Hey fam, I think we are live now. Janice is struggling with getting her audio connected.
Welcome everyone, good to be with you. We're going to be talking today about
the spiritual and emotional pathways, which is going to be fun.
So we'll just hang out here for a little bit, kind of relaxed and let you guys jump in.
And we are going to, we're going to have a good session. So whether you're live or delayed,
some of you might be watching on Facebook world too. So just,
yeah, we'll just check the old Facebook world here and
should be live in here. There we are, we're live. Cool, cool. So as always, oh look at this,
our buddy Raewyn. Cool, Raewyn. Hey Raewyn, welcome. Hey guys. How are you doing? I'm good.
That's good. That's good, all the way from Vietnam. So cool. Yeah, it's just on five o'clock,
so I'm a little bit waking up. Yeah, absolutely. Well done. Great work on getting up for 5am for
the session. Stoked to have you with us. Now you can see Janice here, her audio is just kind of in
this no man's land. I'll just shoot her a message on Facebook as well, just to let her know.
She probably knows, but what is ahead for your day? Well, we're still in lockdown, so our days
are pretty much, yeah, we've been eight weeks of, no, probably nearly 10 weeks of initially just
online schooling with able to go out, and then initially it was kind of distancing and
that sort of thing, and then they closed the restaurants, and now we're only allowed out,
not even for walking, for a while we were allowed to walk, we're only allowed out
to go to the supermarket. So yeah, and they're pretty tight. Yeah, we get chewed back in.
Do you live in an apartment, or do you have some outside space?
We're in an apartment, which is kind of crazy.
How are you doing, Alicia?
Well, Alicia, great to have you with us.
I'm sure you're close. Cool, fam. Well, hey, hey. Oh, good to see you. Good to see you both.
Hi, guys.
Hey, great to see you, and great to see you, beautiful baby.
Gorgeousness.
Now, we haven't properly met your husband before, so you want to introduce?
So, this is Zephanias.
Zephanias, nice to meet you.
And he's from Southland.
Pardon?
He's from Dunedin.
From Dunedin?
Yeah.
So, he's probably wearing shorts right now.
Yeah, thanks for that one, nah.
Nah.
It's actually cold in Taupo as well.
And you guys are based now in Taupo?
Yeah.
Wild. Very cool. That is awesome.
I love seeing your chats, just your comment on the chats last night,
as you were catching up on some of the sessions. So, that's cool.
And we're going to have lots of fun in this session.
So, we're going to pray, and then we're just going to have like a bit of an open Q&A vibe.
And then we're going to chat about the spiritual and emotional pathways and how they roll.
And if there's anyone who hasn't received the link yet for the
the book, then the link, I've put it in the Facebook side of things. Veronica, welcome.
But it's also here in the chat as well. Well, I don't think that is actually all of it.
Hang on, let me copy link.
Here it is in the Facebook, sorry, in the chat here. Anyway, so if there's anyone who hasn't
had the book, hadn't had access to the book, that link will give you the ebook,
the audio book, the couples workbook, and the singles workbook.
So most other people are paying for that, but you guys can get it for free.
Sweet. So Zephanias, would you like to pray for us to open up?
No, no, he was terrified. He's run.
Veronica, are you there? Can you hear us?
Yes, I can. Can you hear me?
Yeah, I can hear you actually. You're a little bit quiet, but would...
Oh, hang on. I was going to ask you, but Zephanias is back.
But Veronica, it would be great if you want to pray for us to kick off,
and then we'll get Zephanias to pray as well.
Yeah, sorry, my computer just shut down on us.
No, no worries. We'll get you both to pray.
But Veronica, if you want to start, that'd be awesome.
Okay. Was it just opening up?
Yeah, just opening up prayer. There's nothing specific, just for fun.
Okay. All right, Father God, we just thank you for this time
and this space and being able to come together and to just communicate and share
and also to learn and to access your heart and your desire for us this morning.
And so it is blessed this time, and I'm looking forward to it, Lord.
And yeah, just bless everyone in this space at this moment in time.
Thank you, Papa.
Beautiful.
Yeah, Father, thank you so much for the privilege of
being able to intimately know the things of your heart.
And together as brothers and sisters from all over the place,
we get to share with each other.
Thank you for this platform where we get to connect with each other
and talk about Jesus.
What better thing to talk about?
I just thank you, Father God, for this opportunity.
I pray your blessing upon Benji and Lana, Lord God,
and as they impart them to the session,
if all those who are tuning in live or later on,
Lord, I pray that they will receive a massive blessing
and a massive download of your heart for them.
In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Cool, guys.
Well, hey, Veronica, nice to see your face there.
Thank you. It might go off every now and then.
That's all right. No worries.
Well, so welcome.
This session is Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy,
session number five.
So if you want to catch up on any of the previous ones, feel free.
Let me share my screen with you for a second,
just in case there's anyone who's not familiar with how this group works,
and then you'll kind of understand how to find everything.
So this page won't tell you anything.
Okay, so this page here, hang on, minimize this, get rid of this.
Okay, so when you jump into the Online School of Sonship group,
this is where you arrive.
Something cool is that we're currently spending thousands of dollars
developing our own platform that's just for this.
So you'll be able to log into our own platform in the future
and get all this stuff.
But for now, you jump in here,
and then where you're going to find all the stuff that you want
is right here in the Guide section.
Okay, so you click this guide.
There's a bit of an orientation there.
There's a Foundations course there.
Then there's the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy here.
And then there's Open Heaven Masterclass,
which we're going through at the moment as well.
This is week 8 of week 12 of this.
So this is where you find all the stuff in the Online School of Sonship
if you want to track this stuff.
You go up here to the Guides and ta-da!
That's where you'll find the good stuff.
Hope that's helpful.
So that's where you find all your replays
and past courses and things like that.
For now, we are going to just open it up.
Open mic now for anyone who wants to chat about Q&A,
just anything, got any questions or any chats
around the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy,
relationships, anything like that.
Open mic.
Alicia it's open mic it's Q&A space right now I know you were going through
videos last night so things might be fresh for you but anyone who's got any
any questions can go for it yeah I didn't have really any questions but I
just really enjoyed hearing because I've already watched kind of the first one
and a half videos but enjoyed hearing your guys story and journey and yeah
like pursuing purity or something that was really important to us as well and I
grew up kind of similar to Alana so yeah it just was really cool to hear
you guys journey and all I know is in our relationship that it's hard to keep
an open heart sometimes because in life you just want to sort of well this is
the most intimate person that you're ever gonna be with I reckon and so yeah
sometimes I have to really like in my heart go no I'm gonna stay open with him
even though it's challenging but yeah I haven't got far enough into the book or
into the videos to really get into like the actual seven things yet but looking
forward to doing that. I've got a question. You mentioned last night that I watched it last
night but you mentioned that it wasn't until you got to a point of pain that
you finally decided to take extreme ownership and so that really resonated
with me especially like taking responsibility for your stuff but could
you share a little bit more of like what was that area of pain that you got to
that you realized it probably has something to do with what I'm doing as
well because you mean at the beginning you said all the stuff happening in a
marriage was all my fault and then later on you mentioned I got to a point where
I realized perhaps there's something in here that it's actually part of my doing
that's actually affecting my wife and so could you share a little bit of what
that was for you?
