Episode 112
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You are listening to episode 112 of the peaceful mind podcast.
Welcome to the peaceful mind podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind. You need to be the best bomb you are created by God to be. If you wanna bring more balance, more joy and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host certified life coach at Catholic mom, Danielle Thienel. In the name of the father of the son and of the holy spirit.
Let's get started.
Ooh, have I got a special episode for you today? I will be interviewing a clinical psychologist who specializes in the science and practice of positivity. One of my favorite subjects. His name is Dr. Paul Jenkins. And you'll hear more about him. All of his credentials in a few moments when we start the interview.
But I first wanna just tell you that I met Dr. Paul in a group coaching program. Now not everyone in this group is a coach, but Dr. Paul happens to be one as well. I know that you're going to get so much out of our conversation today and don't forget to wait till the end, because he is offering. Wonderful free gift for all of you mamas for my listeners and speaking of group coaching programs, we are having such a good time right now in my Busy to Balanced life coaching small group for moms.
And in case you didn't know, it's one of the things that I do offer it's super fun. I get to help a lot of mama's and I will be opening up spots soon for a new group. So go ahead and. Check out the show notes where you can get your name on the wait list. So I know your interests, and as soon as the details become more concrete, I'll be getting them out to all of you.
And without any further ado, please enjoy this episode on the seven key relationships with my conversation with Dr. Paul Jenkins. Welcome Dr. Paul. I'm so excited to have you here on the podcast. Hey,
Danielle, this is fun. You know, you were a guest on my podcast, not too long
ago. That's right. Which was so fun.
Hey, good things happen every time you and I talk. So I'm excited for this.
Yes. And I definitely, after we had that conversation and what we've talked about since we've became friends is, is. Totally shouting that my listeners need to hear from you. So I'm so excited today to talk to you because so first of all, just, I'm gonna have you introduce yourself.
Tell us a little bit about your credentials and then, then also your family life, right.
Well, you might be referring to some news I shared with you before we turned the mic on today. Exactly. I have, I have a brand new grandson. Oh. As of last night when we're recording this. Yes, it was last night. I got a message from my son that he was born and his health and strong and mom is doing well.
And that just warms my heart. I have such a soft space in my heart for my little grand. I've got six now.
So, and I'm not, I'm not there yet, but I know you've talked about becoming an empty nester and things like that. So, but I've, I've had a little taste of it recently with my girls going off to college.
Um, but yes, congratulations. Mm-hmm, a new life. It's so special. What a
blessing? Well, I tell you, life comes at you fast and babies don't keep, so that drives a lot of what I do. Actually. You, you asked me to introduce myself, I'm a psychologist. I've been a professional psychologist now for three decades.
And the first half of my career was in traditional psychotherapy. I worked primarily with kids, children, adolescents, and obviously their parents and families. And I learned so much from that part of what I did though. Danielle was yuck work. have I told you this before?
No. Tell me
more. Oh, I was, I spent about 13 years.
As a child custody evaluator for the court that yuck work, these are bitter angry, divorcing people can't figure out how to share their kids. And I get thrust into the middle of that. I'm grateful that I don't do that work anymore, but I sure learned a lot. And I'm sharing that now in the coaching practice that I have currently.
So I, I transitioned from the traditional psychotherapy over to positive psychology. Life and family coaching. That's
all I do now. And that's exactly when we were first introduced to each other. Why that perked up my ears and why I'm like, you know, to hear you talk about how you, it used to be more of a like messy sort of situation.
Whereas when I hear the word positive, Right because I am a huge fan of positive thinking and just like aiming towards the positive, not in a, like the overdone, maybe what you've heard the word toxic. Positivity type, you know? Yes. Because with our coaching, we know that that can not be useful either. Mm mm-hmm but tell me even about that name, cuz that's why I was drawn to you to think positive psychology.
Well, we've tossed that word around as if we know what it means. and as a psychologist, I feel a responsibility to help people understand how to operate the equipment of their own mind, mind. So I've developed models around that, that get past the trite, fluffy, just think positive that you hear from motivational speakers or, or coaches or podcasters.
