's my fault because I'm leading it,

666
00:50:49.120 --> 00:50:56.160
and so as a leader, I take responsibility, and so when things aren't going well, I

667
00:50:57.600 --> 00:51:06.960
tend to internalise everything and then either blame others, but more harshly blame myself,

668
00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:16.160
and then I come home and then just blurt it out, but then like I've learnt to go to God first

669
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:21.360
in that moment, but then that particular night I just needed to talk to my wife at that point.

670
00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:32.240
Yeah, totally. What would you say is, you know, one of the worst moments you've had,

671
00:51:32.240 --> 00:51:37.680
or one of the worst experiences you've had in ministry, whether lately or previously,

672
00:51:37.680 --> 00:51:40.960
where you just felt, man, this is bad?

673
00:51:49.200 --> 00:51:55.680
I think it was more so, like, we lead the music team at church, and so in preparation for a big

674
00:51:55.680 --> 00:52:03.840
conference that's coming up, I'm a drummer and I'm also a vocalist, and so all I know is I play

675
00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:10.240
drums, and so I'm not a skilled keyboardist or guitarist, but I know when it sounds really good,

676
00:52:10.240 --> 00:52:14.640
and so on Wednesday night it wasn't sounding great at all, but we've got this huge conference

677
00:52:14.640 --> 00:52:18.320
coming up and I just needed to sound perfectly well, and so it was all that stuff that was just

678
00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:25.760
coming at me, and my inner critic was just going crazy saying, you're not good enough to lead this

679
00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:30.960
team, you're not good enough to be this, it was all that stuff that was happening.

680
00:52:34.080 --> 00:52:42.160
Yeah, I think those are some of the worst moments, just feeling like just an

681
00:52:43.120 --> 00:52:50.880
incapable, unqualified, unsuccessful leader, or just being a person really, but I love what you said

682
00:52:50.880 --> 00:52:58.560
about identity. I think since going on the journey of learning about sonship and learning

683
00:52:58.560 --> 00:53:05.200
about the father's heart for me, I think that has been a huge healing for me,

684
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:14.240
where what I do now just comes out of this sonship identity, more than just me

685
00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:20.720
trying to achieve something to please God or please people. I think his hope is always

686
00:53:21.680 --> 00:53:28.080
to meet expectations, so he's got in his mind that this person or that person are going to expect

687
00:53:28.080 --> 00:53:31.840
this high expectation of him, and so if he's going to fail it, then he's going to fail that

688
00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:39.680
person, and that person represents God, so I'm going to fail God. Yeah, and then if you're going

689
00:53:39.680 --> 00:53:45.760
to fail God, ultimately what we end up doing, whether we're doing it consciously or subconsciously,

690
00:53:46.400 --> 00:53:52.160
we actually take our identity from that and go, well I'm a failure, I will be a failure,

691
00:53:53.120 --> 00:53:58.640
and so what you're using terminology about in a critic, really it's a belief

692
00:54:00.080 --> 00:54:09.920
that, like that voice of the inner critic is fueled by probably subconscious and unconsciously,

693
00:54:10.560 --> 00:54:14.160
you know, unconscious beliefs as opposed to cognitive beliefs, right up here in the

694
00:54:14.160 --> 00:54:23.920
forefront of your mind, but fueled by these beliefs of inadequacy, actually is what fuels that,

695
00:54:23.920 --> 00:54:29.040
right, and so this is where the spiritual part, the spiritual pathway comes in

696
00:54:29.600 --> 00:54:32.160
into play, because the spiritual pathway

697
00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:41.200
is the single most influential pathway of everything, right, because with the seven

698
00:54:41.200 --> 00:54:47.040
sacred pathways, you've got the three foundational ones, right, the first three are the spiritual,

699
00:54:47.040 --> 00:54:51.440
emotional, and intellectual, those are the foundational pathways, and everything rests

700
00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:59.760
on that, then the fourth one you've got is, which I call the forgotten pathway, which is the sensual

701
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:08.600
I call that the forgotten pathway because everyone's familiar with the five love languages,

702
00:55:08.600 --> 00:55:16.360
which is words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, touch and quality time.

703
00:55:16.360 --> 00:55:21.680
But a lot of people have thought that the touch thing there is just like, if you're

704
00:55:21.680 --> 00:55:28.480
a touch person, your solution is sex, that's the person who just wants sex.

705
00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:35.720
But the book itself actually kind of presents that a little bit more clearly, but I think

706
00:55:35.720 --> 00:55:39.040
for most people, if they think touch, they're like, well, that person wants sex, you know?

707
00:55:39.040 --> 00:55:40.040
That's what you thought.

708
00:55:40.040 --> 00:55:42.680
Yeah, that's 100% what I thought, right?

709
00:55:42.680 --> 00:55:47.600
So the sensual one is the realm of non-sexual touch, so that's why I call it the forgotten

710
00:55:47.600 --> 00:55:48.600
pathway.

711
00:55:48.600 --> 00:55:54.480
And for a lot of couples, that is the missing link in their marriage.