One of the things we put the question we put on the front cover of our
book is how did a narcissistic husband and a depressed wife create a beautiful
marriage? Exactly because I feel like that sometimes because I feel like you
speak my language I'm I'm so full-on all the time I forget that I'm actually
married to a soft gentle hearted holy spirit filled hot lady and so how do I
cherish that? Yeah that's really cool so but did you want to chuck anything on there or should I jump in?
No you go for it now, I've had my two cents on this one.
So some people have some like just like on a couple of Facebook posts people
been like oh this guy's not a narcissist and they've kind of made this have this
mindset that narcissistic behavior or narcissistic tendencies requires you to
you know just to be and like the full extreme but it's a it's a it's a
spectrum right it's a scale like you could be on on the low end of the scale
or you could be on the high end of the scale now obviously if you're an extreme
narcissist then the level of chaos that you're going to create in your world
will be through the roof but you actually don't need that much narcissism
to wreak a marriage you know and that's where I was we might I might have been
on the lower you know low to medium level of narcissism and same with a
lot of depression maybe the lower to medium side of a scale but you don't
have to be that depressed and you don't have to be that narcissistic to
completely wreck your marriage and like if you've got both of those things
happening and you're bouncing off one another and it really doesn't take all
that much to really wreak the marriage and so you know if you've watched our
stuff so far you kind of will have seen that I thought that the reason that we
had problems in our marriage is because Alana's bad attitude towards sex now
Alana did just make up some really bad lies about why tonight wasn't a good
night which was so obvious and I was like you know like maybe you know like
maybe if it was a genuine reason but when you blatantly lie to someone who's
desperate I sort of obviously had the issues and that it was obvious that I
was depressed that I was struggling I admitted that I was struggling she had
ownership of that I knew I knew
that I had a problem and he knew that I had a problem.
So she's the problem.
Yeah. And so therefore I became the problem
because it was obvious and it was easy to blame me in a way for everything,
because obviously I was the one that was struggling.
And I was a revivalist.
So, boom, I'm sorted.
So, so, so this to me,
this was the real issue in our marriage was me.
Yeah. Our sex life was the problem in my head.
That's what the problem was.
And the problem with our sex life was Alana.
So in my mind, the equate the math was easy.
It's like, obviously, she's the reason for everything.
You're like, obviously, she is the source of all of our chaos.
And so when I was praying for our marriage,
or thinking, you know, like, God, how are we going to have a marriage?
It was never like, oh, I wonder what I'm doing wrong in the marriage.
It's creating chaos.
It was always focused on Alana's problems.
It was always focused on sorting out. Yeah, exactly.
And so Alana had at least ownership and admitted.
We honestly, we talked to everybody we knew who we thought could help me.
We traveled the world and we met people
who we thought could like help me have breakthrough.
And so we were doing everything we could on my behalf.
Yeah. To fix the problems.
But for me, for me,
it wasn't. I probably wouldn't have come across to people as a narcissist,
you know, because I was working really like I just, you know,
we did so much in ministry and we were trying to help so many people
and we're doing so many things in missions.
But that didn't actually mean that I wasn't, you know, like,
it was just that I was secretly judging her.
You know, I had a good attitude about most things, but in my heart,
I was like, you're the problem.
And so what that meant is it was really easy for me not to take ownership.
And this is the thing with someone who's got a narcissistic mindset,
is that you're blind to all your issues.
You're pretty much perfect.
And everyone else has the problem.
And it was in our private moments that that came out rather than publicly.
Yeah. So obviously, everyone's trying to be do the best they can with life.
But this was just actually our reality is that in my heart,
I made I was like, you're the problem.
And so I was blind to see any of how any of my behavior
was actually creating the chaos in our marriage.
But what what what I hadn't realized is that it was all the chaos
that I was creating was actually creating the context
for Alana to have a bad attitude about sex.
Right. Like her bad attitude towards sex didn't just come out of nowhere.
And this is what I had.
And this is what I couldn't see, right, is I couldn't see that it was all the chaos
that I was creating and taking no ownership for.
That was creating the context for Alana to have a bad attitude towards sex
because he is a guy who's creating all this chaos and creating all these issues
in our relationship and taking no ownership for it and blaming her for everything.
And so she's not really.
I actually don't really want to have sex with you right now, Benji.
I'm not stoked on our marriage.
And it had been years to get to the point of there to be enough pain
for Benji to be like, I can't handle this anymore.
What has got to change and for him to realize that it was him.
I think one thing to add in there, too, is just the motivational star.
I don't know if you have ever come across that, but it's at six points.
Yeah. Dave Riddell's got six points to his motivational star.
And then if you look at my stuff, I've got eight pillars of motivation as well.
But in both of them, one of the big motivational pillars is pain.
And it's where the pain of change is less than the pain of continuing.
Is that's the motivation to change.
So the pain became so great to continue
that it came to the point that he had to face the pain of change.
And that pain of change was him realizing that maybe he had something to do with it.
Yeah, and it was
one of the I think one of the big things as well, it's just blindness.
It was it was probably I think for me, it was more the blindness of it.
You know, that's one of the things about the narcissistic dynamic
is it just makes you blind to your issues.
So but when I finally but like the pain drove me to ask the question
that I'd never thought to ask, right, because I just made the assumption
that it was all Alana's fault.
But pain got me asking all these questions like we tried all of these things.
We tried this and it didn't work. We tried this and didn't work.
We did this and that didn't help. Nothing's helping.
And so the pain is driving me to ask all these questions like, what is wrong?
Like, where's it going?
And then it was finally like the pain that drove me to ask the I finally asked
the right question, which which I'd never really asked seriously before.
I wonder what I'm how I'm causing problems in the marriage.
And I think.
I feel like a big part for us, I don't know, because we've always been in ministry, so
I don't know how it is for other people, but I feel like, who do you go to when you're
in leadership?
I feel like if we were just pure warmers at church, we would know who we could go to,
we would know who's the relationship pastor or who we could turn to, and it would be okay
to do that.
But because we're in ministry, Benji was leading a hugely successful ministry, you're kind
of, I feel like, I felt like often people put us on a bit of a pedestal, and so therefore
we didn't have many people that we could safely go to and be like, hey, we're struggling.
Or yeah, like for me, I didn't know who we could necessarily go to, to have that conversation.
So I feel like that was quite a powerful part of that equation as well, yeah, and I think
that sucks.
Yeah, totally.
Like when you go it alone, it's always going to be slower.