Sometimes we get down to the psychology behind it, and I've got a whole model that I use in my trainings and my coaching. But it's interesting that you mentioned toxic positivity. The name of my book is pathological positivity. Interesting, which, which is a little different from, uh, I mean, toxic positivity, the way it gets, uh, mentioned out there in mainstream, it, it has to do with just ignoring any pain or difficulty pasting on a smile and proceeding as if everything is peachy.
And that's not the kind of positivity that I teach and that I train on it. In fact, the word pathological. Also means compulsively driven, like a pathological liar just can't stop. Right. Right. And pathological positivity is about choosing on purpose, a positive position. Relative to your circumstances and you, and I both know as coaches, that circumstances are neutral
that's right.
But even what you just brought up, and this is part of like, with my moms and my clients that we work with it, they immediately, when they find out that it is their. Internal life, their mind, their mental health and their emotions. Right. And that getting to a more positive place is the goal. Because, you know, when you're thinking more positively, you're feeling better and if you're feeling better, you're doing better and then you're getting better results.
But as soon as that, um, you know, my, my clients find out that that is the way. Then they immediately step into judgment that they shouldn't be thinking negative thoughts and that they should go and find the positive thoughts. But what you just mentioned was, was exactly what we want. Right. Um, you know, that we want to be able to uncover those, those thoughts that we're having, not to judge them, but just again, right.
We can't make any progress and move forward. If we don't know where we're starting. But in that notion, then that's what I like, because I want to, we wanna pivot and we want to like make, even if it's small strides, any stride, more towards being able to have a perspective to look at life in a positive manner is gonna be beneficial to everyone.
Yes. So
yes, yes it's until we see it as a choice. It's not that's right. So my job is to illuminate the obvious. This is so cool. Daniel. I get paid to tell people things they already know. Oh, right. But there's so many obvious processes going on in our own mind that we don't even notice obvious, but unnoticed kind of like the feeling of your shirt.
Can you feel. Now .
Now that you mentioned it, I'm feeling it. Now that I mentioned that's the point I had to bring my consciousness there. I had to bring my thoughts to, yes. Can I and answer that question? Can I feel it on my skin? Right. And
now that you're aware of it, that's right. It's obvious to you. Yeah.
But your mind. Loss is over. You don't even notice it. And this is where many of our thoughts are. So I teach my clients to start with a process called metacognition. Oh boy. And that's a fancy cycle babble word. We make up words in psychology. It makes us feel smart. And this one, if you break it down, cognition means, think.
Metacognition is a higher level. It's thinking about thinking. And do you notice that you can do
this? Yes. That separation of becoming the watcher, right? The watcher of your brain? Yes. Oh my gosh. You go to that level of
awareness. Yeah. And suddenly it changes the game because metacognition creates a space and in that space, it's where choice exists.
Dr. Paul, what I'm realizing now is that I just think that you and I could have a conversation about every aspect of our, our mind and positivity and psych, like, right. Yeah. Uh, we could go on for hours, right? Well, you could, and with my we'll see, and I just wanna make sure, because, because of my interactions with you and becoming a listener of your podcast, tell everybody the name of your podcast.
It's called live on purpose
radio. Okay. Just that right. Living on purpose, which is both. Yeah. You know, my mission and your mission to help others be able to do that. And then for my audience in particular, I focus in on moms, right? Yes. So I want them to become more purposeful and more, um, you know, have more peace, more balance, more joy, and knowing that they have the choice.
To create a life that's full of that. Right. Okay. Yes. So, but I, in, in, in becoming friends with you and having conversation and learning more about what you do and of being a podcast listener, there was a subject that you had on your podcast, which is what wanted me to have you on today. Mm-hmm and I want, I think this will benefit my listener so much because a lot of my mission is to help moms realize that that when they feel better, they will do better.
And that feeling. Oh yeah. Feeling better and, well, you know, not that feeling bad is something that we are gonna eradicate ever. Like it's part of this human life mm-hmm , but in doing so it causes like, when I say it means that they have to put attention on themselves. And a lot of times when I, I say that, well, we, we wanna maybe even put ourselves first at times.