712
00:55:54.480 --> 00:55:59.280
So pathway number four, the sensual pathway, I call it the forgotten pathway.

713
00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:07.920
And then the next three, I call the make or break pathways, which is the financial pathway,

714
00:56:07.920 --> 00:56:11.440
the leadership pathway and the sexual pathway.

715
00:56:11.440 --> 00:56:20.400
So finances, leadership and sex, those are the three top reasons why people divorce, right?

716
00:56:20.400 --> 00:56:24.320
That's why they say, because those are the three that present the easiest.

717
00:56:24.320 --> 00:56:29.200
They're not the things that people, whereas actually, it's probably more likely an issue

718
00:56:29.200 --> 00:56:33.840
in the foundations, but it presents in the make or break pathways.

719
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:37.920
So that's where it's presenting, but people don't actually realize, actually, now, if

720
00:56:37.920 --> 00:56:45.440
I go deeper, I'm actually going to, actually, if I stopped having amygdala hijacks, or if

721
00:56:45.440 --> 00:56:49.640
I stopped creating unsafe atmospheres, we could probably actually have a safe, rational

722
00:56:49.880 --> 00:56:53.000
conversation about our finances and work it out.

723
00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:58.600
But if you can't deal with the foundational pathways, you'll never have the ability to

724
00:56:58.600 --> 00:57:02.680
resolve the other, when there's issues in the other pathways.

725
00:57:02.680 --> 00:57:10.440
So here's where I'm just saying, this is playing out for you right now.

726
00:57:10.440 --> 00:57:18.280
You're having the, so much of, and this might be wrong, but you can correct me if I'm wrong.

727
00:57:18.280 --> 00:57:24.200
When you're having these conversations with her and you're saying, man, it seems like

728
00:57:24.200 --> 00:57:26.600
a bunch of it is driven from a fear of failure.

729
00:57:28.840 --> 00:57:29.320
Exactly.

730
00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:31.240
Yeah.

731
00:57:31.240 --> 00:57:37.240
So that right there is the spiritual pathway needing attention.

732
00:57:37.560 --> 00:57:48.440
And the, so the more you grow in your sansha, right, and it's awesome that sansha is growing

733
00:57:48.440 --> 00:57:55.080
and developing in you, but the more you grow in your sansha, in your identity, the deeper

734
00:57:55.080 --> 00:58:03.480
it goes inside you, and actually the subconscious, unconscious part of your belief system, that

735
00:58:04.120 --> 00:58:13.720
is still voicing an inner critic, those deeper levels, as sansha gets into that part of your

736
00:58:13.720 --> 00:58:21.560
heart, you'll actually find that that fear of failure will evaporate.

737
00:58:24.040 --> 00:58:26.520
So this is why I'm saying, there's an interplay here.

738
00:58:26.520 --> 00:58:28.200
It's not just one thing that's going on.

739
00:58:28.200 --> 00:58:29.640
There's a spiritual side of it.

740
00:58:29.960 --> 00:58:34.760
And as you go deeper and take care of that, that sense of fear or that, you know, that

741
00:58:34.760 --> 00:58:38.600
fear, those fear driven conversations or coming to a place of having a conversation where

742
00:58:38.600 --> 00:58:45.720
you're like, totally terrified, you'll actually really minimize that sense of that feeling

743
00:58:45.720 --> 00:58:46.920
that you're having on the inside.

744
00:58:47.960 --> 00:58:51.000
So you'll have, you'll have less of those conversations.

745
00:58:51.000 --> 00:58:57.960
And for us, that was, that was huge for me, like in our relationship.

746
00:58:57.960 --> 00:59:08.200
As well, because I had a big rejection trigger, and especially when we first got married,

747
00:59:09.080 --> 00:59:14.120
my rejection trigger, it was pretty strong.

748
00:59:16.840 --> 00:59:23.240
So because it was strong, it didn't take much to flip the switch.

749
00:59:23.560 --> 00:59:26.200
It didn't take much to flip the switch.

750
00:59:26.840 --> 00:59:27.080
Yeah.

751
00:59:27.080 --> 00:59:36.520
And that's because I was taking identity, you know, from past rejections, you know,

752
00:59:36.520 --> 00:59:42.760
that was fused into who, into my beliefs, into my worth, that was all fused in there.

753
00:59:42.760 --> 00:59:47.080
And but as I grew on that, like that rejection issue, it just got...

754
00:59:47.080 --> 00:59:50.280
The button went from like this big, and it slowly, slowly shrunk.

755
00:59:50.360 --> 00:59:54.840
I'm just trying to catch up some of these comments here.

756
00:59:55.880 --> 00:59:58.680
Janice is saying, most of my life, I was frozen in the amygdala zone.

757
00:59:58.680 --> 00:59:59.880
This is helping even though I'm...