Yeah, totally.
You know, like, it's always going to be faster, you know, like, if you've got good people
around you, sometimes if you've got dumb, you know, if you've got, you know, dysfunctional
people around you, they're going to give you really bad advice.
So like, we had lots of people coming to us for help, but we didn't necessarily know who
we could go to for help.
And I think like part of this whole thing that we're doing is we want to remove a bit
of the taboo from it, because realistically, most people we know are married in a relationship
or wanting to be in a relationship, and so we need to be able to remove that taboo to
be able to actually talk openly and freely about it and be honest with where we're at.
Yeah, so Zef and I, that was really kind of how it came about, you know, and then when
I finally asked that question, I started getting, I started coming to realise it's like, oh,
whoa, I'm causing an issue.
And then the light started to go on.
I was like, oh, flip, maybe like maybe the fact that I'm punishing Alana with unsafe
emotions and a bad attitude and unsafe atmospheres, maybe that's really not helping our sex
life. Maybe the fact that I'm being a real sulky, victim minded loser in the bedroom
and creating a crapmosphere in our bedroom, maybe this is not good for our sex life, you
know, like, I don't know about you guys, but being sulky is apparently not very sexy.
I don't think it ever worked, you know, like, because my sulking really was just about
trying to manipulate Alana into sex.
And even if it did work, it didn't work in the long run because it didn't achieve the
intimacy and the closeness that I wanted out of it.
Just get bad, bad sex, you know, like maybe a couple of times that it did work, we still
regret it to this day because it's like, that's not good sex, that's bad sex, manipulation
and control going on is not leading to anything that we really, really want.
I'm just going to hit this report button.
And when he realized that he might be part of the problem, he actually over a little
bit of time, it wasn't even that long, came to the conclusion of, I'm not going to
manipulate you anymore, I'm not going to manipulate you anymore.
And so that actually changed the whole atmosphere of our bedroom and therefore, that has
changed the whole atmosphere of our marriage.
Yeah, it was the thing that took us years and years and years was for me to actually
come to the realization that I was the issue.
And once I came to the realization that I was the issue, I was so hungry to fix things.
Right. I was so hungry and so passionate to fix things, but I just didn't know what to
fix. You know, it was it's painfully slow to try and fix a depressed wife.
As a husband, you really can't do much about that.
Like, you have some more vitamins, you know, and you can't do much about that.
You have some more vitamins, you know, but when I saw that there was behavioral issues
in myself that could be fixed, I was like, well, that's actually something that I can
control. That's something I can I can take on.
I can do something that I actually have influence when it's my stuff.
That's the issue. And so once I started to realize, oh, well, I'm creating an issue
here, then I was able to actually start like, really, I'm like, oh, cool, find me something
that I can actually do that will produce a change right away.
Actually, on that, I think Benji wanted to fix everything and I wanted to be heard.
And him coming to that realization of actually he's got something he needs to work on.
He came to the point where he understood me because I wasn't saying anything different
today, as I was saying four years ago.
But he finally heard me.
And so in a way, it fixed the situation.
But I was finally heard.
And the whole time going through, I wasn't being heard.
And he was just trying to fix it rather than.
hearing me if that makes sense and so there was that tension at play as well.
Do you feel like that answers your question? Yeah it does that makes a lot of sense thank you
especially when you mentioned um about being heard I think for um for a lot of for me and
Alicia I think a lot of the breakdown is we're seeing the same thing from different angles
but we're not we're just not allowing each other to be heard by each other
um but yeah um I love your vulnerability to uh to even share what actually happens
behind closed doors and um yeah thank you Benji yeah absolutely oh no worries no worries um
do you want to do a Dr. Phil moment? Yeah sure how does that work? Um well he usually puts you
on a stage in front of people and you confess your deepest darkest secrets and then there's
usually some type of test or something. Sure here's Alicia now we can do it together.
If you want if you want we can we can chat about where you might be stuck if you want to do a
Dr. Phil moment we can do that um if you prefer not to that's no worries.
Let's do it.
Yeah all right and you'll probably find that when we chat about it you'll probably find that
there's a bunch of stuff that's the same you know like that we've gone through as well um
I'll just check this Facebook group and see who's live there as well.
Yeah just check questions um but for you guys um would just be um you know where are you where
are you stuck what's the conversation that you're looping on um yeah I understand that's a real
real dynamic space to be in to answer something like that in a live chat
and if you feel put on the spot Alicia then no worries at all but if you want to chat
the type of thing that I would um accidentally put Alana on the spot
Okay how do you feel about this?
I'm probably more likely to do that to Zee.
We love it.
Can I just ask something?
Zeef and Alicia are you happy for me to be on?
This is our dearly heart friend Veronica.
Sorry Veronica what were you saying?
I was just asking Alicia and Zeef if they're happy for me to
be on while they kōrero because we're quite close.
Oh you guys are mates.
So yeah I mean I'm happy to disappear.
Oh yeah yeah no I understand so I'd probably
like if my mum jumped on here I'd be like oh mum like delete.
We don't want to hear this.
Yeah so just yeah and a huge part of everything that we talk about and what everything revolves
around in the whole relationship journey is about creating safe atmospheres so for us
if you felt unsafe right now then that's a total fail and we wouldn't be interested in doing that
but if you feel safe and if you're happy and relaxed then we're more than happy to jump in and
kind of do some practical and kind of unpack some stuff.
Yeah we feel safe.
Yeah cool cool if you feel safe then chuck out you know like where you feel like you're
stuck in the combo and we'll see how we can help.
Nev welcome as well, Angel welcome, good to have all you beautiful people.
Take it away.
So what was the question?
Um what's the conversation that you're looping on where you feel like you're stuck?
Oh I think it's probably to do with ministry like because we worship pastors at our church
and I think like one of the things that we probably get stuck on is like
the way Zeph sees things and the way I see things are quite different so like I have a
thing towards positivity and so even when it's really bad I'm like it's gonna get better
but Zephanias is the like it's not good enough and we need to change it and and and if it's not
good enough then I'm not good enough and then so we sort of spiral around this thing and then
he wants to be able to share with me openly when this exactly happened on Wednesday night
he wants to share with me openly all these dark thoughts he's having but
like I just can't handle it I'm like it's too much because my positivity it's like it's sort
of like slowly like ebbs away at this like belief deep inside of me that God's going to come through
but he just wants to be able to be open like he just needs to be heard.
yeah, be heard. And so on Wednesday night, he like told me all this stuff and I like,
I've got to go to bed now and I'm doing the dishes and I'm getting like really annoyed.
I'm like arguing in my head. I'm like, why do you always do this to us?
And by the time we got to bed, you know, I'm like, what is it that you want when you tell me
these things? Like, what do you want me to help? How can I help you? Like, how can I respond to you?
Um, and then the next day, you know, he wasn't in that place anymore. So I don't know that,
I don't know, maybe you can share what that's like for you, but that's my, and this, this
happens. It doesn't happen a lot, but we do regularly go back to that place.