I get a lot. I know that I get a lot of brain pushback. If I, if they don't say it to me, I can see the thinking bubbles coming up from their heads. but, but I wanted you to bring your expertise and what, you know, in your over 30 years of working with children and parents and, and in this realm of, um, the relationship like hierarchy, I guess, is that mm-hmm, like, um, maybe the way we look about where we fall.
Anyways, I'm just gonna hand it over to you. Cause you know what I'm talking about to, to, to talk about this subject.
Absolutely. And I look at this as the context. Okay. So we have purpose as human beings. I believe that I think every one of us has a divine God given purpose. I agree why we're here on this planet.
And I think that that purpose comes with power. Meaning. The gifts and skills and talents and amazing mind that each of us has. So we have purpose, we have power and we have a context. All of that purpose and power has to happen in the context of our seven key relationships. I think that's what you're getting at Daniel.
Yes. Cause I know you were listening in as Vicky and I, my wife and I had a conversation on my podcast about this for our 500th episode.
That's so amazing. That's so amazing. And that's, that is the subject I want you to dive into because when I heard that, I thought, I thought this will help my listeners so much.
This will help them understand why it is that we benefit so much with understanding. Like the hierarchy for lack of a better word, the key relationships we have in our life and what order that's, that's the word I was looking for and what order we put them in and how that affects us,
that. So keeping in mind that you have a purpose and whether you're tuned into it yet or not, you have a purpose, a divinely appointed purpose.
You have power. To fulfill that purpose and it's going to happen in the context of these seven key relationships. Okay. And a little disclaimer, Danielle, tell us, this is just my opinion.
We're, we're holding them all, like on a little bit of a limb here. We haven't, we're not revealing yet. Well,
but let me give you so it's my opinion.
Okay. Everybody has opinions and, and I, the context of my opinion has been shaped. Through over a half a century on the planet. Okay. So I got that behind me. having raised my I'm behind you. All my kids are emptiness. I'm Vicki and I are empty nesters now. And our kids are raising our grandkids now, which is awesome.
Cool phase of life and 30 years of clinical experience as a professional psych. Including yuck work. okay. That I've done. So, so that's the context of my opinion. You don't have to agree with me. In fact, don't take anything that I say as gospel truth. Please run it through your own filters of truth and see where it resonates with you.
So number one, and I say these in order.
Okay. Okay. That's the important part,
right? Number one. Is your creator now, Danielle, you and I are both people of faith. We are, I think many of the listeners today are as well. And most people on the planet actually believe in some higher power, whatever yours is. I am not your spiritual advisor, but I am acknowledging that for psychological health.
And to fulfill your purpose with the power that you have, you have to come to terms with your source. Because that speaks to everything else and it helps to add purpose and meaning to what you're doing. My podcast is called live on purpose, right? Yeah. It means you have a purpose and that you engage in that purpose intentionally.
So, so this helps us to understand it.
Okay. So, so what you're doing is revealing the first key relationship in order, would you say in order of importance, I'm just curious how in order of importance, and we say that, that, and for us as you and I speak, it would be God, that's what we call our creator and our source.
So, yes. So we're, we're really putting in order what should be our most important relationship? We. And that's with God.
Okay. And the reason they have to come in order and trust me over 30 years of clinical experience, I've seen people mix up the order. Okay. And I have yet to see anyone do that and successfully experience peace, joy, happiness.
That's right. Okay. Okay.
Okay. So that's why I put them in this order. Now again, you don't have to agree with me. I'm just coming from my background of professional experience. That's number one. Okay. Your creator. Number two, yourself.
What you mean? Not your kids next?
No, they're on the list. Trust me. All right.
But self comes next and a lot of people skip this one, Danielle. Yes. They don't even realize that it's a relationship.
When I bring up the kids, I do it jokingly because what I know is that this is what a lot of people out there will do is put their role as a mom or their family ahead of themselves. Yes.