758
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:06.720
single now for all relationships, awesome. Angel saying it's a lot to carry. Really good word there

759
01:00:06.720 --> 01:00:14.240
from Nev about she said nothing can happen without a safety zone. This is difficult when one partner

760
01:00:14.240 --> 01:00:20.880
carries severe trauma in their history because they so very easily feel unsafe anyway. So some

761
01:00:20.880 --> 01:00:28.080
things need to shift spiritually and some negotiations need to be made to have brief,

762
01:00:28.080 --> 01:00:34.400
scary times that don't over trigger the other person. I think that's something that you guys

763
01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:41.120
could actually do too is have a negotiation about that particular conversation. What does it look

764
01:00:41.120 --> 01:00:48.960
like? What's the sign for you, Alicia, of like, okay, I'm reaching my limit. And, you know, like

765
01:00:48.960 --> 01:00:55.280
have a negotiation about that of how you can play that conversation out in the future. So you kind

766
01:00:55.280 --> 01:01:02.160
of both know ahead of time what's going to happen. And in the book, we do have sort of like a

767
01:01:02.160 --> 01:01:08.160
conversation structure, which we found really helpful for us to remove some of the emotion

768
01:01:08.160 --> 01:01:14.320
behind what we were saying. And we've kind of refined that over time, but sort of the basic

769
01:01:14.320 --> 01:01:20.960
conversation of what we used for stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's the pretty well known, well used

770
01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:29.680
the I feel I need statements. So most people, I'm not saying all, but a lot of people are familiar

771
01:01:29.680 --> 01:01:33.840
already with the I feel I need statement. So if you look in the book, and if you don't have the

772
01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:37.440
book, then there's a link in the description of this video. And there's a, you know, I've dropped

773
01:01:37.440 --> 01:01:44.880
it in the comments. Here we go, dropping it in the comments again. But in there, you'll find a

774
01:01:45.760 --> 01:01:51.920
just like a blueprint for how you can have those I feel I need. And

775
01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:58.080
when it comes to unsafe atmospheres, right? Sometimes,

776
01:01:59.760 --> 01:02:05.680
sometimes, something's genuinely unsafe, and sometimes you're just insecure.

777
01:02:05.840 --> 01:02:14.080
Insecure. So that's a real balance, right? Because when we're struggling in our identity,

778
01:02:14.720 --> 01:02:18.400
everything feels unsafe. And so,

779
01:02:20.240 --> 01:02:23.520
and as Benji says all the time, your feelings can lie to you.

780
01:02:23.520 --> 01:02:24.880
Yeah, tell your feelings the truth.

781
01:02:28.720 --> 01:02:32.400
So this is this is quite a trip, right? This is quite a trip, quite a balance here.

782
01:02:33.040 --> 01:02:38.320
And obviously, I would just say, like, go and check out the book for like the real like,

783
01:02:39.520 --> 01:02:43.200
because I spent, you know, weeks, like meticulously getting the

784
01:02:44.240 --> 01:02:49.120
all the little pieces in place. And you can do it so well in a book, because you spend

785
01:02:49.120 --> 01:02:54.880
hours and hours and hours putting every little piece of information in the right systematic place.

786
01:02:54.880 --> 01:03:02.240
But having a plan or a strategy before you have that conversation,

787
01:03:02.240 --> 01:03:06.400
again, is really helpful, because you're thinking about it with your thinking brain,

788
01:03:06.400 --> 01:03:10.000
rather than getting to that conversation and being an overload and going,

789
01:03:12.160 --> 01:03:13.680
and then causing each other more pain.

790
01:03:14.800 --> 01:03:20.560
Yeah. And I think that, you know, the one of the great things about this,

791
01:03:21.040 --> 01:03:25.280
one of the reasons why we wanted to have the Seven Second Pathways to Intimacy training in

792
01:03:25.280 --> 01:03:30.240
the Online School of Sonship is because we're going to point nearly everything points back

793
01:03:30.240 --> 01:03:34.480
to the foundations, which is okay, go deeper in your sonship, you know, like go deeper in

794
01:03:34.480 --> 01:03:41.120
your identity, because this is where it's all going to happen. Like, just keep going on that,

795
01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:47.920
keep going on that journey there. Because like, and here's like, here's a kind of a chicken or

796
01:03:47.920 --> 01:03:53.920
an egg scenario that I just wanted to chat about for a moment. The chicken or the egg scenario is

797
01:03:53.920 --> 01:04:00.480
what comes first, right? Should a person be courageous enough to be vulnerable first,

798
01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:07.840
right? Because you, you need to have a safe atmosphere to have a vulnerable conversation,

799
01:04:07.840 --> 01:04:14.400
right? That picture of the snails, you know, with their antennae out, that's them in their most

800
01:04:14.400 --> 01:04:22.720
vulnerable place, they're fully exposed. And that's where we're going to have our best

801
01:04:22.720 --> 01:04:31.280
conversations is when we're being completely vulnerable, 100% transparent, totally exposed.

802
01:04:33.280 --> 01:04:38.000
That's when you're going to get the best information, right? And that's what we all need.

803
01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:46.640
If we want to create a marriage where we all get what we want, when we want it, and how we like it.

804
01:04:47.360 --> 01:04:54.640
I can't give Alana what she wants, when she wants it, and how she likes it, if she doesn't give me

805
01:04:54.640 --> 01:04:59.920
that good information. But I'm only ever going to be able to get that good information.