Yeah. It's the whole area. I think it's the whole area of us leading together
and bounce off each other as well. And so that night, all I wanted was, I think I just needed
to be heard. And then the next morning, all this stuff spoke to me and then I got clarity straight
away. Um, but I think it was just, it was just a moment of, of, of just like, um, uh, vulnerability,
uh, a moment of weakness, um, uh, as a, as a worship pastor, as a leader. And then as a
husband, I felt like I couldn't share with my wife what's actually happening in my heart
because I feel like I shouldn't be weak because it will come because it would, um, uh, be
detrimental to the atmosphere of my home. But at that moment, all I needed was my wife to just
the love on me by just listening to my heart. And then, um, I didn't want any advice. I just
wanted to be heard. And then, uh, we, you know, we, we talked, went to bed. Uh, um, um, we chatted a
little bit and then the next morning God spoke to my heart and I got clarity straight away. Um,
yeah, I think all, all it was is I just needed to get all this stuff out of me. Um, at the time.
Yeah. And that's really the main struggle is like, uh, it's all to do with, um, us leading together
and doing ministry together and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Well, what would be the scariest
part of that conversation for each of you? What's the, or maybe put it like this. What,
what feels the most feels like the most unsafe part of that conversation for you both?
Oh, that's easy to answer. So for me, it's like, when he's like, I want to quit, I want to stop.
I'm not, I don't want to do this anymore. And I'm just like, but we've like arranged our whole
lives so that we would be doing this, that we've gone all in, you know, we've gone all in for what
we feel like God's called us to do. So for him to say, I want to stop doing it. I'm just like,
we've not taken jobs. We've not moved places. We've not done all these things so that we could
follow this calling. And now you want to give up that to me. I don't know what to do.
Okay. That is really good information. And what we want right now, and this is something
really important to go for guys is, um, you're going to, you're going to see in a moment how
this is going to start weaving in like how the seven sacred pathways start weaving into this,
into this conversation. So just hold, hold fast. You're going to start seeing in a moment,
like the different ways that this seven sacred pathways are playing out in this moment, but that,
that right. So first point, say everyone needs to say good information, good information,
good information. So good information when it comes to the seven sacred pathways belongs to
the intellectual pathway. Okay. So the intellectual pathway is always about getting
really good information. So if you want to master the intellectual pathway, it's about
mastering good information. Okay. So that's the first thing to really note here is good information
makes everyone in the conversation and it empowers everyone in the conversation.
Okay. So, so that's the, that's the first piece that we picked up here from Alicia is she's just
given us some good information and the good information that that's really powerful is what
makes her feel unsafe. So now Zephanias, what makes, what's the, what's the thing that makes
you feel most unsafe about that conversation? Um, I think that I probably felt like, um,
this should be the one person that knows my heart more than anyone else in this world.
And in that moment, I felt like, because I'm, uh, I'm the head of the home, I'm the man,
I'm the husband, I shouldn't be, um, sharing the, the weakest parts of me that will make her feel
weak as well. And that will, and that will add to, um, well this, um, yeah, that would just be,
just be detrimental to the atmosphere of my marriage. And so I just felt like I couldn't
be vulnerable with my wife, like be, be really me who I was.
that moment. Not exactly it was not exactly all of their finance, but who I was at that moment.
I was just in pain. Yeah. Yeah. I was just struggling a little bit. And
the reality is, it's not that I didn't want to quit. It's just that I was just hurting in that
moment. And I just wanted to, I just wanted my wife to see this piece of my heart that's
struggling at the moment. Yeah. Okay. I think we had a similar dynamic in reverse,
is that I often just needed to say my piece and I'm a verbal processor. And so actually me
speaking, it's not what I, I'm not agreeing with what I'm saying. Exactly. I just need to say it
to like process it through. And once I've seen it, it's fine. It's processed, but then he would
take that and he's like, okay, we need to fix it. This is, this is your like final decision
almost because he already processes before he speaks. And so, because of that, he takes what
I'm saying is what I'm actually feeling, what's actually going to happen, when actually I just
need to say it. You don't need to say anything. I just need to say it and you hear me and then
it's done and I can move on. Here's an interesting piece about me, right? Because
remember good information belongs to the intellectual pathway. So good information
about me is that I plan 10 to 30 years ahead of my life. So the moment she's saying terrifying
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
plan and she's saying it like she's just processing what she's just processing, but I'm not hearing
that. I'm, I'm, I'm seeing how this impacts the next 30 years and I'm trying to rationalize it
into, into the next 30 years, you know, like of our plan and our destiny and of course probably
a little bit similar to what Alicia's doing. So she's verbally processing and I'm like vision
planning of what is not actual information. It's just her going blah, blah, blah, blah. I gotta
like get this out and try and figure out. But I wasn't seeing that she was just going blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and just working it through. I'm like,
so, so Zephaniah if we come back to how you're feeling, would it, would it be accurate
if we're going to sum it up that the most unsafe part of that conversation for you
is the fear of being rejected for sharing what's really going on in your heart?
Exactly. Yeah, spot on. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Yeah. And so, so then for a husband, I mean, not just for a husband, for anyone, but
I can really relate to you there is that in this moment you feel like the most,
that the one person in the whole world that should be able to hear you
doesn't want to hear you. And so the sense of rejection that's on that is massive.
And it's multiplied by the fact that you already don't want to be that vulnerable because you don't
want to be that vulnerable because you don't want to expose that weakness.
But because you also have a vulnerable for not hiding and for actually being vulnerable,
letting her see into your heart, you take this extra level of risk and show her this
darkness inside that you didn't even want to show her, but for the value of your relationship,
you show her. And so it's like, it's like this extremely unsafe thing that you do out of value
for your relationship, but then you feel like it gets thrown back in your face
and it just kind of explodes into a whole lot of pain.