But I'm in complete agreement. And how, and what I teach in my program, um, in, in when my coaching clients, whether it's in the group or whether it's one on one as knowing that mm-hmm, , it's yourself, that we're focusing on the relationship have you have with. Because, you know, we're believing that if we focused on our kids and made them happy, you know, and our spouses, then we would achieve our goals.
And it's actually the opposite that we wanna concentrate on yourself. Okay. So go ahead. And I have to tell you yourself,
the psychological research and the literature on this supports that 100%, because we've always known that there's a correlation between, um, how you're doing personally. And everything that we measure in terms of success, like how your family's doing, how your marriage is doing, how your finances are doing mm-hmm but we got it backwards.
You know, we, we used to think, oh therefore, if all those things are going well, then I'm gonna have, I'm gonna be good with me, right?
No, but you wanna get good with you? Way around first?
Yes. What, what causes, what? OK. Just go here with me for a minute, because when you get on an airplane yeah. And you're going somewhere exotic, like Nashville, Tennessee or where that's
I'm I'm gonna push, push a little bit more exotic than that.
But anyways, I'm I'm on
board. Well, the last, last time I traveled to Nashville, my friends who lived there were gone somewhere. Yeah. So anyway, I was sorry to. Um, but let's say you're going somewhere even more exotic than Nashville, Tennessee or wherever. Okay. Yeah. You get on the plane and you're taxing out and the flight attendants stand up in the aisles or call your attention to the video monitor because they've got a safety routine.
To go through. Do you know the one I know you're supposed
exactly what you're referring to. Yes. You're supposed
to follow along in your little laminated cart, who actually does that. Ooh,
confession here.
but they go through and just in case you've been in a coma for 50 years, they tell you how to Fasten a seatbelt and release it.
Right. They, the very basic stuff, but they always come to this part. If we lose cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the. Very attractive little yellow cups should Fasten 'em on with a rubber band and they remind us if you are traveling with children or someone who needs assistance, put your own mask on first, first, and then help the person that you're traveling with.
Why? Yeah. See
natural. Right? We need oxygen to live. Right. But we need it to move. You can't help anyone else. If you yourself, don't have the oxygen first.
Yes. Thank you. If you're out cold in the aisle, you're just in the way , you're part of the problem and you're not helping your child put your own mask.
On first, my son is a pilot, Danielle, and he flies. Planes. And he shared with me, I didn't even know this above a certain altitude. One, at least one of the pilots has to put on an oxygen mask. Yeah.
And we, I didn't know this about you, but one of my daughters, she flies planes too. yeah. So we, it that's cool.
We understand it. Listen, Dr. Paul, but what are you cuz I know, again, I run into this who moms, who they will say, like I don't have time or. Like to fit in like again, oh my gosh, their definition of self care, or, you know, it sounds nice, but I don't have the money for that. Or, you know, or they don't even know what would it look like to put myself first without having all of this, this story and the mind and their thoughts and the patterns that they've had all these years, that, that is selfish or that, Hey, you shouldn't.
There's
a lot of head trash that gets in the way hire a coach.
that's right. Best time
is good coaches out there somewhere. Now let's go forget about air transportation for a minute. Let's go to ground transportation. You're in your car. You've got the minivan loaded up where you're heading somewhere, somewhere.
There's really important. And you look at the gas gauge and it's almost on empty. It's just bumping up against. But you think I don't have time to stop for gas? I don't have the money. I'm just gonna keep moving forward
and hope that I'll get there. Yeah. You won't or wait to feel or wait to feel better.
Once I arrive, that's where we get caught up too. Right. Thinking that maybe my will be
full then mm-hmm you gotta stop and fill the tank people now here's, here's the thing about self. In fact, you know, Ja and Stephan she's I love her lovely podcast about want to want it. I think that's so cool. And I was a guest on her show, but I heard one of her episode, she was talking about self care mm-hmm and how we get it wrong.
See, we think that selfcare. Is pampering ourselves, spoiling ourselves a little bit, doing something, you know, an activity that we wanna do, self care. Let me be very careful, which I'm
all for that too, by the way. I I'm all for that too. However, yes. Yes.