806
01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:06.920
from her, if she's courageous enough to be completely vulnerable with me.

807
01:05:06.920 --> 01:05:14.760
So it's kind of like this chicken or the egg catch 22 moment where it's like, well, what

808
01:05:14.760 --> 01:05:15.960
comes first, right?

809
01:05:15.960 --> 01:05:23.360
What comes first, the safety or the vulnerability or the good information that you can kind

810
01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:26.920
of get caught in a stalemate, you know, it's like, we have a lot of roundabouts in New

811
01:05:26.920 --> 01:05:27.920
Zealand.

812
01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:31.360
And the thing with a roundabout is you have to give way to the, you know, to someone,

813
01:05:31.360 --> 01:05:32.360
right?

814
01:05:32.360 --> 01:05:39.360
But if you've got four cars, all at a roundabout, someone has to break the law, but they didn't

815
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:40.360
think that through very well.

816
01:05:40.360 --> 01:05:45.720
It's like, okay, just hope that the whole law revolves around, hopefully, we don't ever

817
01:05:45.720 --> 01:05:54.520
have four cars at the roundabout at the same time, otherwise, you're like, it's a stalemate.

818
01:05:54.520 --> 01:06:02.400
But the thing that actually has to come first in a relationship is courage.

819
01:06:02.400 --> 01:06:13.200
That's the thing that has to come first, because I remember, you know, so many terrifying conversations

820
01:06:13.200 --> 01:06:20.400
that we've had, countless terrifying conversations where I felt just like you, Zephanias, where

821
01:06:20.400 --> 01:06:28.680
I had this information, I, you know, I didn't, I had these feelings, I was having these thoughts

822
01:06:28.680 --> 01:06:36.080
that I didn't want to, this was actually a real big deal, because I was in a place in

823
01:06:36.080 --> 01:06:42.040
our relationship where I was like, I don't want to shut you out, right?

824
01:06:42.040 --> 01:06:47.960
And I'm, I was walking a thin line of I'm either going to have a courageous conversation

825
01:06:47.960 --> 01:06:53.800
with you right now and tell you how I'm feeling, or I'm going to have to make a decision that

826
01:06:53.800 --> 01:06:56.640
I'm going to shut you out.

827
01:06:56.640 --> 01:07:04.080
But I was, I was being, I was really mindful of the fact that I didn't want to start practicing

828
01:07:04.080 --> 01:07:05.080
shutting Ilana out.

829
01:07:05.080 --> 01:07:09.840
Because I know I was like, man, if I start doing that, I'll shut you out, I'll shut you

830
01:07:09.840 --> 01:07:16.840
up, I'm going to end up just like, I'm going to build a big wall in my heart towards you.

831
01:07:17.360 --> 01:07:22.800
So the only way to avoid that, building that big wall was to have this courageous conversation.

832
01:07:24.080 --> 01:07:27.280
Unfortunately, she was often having an amygdala hijack at the time.

833
01:07:29.120 --> 01:07:32.880
So she was kind of like, I don't want this courageous conversation.

834
01:07:32.880 --> 01:07:35.360
So it wasn't necessarily done perfectly.

835
01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:37.280
We didn't do it well at all, let's be honest.

836
01:07:38.800 --> 01:07:43.200
It was, there was some good elements, but it was still a mess, right?

837
01:07:43.720 --> 01:07:49.240
But I thought, I kind of, in my mind, where I was at is like, it's better off if I do

838
01:07:49.240 --> 01:07:51.880
this badly than if I put up, than if I build a wall.

839
01:07:52.920 --> 01:07:56.760
So that was the thing that I was trying to protect the most, is in my heart, I don't

840
01:07:56.760 --> 01:08:00.760
want to start building a wall in my heart and shutting you out so that you don't know

841
01:08:00.760 --> 01:08:03.240
where I'm at, so that you never have good information.

842
01:08:03.240 --> 01:08:04.240
So that was a thing for me.

843
01:08:04.240 --> 01:08:08.680
I was like, man, I'm trying really, really hard right now to be vulnerable, to be real,

844
01:08:08.680 --> 01:08:09.680
to be authentic.

845
01:08:09.680 --> 01:08:15.360
And it was done pretty badly a lot of the time in the sense that she already felt unsafe.

846
01:08:15.360 --> 01:08:20.240
She's having an amygdala hijack and I give her information she can't process and I want

847
01:08:20.240 --> 01:08:22.399
her to respond well to me.

848
01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:26.000
But so that's where it didn't go well.

849
01:08:26.000 --> 01:08:29.359
But the thing that we did do well is gave each other that vulnerable information.

850
01:08:31.920 --> 01:08:32.920
Well, at least I did.

851
01:08:32.920 --> 01:08:33.920
And you went.

852
01:08:34.160 --> 01:08:40.399
So, yeah, that's kind of the thing is like this courage is the thing that's most needed

853
01:08:41.439 --> 01:08:45.279
so you don't get caught in that stalemate of who's going to be vulnerable, who's going

854
01:08:45.279 --> 01:08:49.840
to, you know, start this conversation or.