Absolutely. Yeah. And like I said at the time, like, it took me a whole hour or two hours to
just even say something to her because we were sitting on the couch for ages, staring at the TV
and I was just, I think we were watching social media,
we're watching seven and clear and like, I'm really loving all that stuff that I'm taking
a little in, but at this moment I couldn't take any more in because I was just in pain
and I just needed to say something. And, you know, like we often say, go to God first before
you go to your wife and which I did at the time, but I just needed to be heard physically. I just
needed to hear a physical voice speak to me at the time. Now this sucks for me because like you
mentioned Benji, like I'm a husband and I have to
I feel like I lead the atmosphere of my home, so I, well we do it together, but I was so afraid
that if I was to share something so dark in my heart that it would make the atmosphere of my
home so depressive, which is why I ran to my wife who should know every dark corner of my heart
and hold it close to you, but I will say though that because that happened it's made our
relationship so much stronger more than ever before. Okay cool, so let me just now weave in
right how, and this is right on point with where we were going to go with our conversation today
anyway, is that the emotional pathway, it's, and if you read the book you'll see this,
but the emotional pathway, it's really connected to chemicals, it's connected to brain function,
it's so connected to chemicals, it's so connected to brain function, but probably the picture
that stands out to me the most in the whole area of the emotional pathway is I once saw a picture
of a little baby snail with a mummy snail, and it was like this, they were both really, really
happy, the mummy snail had a little antennae way out and the baby snail there too with its antennae
way out, and they're just kind of so happy, it was like they were just these very, very happy snails,
but the reason that the picture stood out to me is that it was a picture of a safe atmosphere
because they're, you know, the moment a snail starts getting a little bit scared,
it retracts its antennae, and then if it gets really scared, it goes right inside its shell,
you know, and we use that saying all the time, oh you know like they're really starting to come
out of their shell, or you know, and with the emotional pathway, everything revolves around
how safe we feel, and if we start feeling unsafe, then the first thing that starts getting retracted
is like our antennae, and then we start going, withdrawing all the way back into our shell,
but what happens when we start feeling so unsafe that we have to withdraw right back into our shell
is we start getting into the space of an amygdala hijack, so the brain, right, the frontal cortex
part of your brain is where you do all your clever stuff, or your smart thinking, or your
problem solving, or everything that clever that you do comes out of the frontal cortex part of
your brain, but then your fight-flight part of your brain is the amygdala, and the moment you start
feeling unsafe, your brain starts an arm wrestle, right, and it's an arm wrestle between your frontal
cortex and your amygdala, and if your amygdala comes to the conclusion that this is an unsafe
atmosphere, it actually basically takes control, but when your amygdala takes control,
you can't do anything clever anymore, right, you no longer have access to the intelligent part of
your brain, so you're trying to communicate without intelligence, and that's when we start causing
lots of problems in our communication, so Dave Riddell, his language around that is that,
he's like, at that point, all adults leave the room,
but do you want to share, babe, on how that would work for us in our chats? Yeah, so we would keep
having the same conversation, which would put me into an amygdala hijack, which we can tell,
and looking back now, in hindsight, yeah, not at the time, and so it was just a point, Benji would have
these questions that he was trying to get me to answer, and every time my question was,
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
answer is, and so the whole conversation sort of boiled up to the end of me just, I don't know,
like, paralyzed, I don't know, and we've only just recently realized that that was me in that
complete shut down amygdala hijack zone. I couldn't think, I couldn't reason as to what
was going on inside me, it was just a, I don't know, let's end this conversation,
I can't handle anymore kind of thing, which was the most frustrating thing in the world.
It used to drive Benji crazy.
Because there I was, like, feeling totally rejected,
totally desperate, totally on the edge of myself,
feeling like, you know, I'm having this bump.
It's really similar to you.
I feel like I've just been completely vulnerable
in the conversation about how my heart's breaking
and how I'm feeling.
And then I'm like, babe, can you just respond?
Like, say something, just like,
you know, like, say anything!
And she's like,
oh, that was the worst.
I mean, so that to me put my frustration levels
through the roof,
because I didn't recognize what was happening for her,
that her brain actually doesn't have access
to good information right now,
because I've created an unsafe atmosphere
where she's paralyzed, right?
And now that I've created an unsafe atmosphere
where she's paralyzed,
I am hating her for it, right?
I'm like, ah, what's wrong with you?
You're like, you can't, you,
there's not like, hello!
But, so that was terrible for us.
So bringing it back in for you guys is,
and that's why I asked what's the most,
you know, what feels the most unsafe part
of the conversation?
Because that's something that you have to really recognize,
because the moment that you start feeling unsafe,
your ability to communicate effectively gets lost.
And so you communicate in these really primitive,
ineffective ways that end up hurting each other real bad.
So, Alicia, if we bring it back to you,
when you're starting,
when you hear him starting to process
these dark thoughts,
and you're doing your 30-year plan based on that,
and you're feeling so unsafe by that,
then like the same thing happens for you,
as well as that your brain starts to switch over
from frontal cortex to the amygdala,
and we start to get in this really unsafe place.
But then if you've got two people
having an amygdala hijack, like we were,
the conversation is not very productive.
Yeah.
I think I'm sort of aware that he's just processing,
because, you know, this has happened a fair few times.
So I'm like aware,
but I can sort of like go for only so long,
and then I'm like, it's too much.
And then I feel like I'll betray him
if I want to get out of the conversation,
because then I'll feel like I'm not doing enough.
I'll betray him if I want to get out of the conversation,
because then it makes it unsafe for him.
I'm like, I can listen to you process this for a while,
but now it's getting beyond that point of like,
I can't listen to this anymore,
because I'm starting to think
that you really believe what you're saying,
and that tomorrow you're still going to believe it,
even though often in the morning,
it's not like that again.
And then he'll say things like,
like I'll be like, I think we should just go to bed, babe.
Like, I think you're just really tired.
And he'll be like, it's not that I'm tired.
I'm not tired.
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Please be tired.
I'm like, can we get out of this somehow?
Yeah.
So here's another thing, right?
So today what we really want to touch on
is the spiritual pathway and the emotional pathway.
So it's quite cool that, you know, just in the chat here,
we're actually covering everything
that we wanted to talk about today.
So, you know, the big part about the emotional pathway
is creating safe atmospheres.
You've got to be able to create safe atmospheres
for your communication.
If you don't create safe atmospheres,
then you're never going to be able
to communicate effectively.
So that's the first thing when it comes to, you know,
wanting to have any conversations
or communicate anything deeply is about
how can I create a safe atmosphere?
And so for each of you, or for each of us,
that's got to be our first priority in any conversation.
Okay, right.
How do I create a safe atmosphere
so that we can actually have a conversation
where we don't flip into an amygdala hijack
and damage each other?
But the interesting thing, right,
definitely for yourself, you know, in this moment as well,
is the spiritual pathway, right?
So the spiritual pathway, that's all about identity.
And what I'm just trying to think of how to kind of
summarize the spiritual pathway,
but the spiritual pathway, I think you guys,
a lot of you guys have been onto this,
especially if you've been training for a while,
but the spiritual pathway is about
with us a bit in the Honours School of Scientific because we talk identity here so much, but it's all
how can I create a safe atmosphere
where we can actually have a conversation
about, you know, all of our beliefs, you know, but what you were saying before, and I'm just trying
where we don't flip into an amygdala hijack
and damage each other, right?
to make sure I'm picking it up right, but you were talking before about, maybe I'll just ask you to
talk, can you just talk a little bit more about, you know, how you feel when it feels like things
aren't going well for you in the ministry, you know, how do you feel about that, you know?