It's a portion of what you get to do, but that does not equate to selfcare.
That's just something that you can do along those lines. Self care is about how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself. If I talk to you the way you talk to you would be, would we be friends, right?
Exactly. I know what you're getting at. I have a podcast episode, similar that's called bully brain or bully versus best friend.
And that's just trying to give you more awareness is how are you talking to yourself? Because right. The bully one is not self-care drawing on what your best friend would tell you is self-care. Hey, if
you think the way you're talking to yourself is self-care just try doing that with your BFF,
right.
with friends like that. Who needs enemies? Yeah. Right. So it's really, it's really about getting your head straight, because guess what? Every other relationship, including the first one we mentioned, yes, God is going to be affected by how you're handling number. The
relationship with yourself with
yourself?
Yes, it is so essential. Look the best your mom, the best gift you can give your children is a loving, functional, healthy, happy, happy
mom, mom. Yes. Yes. This is what I say when they want that for their kids and their children. And I say, but you don't understand if you concentrate and do that first. right.
Mm-hmm and we know that taking care of yourself is also prioritizing that you've, you've taken care of the you're taking care of the relationship with the number one with God. Right. That's part of it. And then it's yourself. Yeah. Then you will. You will be filling in the holes like as if you are. I give this, uh, to my client, sometimes this visualization of you being like a bucket, but right now, if we don't one take care of our relationship with, um, God and with ourself, we are going to have holes in that bucket.
So whatever you fill it with, whatever you try to go after, you're gonna always have leaks and it's gonna come. But making sure when you concentrate and fill yourself up and taking the self care and making sure like, as Dr. Paul said, getting your head straight, getting your head, right?
Yeah. Get rid of that stink and thinking.
Yeah. Because anytime my clients come to me on a weekly basis and it. That is filling in and plugging up one of the, the holes, one of the leaks mm-hmm . And then you wanna get to the point where you're filling yourself so much, that that bucket will automatically overflow and where will it overflow to?
Right. Who's close to you the most, your husband and your children, and then therefore you have affected them and gone closer to whatever it is that you want for them. Yes, but it happened when you first concentrated on. This is only number two. I know. Right? So we better seven to relationships. Well, yeah.
Tell us what the next one is. And then we can even go back to even watch where the order is, you know what, and I'm
just gonna give you the rest of the list. Okay.
Yeah. Do that.
Because this one, this one is so essential, but it gets ignored all the time and we go out there and we're so compassionate and loving and kind to everyone, except for.
Where we get really harsh and cruel and judgemental toward ourselves. Mm-hmm and, and, and we're also up against our programming here. Now, when I say programming, I mean language. Okay. You and I are speaking in English today. Did you notice that? I did
notice, especially now that you brought attention to it yeah.
To see
how this works and why did we pick English? There's other language. See, we don't even question that cause it's our programming. You and I were programmed to speak English by people who didn't give us a choice. Well guess what else? They programmed us with E every key relationship we get training and programming on, including ourselves.
And we hear, oh, it's selfish to do this or that. Right. I believe Danielle, there's a benevolent power. In self interest. Agreed. Agreed. I noticed, I didn't say
selfishness agreed. Yes, agreed. Fully 100%. I
am reminded of this. Every time I get on the freeway, you know, we're out there in steel. This two ton media.
Okay. Propelling down the, the road at, at 70, 80 miles an. Okay. How can we do that safely? Because everybody on that road is looking after their own self that's. Right, right. Mm-hmm we choose to follow the rules to go the right direction, for example, or to stay in our lane. And we're not doing that because we care about everybody else.
We're caring about that in order to be safe. If people don't take care of their self-interest, we don't have any defense against that. Notice what happened on September 11th, 2000. Or imper Harbor for Pete's sake. How do you guard against someone who abandons their own? Self-interest like a suicide bomber there's we don't have any defense for that.
We count on people to take care of themselves because it keeps all of us safe.