855
01:08:49.840 --> 01:08:50.840
Someone has to go first.

856
01:08:52.479 --> 01:08:57.040
Yeah, so I think maybe just open up for any last Q&A on that.

857
01:08:57.040 --> 01:08:58.560
It's been a cool kind of chat.

858
01:08:58.720 --> 01:09:01.920
Yeah, I mean, like, thank you.

859
01:09:01.920 --> 01:09:03.920
Like, I didn't expect this today.

860
01:09:03.920 --> 01:09:06.720
I just saw the email pop up and I was like, oh, they're doing a live.

861
01:09:06.720 --> 01:09:07.720
Let's jump on.

862
01:09:07.720 --> 01:09:08.720
This was a bit chaotic.

863
01:09:08.720 --> 01:09:14.720
But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean,

864
01:09:14.720 --> 01:09:15.720
yeah.

865
01:09:15.720 --> 01:09:16.720
Yeah.

866
01:09:16.720 --> 01:09:17.720
Yeah.

867
01:09:17.720 --> 01:09:18.720
Yeah.

868
01:09:18.720 --> 01:09:19.720
Yeah.

869
01:09:19.720 --> 01:09:20.720
Yeah.

870
01:09:20.720 --> 01:09:21.720
Yeah.

871
01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:22.720
Yeah.

872
01:09:22.720 --> 01:09:23.720
Yeah.

873
01:09:23.720 --> 01:09:24.720
Yeah.

874
01:09:24.720 --> 01:09:25.720
Yeah.

875
01:09:25.720 --> 01:09:26.720
Yeah.

876
01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:31.520
But yeah, it's been cool.

877
01:09:31.520 --> 01:09:36.520
You know, like, obviously it was a God appointed moment to talk about what happened last night.

878
01:09:36.520 --> 01:09:44.479
And I think we're going to have a great conversation after this about how we might have a conversation

879
01:09:44.479 --> 01:09:46.200
next time we're in that place.

880
01:09:46.200 --> 01:09:48.920
So, yeah, I'm really thankful.

881
01:09:48.920 --> 01:09:49.760
Thank you, guys.

882
01:09:49.760 --> 01:09:52.600
And I hope it blesses whoever watches later on.

883
01:09:52.600 --> 01:10:00.000
I think, yeah, I'm grateful that we both value vulnerability and we are courageous in our relationship.

884
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:07.280
to share even if it gets a bit messy yeah yeah absolutely and that comes across really

885
01:10:08.240 --> 01:10:14.000
beautifully from both of you so that's awesome and we're really excited for you guys and

886
01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:18.160
love what you're building and your marriage and in your ministry that's exciting times

887
01:10:18.960 --> 01:10:23.680
thank you yeah thanks so much you guys for all you've implemented in part and then

888
01:10:24.080 --> 01:10:26.240
taking the time out to yeah feel this

889
01:10:28.640 --> 01:10:35.920
no worries and i think again you know like um just journeying through the book will help

890
01:10:35.920 --> 01:10:39.920
with that but i think you guys are in a really good you're in a really good place

891
01:10:40.480 --> 01:10:44.400
it's just keep on like keep on doing the basics well that you're doing

892
01:10:45.280 --> 01:10:50.480
um you know like you keep growing in that identity stuff and you'll find that the

893
01:10:50.480 --> 01:10:57.760
that level of fear and you know that sense of failure that just minimizes and then

894
01:10:58.560 --> 01:11:07.200
the way it all creates this compounding effect of momentum where um where the atmosphere

895
01:11:07.200 --> 01:11:11.200
automatically because you're not feeling like failure whatever you automatically start creating

896
01:11:11.200 --> 01:11:18.880
safer atmosphere to to and you're communicating from a safer atmosphere and so then there's less

897
01:11:18.880 --> 01:11:26.320
of these amygdala hijacks going on and maybe i'll just i'll say a couple of things here like the

898
01:11:26.320 --> 01:11:35.360
spiritual pathway right the spiritual pathway is the pathway that determines um our our ability

899
01:11:35.360 --> 01:11:44.480
to receive and to express love right so when we when we have an identity issue of any sort

900
01:11:44.480 --> 01:11:49.120
what that does is that restricts our ability to receive divine love

901
01:11:51.200 --> 01:11:58.720
and so if you're in a place of fear fear is evidence of an identity crisis because fear

902
01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:04.240
is evidence that the love has stopped flowing in that particular moment or that particular

903
01:12:04.960 --> 01:12:10.400
dynamic because perfect love casts out all fear so as we grow in that spiritual dynamic

904
01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:17.360
yeah i would say like this that sonship mature sonship is the ability to receive divine love

905
01:12:17.360 --> 01:12:24.000
perfectly and to give perfect expression to divine love so the spiritual pathway determines

906
01:12:24.000 --> 01:12:28.880
our ability personally to receive divine love and our ability to express divine love

907
01:12:29.520 --> 01:12:35.120
the emotional pathway determines our ability to communicate love

908
01:12:35.360 --> 01:12:42.000
so you can kind of see like how it becomes quite the dance right like and then the intellectual