It's kind of hard not to take it on yourself, so when things aren't going right,
even though it's not really my fault, I always feel like that's my fault because I'm leading it,
and so as a leader, I take responsibility, and so when things aren't going well, I
tend to internalise everything and then either blame others, but more harshly blame myself,
and then I come home and then just blurt it out, but then like I've learnt to go to God first
in that moment, but then that particular night I just needed to talk to my wife at that point.
Yeah, totally. What would you say is, you know, one of the worst moments you've had,
or one of the worst experiences you've had in ministry, whether lately or previously,
where you just felt, man, this is bad?
I think it was more so, like, we lead the music team at church, and so in preparation for a big
conference that's coming up, I'm a drummer and I'm also a vocalist, and so all I know is I play
drums, and so I'm not a skilled keyboardist or guitarist, but I know when it sounds really good,
and so on Wednesday night it wasn't sounding great at all, but we've got this huge conference
coming up and I just needed to sound perfectly well, and so it was all that stuff that was just
coming at me, and my inner critic was just going crazy saying, you're not good enough to lead this
team, you're not good enough to be this, it was all that stuff that was happening.
Yeah, I think those are some of the worst moments, just feeling like just an
incapable, unqualified, unsuccessful leader, or just being a person really, but I love what you said
about identity. I think since going on the journey of learning about sonship and learning
about the father's heart for me, I think that has been a huge healing for me,
where what I do now just comes out of this sonship identity, more than just me
trying to achieve something to please God or please people. I think his hope is always
to meet expectations, so he's got in his mind that this person or that person are going to expect
this high expectation of him, and so if he's going to fail it, then he's going to fail that
person, and that person represents God, so I'm going to fail God. Yeah, and then if you're going
to fail God, ultimately what we end up doing, whether we're doing it consciously or subconsciously,
we actually take our identity from that and go, well I'm a failure, I will be a failure,
and so what you're using terminology about in a critic, really it's a belief
that, like that voice of the inner critic is fueled by probably subconscious and unconsciously,
you know, unconscious beliefs as opposed to cognitive beliefs, right up here in the
forefront of your mind, but fueled by these beliefs of inadequacy, actually is what fuels that,
right, and so this is where the spiritual part, the spiritual pathway comes in
into play, because the spiritual pathway
is the single most influential pathway of everything, right, because with the seven
sacred pathways, you've got the three foundational ones, right, the first three are the spiritual,
emotional, and intellectual, those are the foundational pathways, and everything rests
on that, then the fourth one you've got is, which I call the forgotten pathway, which is the sensual
I call that the forgotten pathway because everyone's familiar with the five love languages,
which is words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, touch and quality time.
But a lot of people have thought that the touch thing there is just like, if you're
a touch person, your solution is sex, that's the person who just wants sex.
But the book itself actually kind of presents that a little bit more clearly, but I think
for most people, if they think touch, they're like, well, that person wants sex, you know?
That's what you thought.
Yeah, that's 100% what I thought, right?
So the sensual one is the realm of non-sexual touch, so that's why I call it the forgotten
pathway.
And for a lot of couples, that is the missing link in their marriage.
So pathway number four, the sensual pathway, I call it the forgotten pathway.
And then the next three, I call the make or break pathways, which is the financial pathway,
the leadership pathway and the sexual pathway.
So finances, leadership and sex, those are the three top reasons why people divorce, right?
That's why they say, because those are the three that present the easiest.
They're not the things that people, whereas actually, it's probably more likely an issue
in the foundations, but it presents in the make or break pathways.
So that's where it's presenting, but people don't actually realize, actually, now, if
I go deeper, I'm actually going to, actually, if I stopped having amygdala hijacks, or if
I stopped creating unsafe atmospheres, we could probably actually have a safe, rational
conversation about our finances and work it out.
But if you can't deal with the foundational pathways, you'll never have the ability to
resolve the other, when there's issues in the other pathways.
So here's where I'm just saying, this is playing out for you right now.
You're having the, so much of, and this might be wrong, but you can correct me if I'm wrong.
When you're having these conversations with her and you're saying, man, it seems like
a bunch of it is driven from a fear of failure.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that right there is the spiritual pathway needing attention.
And the, so the more you grow in your sansha, right, and it's awesome that sansha is growing
and developing in you, but the more you grow in your sansha, in your identity, the deeper
it goes inside you, and actually the subconscious, unconscious part of your belief system, that
is still voicing an inner critic, those deeper levels, as sansha gets into that part of your
heart, you'll actually find that that fear of failure will evaporate.
So this is why I'm saying, there's an interplay here.
It's not just one thing that's going on.
There's a spiritual side of it.
And as you go deeper and take care of that, that sense of fear or that, you know, that
fear, those fear driven conversations or coming to a place of having a conversation where
you're like, totally terrified, you'll actually really minimize that sense of that feeling
that you're having on the inside.
So you'll have, you'll have less of those conversations.
And for us, that was, that was huge for me, like in our relationship.
As well, because I had a big rejection trigger, and especially when we first got married,
my rejection trigger, it was pretty strong.
So because it was strong, it didn't take much to flip the switch.
It didn't take much to flip the switch.
Yeah.
And that's because I was taking identity, you know, from past rejections, you know,
that was fused into who, into my beliefs, into my worth, that was all fused in there.
And but as I grew on that, like that rejection issue, it just got...
The button went from like this big, and it slowly, slowly shrunk.
I'm just trying to catch up some of these comments here.
Janice is saying, most of my life, I was frozen in the amygdala zone.
This is helping even though I'm...
single now for all relationships, awesome. Angel saying it's a lot to carry. Really good word there
from Nev about she said nothing can happen without a safety zone. This is difficult when one partner
carries severe trauma in their history because they so very easily feel unsafe anyway. So some
things need to shift spiritually and some negotiations need to be made to have brief,
scary times that don't over trigger the other person. I think that's something that you guys
could actually do too is have a negotiation about that particular conversation. What does it look
like? What's the sign for you, Alicia, of like, okay, I'm reaching my limit. And, you know, like
have a negotiation about that of how you can play that conversation out in the future. So you kind
of both know ahead of time what's going to happen. And in the book, we do have sort of like a
conversation structure, which we found really helpful for us to remove some of the emotion
behind what we were saying. And we've kind of refined that over time, but sort of the basic
conversation of what we used for stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's the pretty well known, well used
the I feel I need statements. So most people, I'm not saying all, but a lot of people are familiar
already with the I feel I need statement. So if you look in the book, and if you don't have the
book, then there's a link in the description of this video. And there's a, you know, I've dropped
it in the comments. Here we go, dropping it in the comments again. But in there, you'll find a
just like a blueprint for how you can have those I feel I need. And
when it comes to unsafe atmospheres, right? Sometimes,
sometimes, something's genuinely unsafe, and sometimes you're just insecure.
Insecure. So that's a real balance, right? Because when we're struggling in our identity,
everything feels unsafe. And so,
and as Benji says all the time, your feelings can lie to you.
Yeah, tell your feelings the truth.
So this is this is quite a trip, right? This is quite a trip, quite a balance here.