And I also, oh, I'm sorry. Finish. Well, I just,
I, I just want to emphasize that. Yeah, because the benevolent power of self interest look for you to take care of yourself, benefits you. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, but that's the bonus prize, cuz guess who else?
It benefits. That's
right. Everybody else on your list. Yes. And I bring this same, um, concept up when I'm talking about how we. like, we really wanna tap in to what it is that we truly want. What, like right. Lights us up because the, if everybody was doing what they want, we've had a lot happier society all as a collective together.
Right. Right. Instead of thinking that you have to, or you should do, because this is what society has taught us. right. So you know what?
You're right. We could spend hours on this. I know you just, you're just tapping into another training that I do called happy Nomics.
Yeah. I love the wor I love the words that you have
income.
We'll probably get into that in another conversation, but if we go back to our seven key relationships we've covered now, your creator, the number one, number one, yourself. Number two, number two, your spouse. Is number three, number three. Okay. Yeah. Now some people might be thinking, well, I don't have a spouse, Dr.
Ball. Okay. That's fine. If you don't have a spouse, we'll collapse the list and you'll drop to number four. Okay. Your
children, children, number four. Okay.
Now notice I put spouse before children. Mm-hmm . Yeah, but what if you're remarried? What if you've got a blended family? Remember my experience with this.
I spent 13 years doing child custody evaluations. I've seen a lot of blended families and I've heard this before. I love my spouse, but you know, what's coming, my children come first, first. Okay. Yeah. And I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to say that's a little misguided. Okay. Because what are we raising our kids to.
Establish their own families to, to live independently of their parents. And who's left you and your spouse. Yeah, I love, that's why I put spouse first.
We recently, before the children, we recently went on a trip where, you know, we were together and gone for a little while, but, you know, I just love the reaction of the kids when they see.
Us like holding hands or kissing or, you know, and the, the love and joy, and the example that to, to see that strong relationship, I believe opens their minds up to thoughts that feel them to feel, you know, secure and yes. Um, and certain, and yes, because that is the foundation. So I love that. You've just given to us from all of your experience, that how it is spoused before kids.
And then ultimately I'll repeat ourselves before spouse and then kids. Yeah. So even our children are at number four in that relationship.
And I'm not saying your kids aren't important. They made the list. I'm saying let's get it in order. And what you're out, that that affects their experience. It affects their joy.
It affects their ability to, to experience a wonderful.
And this just came to me right now. And I'm just again, like, cuz I'm learning from you and I'm just kind of seeing how this applies. I'm in complete agreement with this order and I've had enough experience too, working with moms to see that the results that they really want in their life when they get this order.
In right, putting God first and then themselves, and then their spouse and children. And we'll talk about the, the others in a second mm-hmm that they exceedingly exponentially, um, you know, find more peace and joy and start creating for their lives and their futures, what they want. But I'm just curious, cuz this came up to me with my own sort of like soaking this in and applying it to my life.
Does the, does the order change at D. Different times or different stages of your motherhood or like if a certain circumstance comes like someone might say like, okay, well, what if my child is like, diagnosed with something? Is it my focus coming? Mm-hmm like to put them them first or is the hierarchy just like in general?
Like if in the average of our life in our time, is that the order?
Uh, and I wouldn't even say it's necessarily focus or time spent it's priority. Ah, okay. Okay. Now, and, and there are reasons and seasons in our life. I also hear a lot of speakers, especially talking about balance, you know, as if you can achieve some balance that, well, listen to this, I got, I got to listen to Dan Thurman, who is the past president of the national speakers association.
And he entered the room on a six foot unicycle.
He was balancing on it
and he was juggling knives. Oh my goodness. Okay. Now you just said something. That is the key. Danielle, you said he was balancing, he wasn't balanced. Do you hear the difference? Now? The reason I say this and this is I do the same. I teach this all the time and, and it came to my attention as I was listening to Dan, we are never really balanced.
We're really balancing. It's a, it's a verb. It's a process. And you watch a uni cyclist. They're not just balanced up there, they're forward and back and forward and back and moving. And they're balancing. Yes. Do you see the difference? Yeah. And that little, that little tweak helped me as I'm teaching people to be balanced.