909
01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:50.160
pathway determines our ability to specifically love our spouse the way that they want to be

910
01:12:50.160 --> 01:12:56.080
loved like how they want to be loved when they want to be loved just the way they like it

911
01:12:57.680 --> 01:13:00.960
so you kind of got those three things those foundational pathways all kind of

912
01:13:01.520 --> 01:13:06.000
balancing out kind of interplaying all the time with each other

913
01:13:11.520 --> 01:13:12.800
anything to add on it

914
01:13:16.800 --> 01:13:17.280
which one

915
01:13:19.280 --> 01:13:23.280
lana yeah we'll save that story lana's got a funny story probably

916
01:13:24.320 --> 01:13:27.040
yeah it is a funny story but we'll save it for another day

917
01:13:27.680 --> 01:13:33.920
for another day um anyone else wanted to add anything in here some cool comments happening

918
01:13:33.920 --> 01:13:46.720
in the chat i would just ask a question um for zephaniah do you love your son when he fails

919
01:13:47.600 --> 01:13:52.720
yeah yeah absolutely because that's how he loves you

920
01:13:54.720 --> 01:13:58.800
yeah you need to know that he loves you completely whether you fail whether you

921
01:13:59.360 --> 01:14:06.400
succeed with you whatever you do and you're not failing him he knows your limitations

922
01:14:06.560 --> 01:14:07.520
your limitations

923
01:14:10.160 --> 01:14:15.280
and as far as alicia um just recognize that when

924
01:14:16.400 --> 01:14:24.320
zeph does do this verbal vomit that yeah it's okay just listen and and just ask him do you need

925
01:14:24.320 --> 01:14:30.240
a hug

926
01:14:44.400 --> 01:14:50.640
sorry guys wait i just looked i just looked at my phone and it was at one percent battery

927
01:14:50.720 --> 01:14:54.240
and this is what we use for internet it's hot spotting the internet i was like

928
01:14:54.240 --> 01:14:59.760
and i just got this plugged into it just in time but then it actually died anyway so

929
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:02.160
Yeah that's why I was a little bit distracted there.

930
01:15:04.960 --> 01:15:06.960
I was about 30 seconds too late.

931
01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:10.560
Sorry so I just I missed you guys for a little bit.

932
01:15:10.560 --> 01:15:12.480
But Michelle thank you so much for sharing that.

933
01:15:12.480 --> 01:15:13.200
That's beautiful.

934
01:15:13.760 --> 01:15:14.640
I appreciate that.

935
01:15:15.440 --> 01:15:17.200
Anyone else want to want to jump in there?

936
01:15:22.960 --> 01:15:26.960
Hey there that was I'm just impressed by your openness.

937
01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:29.040
So great really cool.

938
01:15:29.040 --> 01:15:31.600
Hey I just want to add happy birthday Benji.

939
01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:43.200
It's actually Alana's birthday is the 19th and I'm the 23rd.

940
01:15:43.200 --> 01:15:45.680
So this is birthday week for us.

941
01:15:46.640 --> 01:15:52.320
Before we had kids we used to not do dishes and stuff all week.

942
01:15:52.320 --> 01:15:55.440
But now we have kids so it doesn't matter.

943
01:15:55.680 --> 01:16:01.280
But in the future we joke that we had kids to serve us on birthday week.

944
01:16:05.360 --> 01:16:06.080
We'll train them up.

945
01:16:07.760 --> 01:16:09.120
Thank you Raewyn.

946
01:16:09.120 --> 01:16:09.840
You're welcome.

947
01:16:12.880 --> 01:16:15.120
Did you have anything else you wanted to add in there?

948
01:16:15.120 --> 01:16:16.080
Some great comments.

949
01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:20.480
Nothing hugely Benji.

950
01:16:21.440 --> 01:16:23.200
My only thought is around process.

951
01:16:23.840 --> 01:16:29.840
That all of these things are like Alicia and I'm sorry I can't pronounce your husband's name.

952
01:16:30.880 --> 01:16:32.240
You're a little child.

953
01:16:32.240 --> 01:16:37.920
You know we all learn to walk and we it just it's a stumbling process.

954
01:16:37.920 --> 01:16:39.840
We practice we get it wrong.

955
01:16:39.840 --> 01:16:42.240
We fall we pick ourselves up.

956
01:16:42.240 --> 01:16:45.440
Do you know and now all of us are walking and running on two legs.

957
01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:47.600
But it's process.

958
01:16:47.600 --> 01:16:51.760
And so learning all these skills just takes time.

959
01:16:51.760 --> 01:16:54.960
We need to forgive ourselves and have grace for ourselves.

960
01:16:54.960 --> 01:17:01.200
And learn and be have the humility that you know Benji and Alana are demonstrating.

961
01:17:01.200 --> 01:17:07.440
To apply ourselves to new skills and know that hey God has a third option.

962
01:17:07.440 --> 01:17:10.640
When we can only see two there's always a third.

963
01:17:10.640 --> 01:17:12.880
And he'll open that way up for us.

964
01:17:13.440 --> 01:17:17.760
So that we can find the path in the relationship that he has for us.