And obviously, I would just say, like, go and check out the book for like the real like,
because I spent, you know, weeks, like meticulously getting the
all the little pieces in place. And you can do it so well in a book, because you spend
hours and hours and hours putting every little piece of information in the right systematic place.
But having a plan or a strategy before you have that conversation,
again, is really helpful, because you're thinking about it with your thinking brain,
rather than getting to that conversation and being an overload and going,
and then causing each other more pain.
Yeah. And I think that, you know, the one of the great things about this,
one of the reasons why we wanted to have the Seven Second Pathways to Intimacy training in
the Online School of Sonship is because we're going to point nearly everything points back
to the foundations, which is okay, go deeper in your sonship, you know, like go deeper in
your identity, because this is where it's all going to happen. Like, just keep going on that,
keep going on that journey there. Because like, and here's like, here's a kind of a chicken or
an egg scenario that I just wanted to chat about for a moment. The chicken or the egg scenario is
what comes first, right? Should a person be courageous enough to be vulnerable first,
right? Because you, you need to have a safe atmosphere to have a vulnerable conversation,
right? That picture of the snails, you know, with their antennae out, that's them in their most
vulnerable place, they're fully exposed. And that's where we're going to have our best
conversations is when we're being completely vulnerable, 100% transparent, totally exposed.
That's when you're going to get the best information, right? And that's what we all need.
If we want to create a marriage where we all get what we want, when we want it, and how we like it.
I can't give Alana what she wants, when she wants it, and how she likes it, if she doesn't give me
that good information. But I'm only ever going to be able to get that good information.
from her, if she's courageous enough to be completely vulnerable with me.
So it's kind of like this chicken or the egg catch 22 moment where it's like, well, what
comes first, right?
What comes first, the safety or the vulnerability or the good information that you can kind
of get caught in a stalemate, you know, it's like, we have a lot of roundabouts in New
Zealand.
And the thing with a roundabout is you have to give way to the, you know, to someone,
right?
But if you've got four cars, all at a roundabout, someone has to break the law, but they didn't
think that through very well.
It's like, okay, just hope that the whole law revolves around, hopefully, we don't ever
have four cars at the roundabout at the same time, otherwise, you're like, it's a stalemate.
But the thing that actually has to come first in a relationship is courage.
That's the thing that has to come first, because I remember, you know, so many terrifying conversations
that we've had, countless terrifying conversations where I felt just like you, Zephanias, where
I had this information, I, you know, I didn't, I had these feelings, I was having these thoughts
that I didn't want to, this was actually a real big deal, because I was in a place in
our relationship where I was like, I don't want to shut you out, right?
And I'm, I was walking a thin line of I'm either going to have a courageous conversation
with you right now and tell you how I'm feeling, or I'm going to have to make a decision that
I'm going to shut you out.
But I was, I was being, I was really mindful of the fact that I didn't want to start practicing
shutting Ilana out.
Because I know I was like, man, if I start doing that, I'll shut you out, I'll shut you
up, I'm going to end up just like, I'm going to build a big wall in my heart towards you.
So the only way to avoid that, building that big wall was to have this courageous conversation.
Unfortunately, she was often having an amygdala hijack at the time.
So she was kind of like, I don't want this courageous conversation.
So it wasn't necessarily done perfectly.
We didn't do it well at all, let's be honest.
It was, there was some good elements, but it was still a mess, right?
But I thought, I kind of, in my mind, where I was at is like, it's better off if I do
this badly than if I put up, than if I build a wall.
So that was the thing that I was trying to protect the most, is in my heart, I don't
want to start building a wall in my heart and shutting you out so that you don't know
where I'm at, so that you never have good information.
So that was a thing for me.
I was like, man, I'm trying really, really hard right now to be vulnerable, to be real,
to be authentic.
And it was done pretty badly a lot of the time in the sense that she already felt unsafe.
She's having an amygdala hijack and I give her information she can't process and I want
her to respond well to me.
But so that's where it didn't go well.
But the thing that we did do well is gave each other that vulnerable information.
Well, at least I did.
And you went.
So, yeah, that's kind of the thing is like this courage is the thing that's most needed
so you don't get caught in that stalemate of who's going to be vulnerable, who's going
to, you know, start this conversation or.
Someone has to go first.
Yeah, so I think maybe just open up for any last Q&A on that.
It's been a cool kind of chat.
Yeah, I mean, like, thank you.
Like, I didn't expect this today.
I just saw the email pop up and I was like, oh, they're doing a live.
Let's jump on.
This was a bit chaotic.
But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean,
yeah.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's been cool.
You know, like, obviously it was a God appointed moment to talk about what happened last night.
And I think we're going to have a great conversation after this about how we might have a conversation
next time we're in that place.
So, yeah, I'm really thankful.
Thank you, guys.
And I hope it blesses whoever watches later on.
I think, yeah, I'm grateful that we both value vulnerability and we are courageous in our relationship.
to share even if it gets a bit messy yeah yeah absolutely and that comes across really
beautifully from both of you so that's awesome and we're really excited for you guys and
love what you're building and your marriage and in your ministry that's exciting times
thank you yeah thanks so much you guys for all you've implemented in part and then
taking the time out to yeah feel this
no worries and i think again you know like um just journeying through the book will help
with that but i think you guys are in a really good you're in a really good place
it's just keep on like keep on doing the basics well that you're doing
um you know like you keep growing in that identity stuff and you'll find that the
that level of fear and you know that sense of failure that just minimizes and then
the way it all creates this compounding effect of momentum where um where the atmosphere
automatically because you're not feeling like failure whatever you automatically start creating
safer atmosphere to to and you're communicating from a safer atmosphere and so then there's less
of these amygdala hijacks going on and maybe i'll just i'll say a couple of things here like the
spiritual pathway right the spiritual pathway is the pathway that determines um our our ability
to receive and to express love right so when we when we have an identity issue of any sort
what that does is that restricts our ability to receive divine love
and so if you're in a place of fear fear is evidence of an identity crisis because fear
is evidence that the love has stopped flowing in that particular moment or that particular
dynamic because perfect love casts out all fear so as we grow in that spiritual dynamic
yeah i would say like this that sonship mature sonship is the ability to receive divine love
perfectly and to give perfect expression to divine love so the spiritual pathway determines
our ability personally to receive divine love and our ability to express divine love
the emotional pathway determines our ability to communicate love
so you can kind of see like how it becomes quite the dance right like and then the intellectual
pathway determines our ability to specifically love our spouse the way that they want to be
loved like how they want to be loved when they want to be loved just the way they like it
so you kind of got those three things those foundational pathways all kind of
balancing out kind of interplaying all the time with each other
anything to add on it
which one
lana yeah we'll save that story lana's got a funny story probably
yeah it is a funny story but we'll save it for another day
for another day um anyone else wanted to add anything in here some cool comments happening
in the chat i would just ask a question um for zephaniah do you love your son when he fails
yeah yeah absolutely because that's how he loves you
yeah you need to know that he loves you completely whether you fail whether you
succeed with you whatever you do and you're not failing him he knows your limitations
your limitations
and as far as alicia um just recognize that when
zeph does do this verbal vomit that yeah it's okay just listen and and just ask him do you need
a hug
sorry guys wait i just looked i just looked at my phone and it was at one percent battery
and this is what we use for internet it's hot spotting the internet i was like
and i just got this plugged into it just in time but then it actually died anyway so
Yeah that's why I was a little bit distracted there.