You know, I've done that a lot.
And what I like to what I like the way that I come from it is looking from balanced as being a feeling. Right that you, if you are thinking I've got a handle on this and all is well, right. And I, I can like, again, like I can handle it and everything's going, as it should be, you're going to feel balanced as opposed to outta control.
But I also love that you explain it as a verb and balancing, because one thing I always say is that, can you achieve feeling balanced? Absolutely. Yes, because if you're thinking of thought that makes you feel balanced, you will be in that state of feeling. However, where we. Where it gets us tripping us up.
And this is where I love your picture of the guy on the unicycle juggling knives. Right. so we could think about that as moms, all the things like each knife represents, all the things we're juggling is that at some points you will be able to access thoughts that, that has you like on the bicycle going I've got this everything's okay.
It's all moving in motion and smooth, but the idea. Always gonna stay in that state. That is where we get tripped up. You, we will be out of balance a lot of the time. In fact,
you know what to get anywhere, you have to go off
balance. That's right. Cause when you do it shows you what's not working well so that you can focus and get right back on the.
Two
feet. Well, then represented. This is he's up there juggling these times on this cycle. Yeah. He says, if you wanna go anywhere and then he leaned forward, he was off balance. And then his feet started scrambling to keep up with him and he actually was able to move that unicycle forward. When you think about your role as a mom, for example, do you have to go off balance sometimes to move things forward with your kids who need more attention right now than your husband does?
Yeah, absolutely. And it's not that your husband doesn't need any attention, but sometimes you go off balance here to move forward, and then you are constantly in this act of balancing or to feel that balance. I also love the word that you've picked for your podcast, peaceful. That's right. You get to feel peaceful, peaceful, even at times when you're intentionally going off balance to take care of the different demands in these seven key relationships.
Okay, let's get back. Let's get back to those and see what comes after. Cuz now I'm curious cuz I, but you've gotta get the last three. Right? I knew God. I knew that myself is next and then husband and kids. And then I sort of, kind of tell me the rest number five
mm-hmm is your extended family. Okay. You know how family just is a little different to you than everybody else mm-hmm and so this includes siblings or uncles and aunts or cousins, or even your own parents.
All right. They're all important. They're not as important as your core family, your spouse and your kids, but they made the list. Okay. Okay. And we treat our family a little differently than we treat everybody else, which comes in at number six, other people.
Outside of your family? Yes. And extended family.
Okay. Now, interestingly Daniel, when we talk about happy nos, this is the level where economics kicks in because as long as you're creating value for the first five, there's no economic exchange.
Interesting. Yes. I see that now.
God, doesn't send you a bill. And you don't charge your husband for a hug. Okay.
The, we exchange value freely and that's a whole different, we can talk about the two tracks of love, but that's a whole different conversation, but this, so when we get to other people, when you, these are people in your neighborhood, these are people in your church or synagogue. These are per people at the club or down at the kid's school or in the group or in the community.
Or starving children in Africa. Okay. They all make the list. They're important, but not as important as your family is to you. Okay. So we're putting it in priority still. And as you create value for those people, there's also a possibility of economic exchange. We've got your customers and your clients that all comes in at level six.
And then finally, number seven, your relationship with things. Things, including property and money. And we call this level stewardship. Things are not as important as people, but we have a relationship with things and how we handle that matters, especially if we can use things to bless people. And that's where it gets a lot of.
I
love it. I love this perspective that you've shared. I love the, the, the beautifully synchronized order of it and your expertise, you know, reasoning behind it. It's fascinating. And if we can move about the whole point that I wanted you to share this with my a is, if we can then move forward in our lives now that you know, these, this is what I love when, when you listen to these podcasts and you come to, um, these new kind of concepts and tools and knowledge to add to your life.
It's like, it's really hard to unlearn it. It's really hard to see things differently. Yeah. Like now when I do go on an airplane and they do that talk, I can't help, but think about the oxygen, um, relationship number two. That's right. And so I, I love that we've offered this, that we can move forward. Just kind of evaluating, did you have your life in this order right now?