965
01:17:17.760 --> 01:17:21.760
You know with new skills knowledge will increase on the earth.

966
01:17:21.760 --> 01:17:24.480
God always has more to bring to us.

967
01:17:24.480 --> 01:17:28.240
So and you know just that be aware of process.

968
01:17:28.240 --> 01:17:29.920
It takes time.

969
01:17:29.920 --> 01:17:35.200
Be gracious to let us all be gracious to ourselves and to one another.

970
01:17:36.400 --> 01:17:38.880
And again thanks to Benji and Alana.

971
01:17:39.760 --> 01:17:40.720
Pleasure, pleasure.

972
01:17:41.920 --> 01:17:45.120
Hey here's an interesting question before we wrap up.

973
01:17:45.120 --> 01:17:52.480
But who has seen who's seen all of these dynamics model really,

974
01:17:52.480 --> 01:17:55.680
really, really well to them in the home that they grew up in.

975
01:17:56.240 --> 01:18:00.960
Who grew up with mom and at home where mom and dad just nailed communication.

976
01:18:00.960 --> 01:18:02.640
Like they were amazing.

977
01:18:03.760 --> 01:18:07.200
Put your hand up if you were in that place where mom and dad were just amazing.

978
01:18:07.200 --> 01:18:08.720
They were communication ninjas.

979
01:18:09.280 --> 01:18:13.760
I actually growing up never and to this day I've never seen my parents argue ever.

980
01:18:14.640 --> 01:18:18.000
And like my mom has never raised her voice at us.

981
01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:19.280
Never at my dad.

982
01:18:19.280 --> 01:18:20.800
Never had a tone of frustration.

983
01:18:21.440 --> 01:18:23.600
And I asked her about this recently.

984
01:18:23.600 --> 01:18:25.280
She said there were times when I did.

985
01:18:25.280 --> 01:18:27.360
But we always did it behind closed doors.

986
01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:29.120
There you go.

987
01:18:29.120 --> 01:18:31.920
Yeah and so I feel like that was great.

988
01:18:31.920 --> 01:18:34.080
But at the same time it was never modeled to us.

989
01:18:34.080 --> 01:18:35.840
Because it was always behind closed doors.

990
01:18:36.400 --> 01:18:40.240
Yeah but I am really thankful that I didn't get to see the

991
01:18:41.440 --> 01:18:43.760
tension and yelling and that kind of thing.

992
01:18:43.760 --> 01:18:48.320
But compared to Benji's family where I used to be mortified.

993
01:18:55.360 --> 01:18:56.080
Oh I do.

994
01:18:57.280 --> 01:19:00.160
Yeah so I just that was really a question that came off the back of

995
01:19:00.160 --> 01:19:02.560
you know Nev's comment about process.

996
01:19:03.280 --> 01:19:08.720
Like there's not many people in the whole world who can say that their family

997
01:19:10.080 --> 01:19:11.680
modeled good communication.

998
01:19:11.680 --> 01:19:16.000
That they modeled you know walking like their parents modeled walking in sunshine.

999
01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:21.920
Their parents modeled you're just communicating in an amazing way.

1000
01:19:21.920 --> 01:19:24.640
That their parents modeled you know these seven sacred pathways to intimacy.

1001
01:19:25.600 --> 01:19:27.760
And talk to their children through it.

1002
01:19:27.760 --> 01:19:31.040
And that's one thing we're quite we try to be intentional with

1003
01:19:31.040 --> 01:19:33.920
is talking our children through the process.

1004
01:19:34.480 --> 01:19:37.360
Because I feel like often like when we were kids

1005
01:19:37.920 --> 01:19:40.560
you never got talked about the process.

1006
01:19:40.560 --> 01:19:43.040
You might have got told the rules of what's acceptable.

1007
01:19:43.040 --> 01:19:46.160
But never the why or the how or that kind of thing.

1008
01:19:46.160 --> 01:19:49.200
So for us like when it's finances when it's communication and

1009
01:19:50.160 --> 01:19:51.600
sorting out issues between the kids.

1010
01:19:51.600 --> 01:19:56.080
We actually try and talk them through the process and yeah.

1011
01:19:56.080 --> 01:19:59.120
Although Zoe did ask me about how someone gets pregnant.

1012
01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:08.880
we just last week she was like she's six and she's like the question she actually asked me was um

1013
01:20:10.560 --> 01:20:15.760
because i put isra isra and zoe share a bedroom at the moment but there is a spare guest bed

1014
01:20:15.760 --> 01:20:20.800
and anyway some kids have come around they made a total mess of isra's bed so i said oh you jump

1015
01:20:20.800 --> 01:20:27.120
in the spare bed um isra and uh i don't know who she's been talking to what conversation there was

1016
01:20:27.120 --> 01:20:34.960
but she said to me that if i slept in that bed with isra too would i get pregnant oh my and i was

1017
01:20:34.960 --> 01:20:43.920
like uh no you wouldn't and she's like is that because i'm still young if i was a teenager would

1018
01:20:43.920 --> 01:20:50.880
i get pregnant and i was like ah and then she just like right like now and he's like dad how do you