I was about 30 seconds too late.
Sorry so I just I missed you guys for a little bit.
But Michelle thank you so much for sharing that.
That's beautiful.
I appreciate that.
Anyone else want to want to jump in there?
Hey there that was I'm just impressed by your openness.
So great really cool.
Hey I just want to add happy birthday Benji.
It's actually Alana's birthday is the 19th and I'm the 23rd.
So this is birthday week for us.
Before we had kids we used to not do dishes and stuff all week.
But now we have kids so it doesn't matter.
But in the future we joke that we had kids to serve us on birthday week.
We'll train them up.
Thank you Raewyn.
You're welcome.
Did you have anything else you wanted to add in there?
Some great comments.
Nothing hugely Benji.
My only thought is around process.
That all of these things are like Alicia and I'm sorry I can't pronounce your husband's name.
You're a little child.
You know we all learn to walk and we it just it's a stumbling process.
We practice we get it wrong.
We fall we pick ourselves up.
Do you know and now all of us are walking and running on two legs.
But it's process.
And so learning all these skills just takes time.
We need to forgive ourselves and have grace for ourselves.
And learn and be have the humility that you know Benji and Alana are demonstrating.
To apply ourselves to new skills and know that hey God has a third option.
When we can only see two there's always a third.
And he'll open that way up for us.
So that we can find the path in the relationship that he has for us.
You know with new skills knowledge will increase on the earth.
God always has more to bring to us.
So and you know just that be aware of process.
It takes time.
Be gracious to let us all be gracious to ourselves and to one another.
And again thanks to Benji and Alana.
Pleasure, pleasure.
Hey here's an interesting question before we wrap up.
But who has seen who's seen all of these dynamics model really,
really, really well to them in the home that they grew up in.
Who grew up with mom and at home where mom and dad just nailed communication.
Like they were amazing.
Put your hand up if you were in that place where mom and dad were just amazing.
They were communication ninjas.
I actually growing up never and to this day I've never seen my parents argue ever.
And like my mom has never raised her voice at us.
Never at my dad.
Never had a tone of frustration.
And I asked her about this recently.
She said there were times when I did.
But we always did it behind closed doors.
There you go.
Yeah and so I feel like that was great.
But at the same time it was never modeled to us.
Because it was always behind closed doors.
Yeah but I am really thankful that I didn't get to see the
tension and yelling and that kind of thing.
But compared to Benji's family where I used to be mortified.
Oh I do.
Yeah so I just that was really a question that came off the back of
you know Nev's comment about process.
Like there's not many people in the whole world who can say that their family
modeled good communication.
That they modeled you know walking like their parents modeled walking in sunshine.
Their parents modeled you're just communicating in an amazing way.
That their parents modeled you know these seven sacred pathways to intimacy.
And talk to their children through it.
And that's one thing we're quite we try to be intentional with
is talking our children through the process.
Because I feel like often like when we were kids
you never got talked about the process.
You might have got told the rules of what's acceptable.
But never the why or the how or that kind of thing.
So for us like when it's finances when it's communication and
sorting out issues between the kids.
We actually try and talk them through the process and yeah.
Although Zoe did ask me about how someone gets pregnant.
we just last week she was like she's six and she's like the question she actually asked me was um
because i put isra isra and zoe share a bedroom at the moment but there is a spare guest bed
and anyway some kids have come around they made a total mess of isra's bed so i said oh you jump
in the spare bed um isra and uh i don't know who she's been talking to what conversation there was
but she said to me that if i slept in that bed with isra too would i get pregnant oh my and i was
like uh no you wouldn't and she's like is that because i'm still young if i was a teenager would
i get pregnant and i was like ah and then she just like right like now and he's like dad how do you
get pregnant and i was like we're not ready for that process yet i kind of
i kind of fobbed her off i was like yeah you're six you probably don't need to understand
all those details just yet but um it was kind of funny she obviously heard someone
chatting about sleeping with someone and getting pregnant or something
um but i guess the the dynamic here is that you know when we mask these seven sacred pathways
and its journey and that's kind of the whole point of this is just creating a space where
we can keep having these chats and and bringing different dynamics in and going deeper on these
seven sacred pathways the idea is that we can create a whole new culture and we can model
something brand new to the next generation and i think that when we really want to you know
disciple nations this is one of the most powerful places to actually when it comes to actually
practically getting things in place and putting things establishing things we can't we'll never
disciple nations if we can't have phenomenal marriages um so to me this is one of the
places where having big dreams has to have a practical yes application yes
sweet okay yeah we still have um
sorry this is so precious like alicia
oh sorry maybe i don't have a good connection no no you're okay now we can hear you now this
is so precious like for you and your children
um what's that
you are cutting in and out a little bit um but just go again we can kind of hear you at the moment
oh okay i was just saying this is so priceless but uh alicia and her husband and other young
people like yourselves are learning these skills now to teach it and model it for the next generation
because so many of us i mean even how i raised my children
it was not to go i have to admit you know and um it's just so priceless
yeah exciting thank you so yeah spread the app
here let me um i know very cool well bless you guys we love you and let's um we need to get our
our irish prayer to wrap up with neve it's always important to have the irish blessing
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
we just bask in your light and we thank you for your light to shed forth with revelation
knowledge insight and the love of jesus christ to permeate down through the depths of our being
and to filter out into the nitty-gritty of how we talk to each other how we think about each other
how we walk together and all of the things that we learn how to communicate how to risk when it feels
slightly unsafe but to just take that risk anyway how to negotiate around it all of those things
that your light and your love and the things of your kingdom would permeate through our being
right down to the nitty-gritty and i'm just reminded of the clean animal in leviticus
had a split hoof and it left two marks on the sand we walk in two places simultaneously so lord
may we walk in the heavens with you and have your light and life and deep within our being and may we
walk on the earth at the same time and that one impacts the other bringing bringing your kingdom
right down into you know that place where we make the tea and we make the toast and we feed the
children and we just do the ordinary everyday things and we talk and walk with each other
and so Lord we just thank you for all the learning that has been in this time and for
Benji and Alana and for the for everyone who participated in this in this zoom tonight and
for those who are listening to the future we bless you with the learning that brings
life in Jesus name amen thank you so much Niamh and bless you all we'll catch you guys soon see
you bye