So I'm gonna just repeat it again, right. So first one is God. Second one is yourself. Third is your spouse. Fourth are your children. fifth is your extended family? Yes. Okay. Sixth is your community or just other people outside of your extended fam family and extended family and then seven with things, right?
And yes. Would you even say that that's even like money and like time, like I love how you say steward. So if, if those listeners today, you know, kind of take that and evaluate if you had it in that order or that if you want to choose to reprioritize it and what that might mean and how that might impact your life in a positive way.
Yes.
Um, Remember too Danielle we talked about this. We touched on it. At least this is not about how am I spending my time today. Although your priorities should drive that there will be times when you go off balance in order to move forward with one or more of these relationships. And if you're spending all your time today in your business, That's relationships, six and seven mm-hmm
Okay. Cause you're serving other people outside of your family and you're managing your property and your resources in a stewardship sense. That's okay. As long as you're still clear in your mind about where your priorities are and that will be reflected in your calendar and your checkbook and the other places where we can see how, what you truly value.
This was so helpful. I think that it's really, you know, gonna be enlightening to a lot of moms out there. And I just wanted to know, do you have, if, if you're thinking about those listeners of mine, the clients who are mm-hmm , you know, overwhelmed moms who are juggling a lot who are not seeing that, you know, that they're making any forward Mo movement with their goals or that they really are just feel stuck.
What would you just out of these seven key relationships? Just kind of wanna, like, I don't know. I don't put you, put you on the spot to give them just some Pearl wisdom, maybe a question to think consider or just, I will give you liner nine.
Okay. I'll give you nine Daniel. Well, here's what it's based on.
Okay. Okay. When I say nine, there are nine principles. That I've identified through years of clinical experience and some of the research in this area and other profound writings, including sacred writings, there are nine principles that are guaranteed to save and enrich your seven key relationships.
These span across all nine or all seven relationships. There's nine principles. Okay. Now, when I say principles, I mean, natural. Okay. Like gravity, you never get up in the morning and think, oh, wonder if gravity's on. Um, it tends to be, and we don't have to leave it up to luck or chance or magic pick whichever of your seven key relationships you are leaning into right now.
Which one are you focusing on to improve? And it might be with yourself. It might be with your spouse. Whatever it is, you can go to this toolbox. These are nine principles, and I'll just give them to you for free. I'll just, there's a, a PDF you can get, just go to www.drpauljenkins.com/peacefulmind that's D-R Paul Jenkins, J E N K I N s.com and then do a little slash peaceful mind because that's this podcast.
That's right. Okay. Dr. Paul jenkins.com/. Peaceful mind. I'll give you a PDF print out of those nine principles, and then you can use those to get to work on any of those key relationships. You'll see, when you go there, it's seven principles that are guaranteed to save your marriage, but your marriage is only one of those seven key relationships.
Just keep in mind when you see. It's for all
seven, it'll apply to all seven that we talked about today. That is so generous of you, Dr. Paul, and it was so generous to give your time to come on the podcast today. I've loved having you. I wanna say you're my first male interview post on the peaceful mind in over in over a hundred episodes.
So that's fun. I'm
so honored to be here. And I love conversations with you, Danielle. It always just lifts. Well,
you've lifted me. I adore you. I'm really grateful for our friendship. And again, for the PDF that you're giving my listeners. And, um, just thanks so much for coming on today.
Oh, you're welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity and folks there, there are principles that will allow you to move forward no matter what, keep listening to Danielle she's.
All right. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you for tuning into today's episode of the peaceful mind podcast. Are you ready to take everything?
I teach you here and put it to work for your own life. To really learn how to have peace of mind, no matter what is happening around you. If so, I'd love to have you as a client, as your coach. This is where you'll get personal and focus time on your own mind using life coaching tools, concepts, and proven life, transforming wisdom all through a faith-filled lens to learn more about how we can work together.
Come on over to daniellethienel.com there you'll see how to sign up for a free coaching consult and learn how to get started until next time please be with you always.