1019
01:20:50.880 --> 01:20:54.880
get pregnant and i was like we're not ready for that process yet i kind of

1020
01:20:58.160 --> 01:21:02.000
i kind of fobbed her off i was like yeah you're six you probably don't need to understand

1021
01:21:02.880 --> 01:21:08.960
all those details just yet but um it was kind of funny she obviously heard someone

1022
01:21:08.960 --> 01:21:13.200
chatting about sleeping with someone and getting pregnant or something

1023
01:21:13.520 --> 01:21:21.760
um but i guess the the dynamic here is that you know when we mask these seven sacred pathways

1024
01:21:21.760 --> 01:21:25.920
and its journey and that's kind of the whole point of this is just creating a space where

1025
01:21:25.920 --> 01:21:30.400
we can keep having these chats and and bringing different dynamics in and going deeper on these

1026
01:21:31.200 --> 01:21:37.040
seven sacred pathways the idea is that we can create a whole new culture and we can model

1027
01:21:37.040 --> 01:21:42.320
something brand new to the next generation and i think that when we really want to you know

1028
01:21:42.320 --> 01:21:48.720
disciple nations this is one of the most powerful places to actually when it comes to actually

1029
01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:56.240
practically getting things in place and putting things establishing things we can't we'll never

1030
01:21:56.240 --> 01:22:03.040
disciple nations if we can't have phenomenal marriages um so to me this is one of the

1031
01:22:03.040 --> 01:22:09.680
places where having big dreams has to have a practical yes application yes

1032
01:22:12.480 --> 01:22:14.800
sweet okay yeah we still have um

1033
01:22:18.880 --> 01:22:23.040
sorry this is so precious like alicia

1034
01:22:25.600 --> 01:22:31.040
oh sorry maybe i don't have a good connection no no you're okay now we can hear you now this

1035
01:22:31.040 --> 01:22:33.280
is so precious like for you and your children

1036
01:22:33.520 --> 01:22:36.080
um what's that

1037
01:22:38.800 --> 01:22:43.680
you are cutting in and out a little bit um but just go again we can kind of hear you at the moment

1038
01:22:46.640 --> 01:22:54.720
oh okay i was just saying this is so priceless but uh alicia and her husband and other young

1039
01:22:54.720 --> 01:23:00.400
people like yourselves are learning these skills now to teach it and model it for the next generation

1040
01:23:00.960 --> 01:23:04.480
because so many of us i mean even how i raised my children

1041
01:23:05.120 --> 01:23:10.800
it was not to go i have to admit you know and um it's just so priceless

1042
01:23:13.520 --> 01:23:18.800
yeah exciting thank you so yeah spread the app

1043
01:23:21.280 --> 01:23:29.120
here let me um i know very cool well bless you guys we love you and let's um we need to get our

1044
01:23:29.760 --> 01:23:34.960
our irish prayer to wrap up with neve it's always important to have the irish blessing

1045
01:23:35.760 --> 01:23:45.200
so neve's gonna wrap it up for us and then we're gonna call it a call it a day okay hey father god

1046
01:23:47.680 --> 01:23:57.120
we just bask in your light and we thank you for your light to shed forth with revelation

1047
01:23:57.120 --> 01:24:05.040
knowledge insight and the love of jesus christ to permeate down through the depths of our being

1048
01:24:05.760 --> 01:24:13.120
and to filter out into the nitty-gritty of how we talk to each other how we think about each other

1049
01:24:13.120 --> 01:24:20.880
how we walk together and all of the things that we learn how to communicate how to risk when it feels

1050
01:24:21.440 --> 01:24:28.480
slightly unsafe but to just take that risk anyway how to negotiate around it all of those things

1051
01:24:28.480 --> 01:24:35.680
that your light and your love and the things of your kingdom would permeate through our being

1052
01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:44.160
right down to the nitty-gritty and i'm just reminded of the clean animal in leviticus

1053
01:24:44.160 --> 01:24:52.080
had a split hoof and it left two marks on the sand we walk in two places simultaneously so lord

1054
01:24:52.080 --> 01:24:59.920
may we walk in the heavens with you and have your light and life and deep within our being and may we

1055
01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:09.600
walk on the earth at the same time and that one impacts the other bringing bringing your kingdom

1056
01:25:10.640 --> 01:25:17.280
right down into you know that place where we make the tea and we make the toast and we feed the

1057
01:25:17.280 --> 01:25:22.000
children and we just do the ordinary everyday things and we talk and walk with each other

1058
01:25:22.000 --> 01:25:27.680
and so Lord we just thank you for all the learning that has been in this time and for

1059
01:25:27.680 --> 01:25:35.200
Benji and Alana and for the for everyone who participated in this in this zoom tonight and

1060
01:25:35.200 --> 01:25:42.480
for those who are listening to the future we bless you with the learning that brings

1061
01:25:42.480 --> 01:25:52.400
life in Jesus name amen thank you so much Niamh and bless you all we'll catch you guys soon see

1062
01:25:52.400 --> 01:25:55.200
you bye