Self-Love, Self-Care, Self-ish?

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Think Deeper podcast. I'm your co host, Will Harab, joined by Jack and Joe Wilkie. We got a great episode lined up for you guys today. Kind of talking about self care, self love. Obviously, that's been in the public consciousness quite bit over the last few years. And so we're talking about what that looks like from a Christian perspective here in just a second. I did want to say before we got started, guys, I had a revelation the other day that one of the first times that I felt legitimately old. I still feel very young. Of course, I'm far younger than you guys, but, man, something happened the other far younger. Yeah, something happened the other day where I was like, man, I'm getting old. And it's when I realized that fall is now my favorite season. Growing up, that was something that always I'd be like, yeah, the old people always say that I was firmly in the summer is the best season. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Summer. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And then this year I realized, no, fall or autumn is better. It's a better season. And that's when I was like, man, I'm officially in the old club. Because again, I've heard you guys I've heard my parents say that for years. It's like, okay, that's just what old people think. No, it's true. Fall is the best season. But I guess I'm an old person now. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Welcome in. I'll make sure to laminate your card and give it to you for your wallet. [00:01:24] Speaker C: The first time you go on a foliage drive is when the gray hair sets in. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Exactly it. [00:01:29] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, there are some gorgeous drives down here for our listeners who aren't in Tennessee. Come to the Natchez Trace in October. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:01:37] Speaker B: Blow your mind. I mean, just it is gorgeous. Or if you go to the Smoky Mountains, it's really difficult to not find a beautiful piece of scenery in Tennessee this time of year. You're absolutely right. It's interesting you say that. I never really thought about that's. The transition. Summer was always fun because you stay up late, obviously school, you're up for school. But even coming out of school, it was still an exuberant time. And now, especially with kids, and my kids aren't even that old, I'm going to dread summers here in like a decade. [00:02:09] Speaker A: I got to be honest with you. [00:02:10] Speaker B: I see these families that I work with or families at church where every single weekend there's something like fall is just nice to relax. [00:02:18] Speaker A: There's just so many good things about it. You've got the hoodie weather, you've got the cooler temperatures, you've got obviously, football, the best sports season is in the fall, and it's just better. [00:02:30] Speaker B: I don't even think I told you this. Did I tell you what Harrison got for his fifth birthday? He's the coziest kid ever. He loves fall. So he's already skipped the old man he wanted. I'm not kidding you. He wanted his own fireplace. We got him an electric fireplace for his birthday. He sits in front of it in his room. I'm not kidding you. [00:02:48] Speaker A: He sits did you get him? Did you get him Walker as well? [00:02:56] Speaker B: He goes straight from the pull ups to Depends, basically. [00:02:59] Speaker A: No, that is so cool, though. [00:03:02] Speaker B: It is wild at five years old how much he loves coziness and loves fall. But fall is nice. We decorate. Yeah, it's good stuff. [00:03:10] Speaker A: That's awesome. So Harrison is in the fall is the best season. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Harrison's in the old man club. Yeah. [00:03:15] Speaker A: I think I would be a spring guy if in Tennessee Springs weren't so quick. Spring is like three weeks here in Tennessee before it goes basically straight to summer. And so fall, I think you definitely get more of the lengthier season, but I guess that's enough about the season rankings. Joe, if you want to kind of get us into what we're talking about today with self love and care. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Sure, sure. So today's culture is fascinated with this concept. You hear it a lot. I'm a therapist. I say this a lot. Self care. Self care. Self care. [00:03:41] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:42] Speaker B: And I think this culture and where we are currently pushes self care more than any time in history. What's also interesting is we're deeply unhappy. We may be some of the most unhappy people, specifically in America. We push it the most than anybody and more than anybody in the world, more than anybody in history. And yet we are at a time where we are just uniquely very deeply unsatisfied with life. Deeply unhappy. Suicide rates are on the rise. I mean, there's a lot of problems with and I think we're trying so here's the question, and really what we wanted to get into on the discussion today. Is the rise of self care contributing to a lack of self care, basically to the suicidality, to the unhappy levels that we're seeing? Or is that a call for more the cause, or is it the cure, basically? And I think that's an interesting question that we want to hit today. And then we also want to look at it from the world's point of view, and we want to look at it from a Christian point of view, because the world's point of view is just go shopping and give yourself whatever you want. And a lot of people drown their sorrows and alcohol and say self care, basically. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Self care is the pinnacle. It trumps everything. Your self care is at the top. [00:04:52] Speaker B: So we want to kind of delve into this as to looking at the issue from a Godly point of view and from what God wants us to do. Does God just give, give, give have no boundaries? I don't think that's right. But we want to flesh out what that looks like, because I think God also doesn't want us setting boundaries around literally everybody in life because quote unquote, self care. There's a lot of back and forth on this, a lot of nuance. And I'm starting to see one of the reasons we wanted to hit this is we're starting to see the divergence from Godly and worldly self care and Christians leaning like way away from that. And we're not even supposed to think about ourselves to the world being incredibly selfish and going way off the rails with it. And I think there is a balance to be struck and the church needs to do a better job. The world obviously is not going to do a better job. They are in selfishness. The church rather needs to do a better job of bringing that back around and really understanding what self care is. [00:05:47] Speaker C: I remember being in the airport a few years ago and this girl walked by with a shirt that just says more self love. I was like, more like, we're the most self interested people of all time. What are you talking about? And we're going to get to the first Timothy or the second Timothy, three verse Lovers of Self. We're going to get to that later on, but it was just kind of remember seeing that and it's self love, self care, we're going to get into all this. But there just kind of is that, as you said, it's kind of the peak of what we're supposed to do. That's almost what we live for, for some people. [00:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Joe, I don't know if you want to and I apologize if you've got this on the outline later, kind of talk about the difference between those two because we're somewhat using those interchangeably and I don't think they're necessarily interchangeable. And so you having therapy background. You're going to be the best qualified to describe the difference between those before you get to the history of self care. When we say self love as opposed to self care, what is the difference and how do most people need to be thinking about them, at least as we're defining them? [00:06:49] Speaker B: Sure. So the way the world defines it, I think, is fairly obvious. It's a very selfish whatever is going to make you happy. The difference between self love and self care, I think self care can lead towards self love or can help you in your self love. Self love doesn't necessarily equal self care. And what I mean by that is self love is you genuinely love yourself and there is a difference. And this is why we're going to hit this later in the outline of the second Timothy two verse or three verse two of Lovers of Self. I think there's a difference between loving yourself the way that ephesians five, hey, husbands, love your wives as you love yourself. Treat others as you'd have them treat you. There's this concept of like, well, of course I'm okay with myself and because I want to be treated this way and because I love myself, I'm going to love my wife even more. Right? That assumes you're starting at this place of you do love yourself. Now, the world looks at self love, and it's selfish, I'm going to do whatever I want. That's not really self love. Self love is not getting walked on all the time. Self love is, again, the opposite of self loathing, the opposite of like, I hate myself and therefore I'm going to do these things. And you see self loathing in addiction, you see self loathing in low self esteem, you see self loathing in social anxiety. That's all really stemming from self loathing of, I don't think I'm enough. God is what helps us feel like we're enough. That's really where self love comes from, is God loves us with an inexplicable love. We didn't earn it, but we also can't really lose the love of God. We can lose his favor. We can fall from grace, no doubt, but he still loves us. He still cares for us. He still is calling us unto Him, the same way that the Father with the prodigal Son, we can't lose that love. That's really where self love is going to be based, and we'll get into the discussion a little bit later. Self care, on the other hand, is just the actions you take to take care of yourself. Basically. It's getting your needs and not necessarily your wants. That's the transition between the world and the way we're looking at it is the world says self care is do what you want. You need to meet your wants, your desires. I don't agree. I think self care is meeting your needs. So taking on 30 projects, that's not what you need. However, going and helping so and so, you may not want to do it, but that's what you need to do. So self care is doing what you need to do, going shopping and spending $1,000 on your credit card. It may be what you want to do. It's not what you need to do. What you need to do is get on the phone and talk to your parents, who you haven't talked to in three years, and you're really struggling. That's what you need to do. And so self care looks very different when you're taking those concepts. Does that make sense? [00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd say so. I don't know if you want to go ahead and you put the outline together, so I think you're going to be the best. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm talking a lot. Sorry. [00:09:29] Speaker A: That's okay. Kind of about the history of self care, because as I started the episode describing this was not really a big topic of discussion goodness, even a decade ago. Maybe it was starting to get into the Zeitgeist ten years ago, but certainly past that. That wasn't really something that was the topic of podcasts, for instance, or articles and things like that. Now it is in the public consciousness so much more. So I guess to set you up here on kind of going into the history of it. What do you think created this vacuum, I guess, if you will, this gaping hole that self love and self care has kind of filled in people that they needed, that they crave it. That, again, it's a talking point. Now, why didn't it exist? At least the concept exists 15 years ago. [00:10:17] Speaker B: That's a great question. What changed in 15 years? I think the rise of mental health being less stigmatized, gave rise to people asking certain questions, and it happened to coincide with the rise of the internet and the rise specifically social media. When you consider Facebook, twitter, all those things, really, I wouldn't say peaking in 2009, but very much like, this is where everybody started to recognize, oh, there are these things like YouTube, I think it started in 2005, and facebook started around 2004, 2005, and they're starting to get big around 15 years ago. I think there's a strong correlation there, but you have to go all the way back. Like, self care used to just be survival. You did what it took to survive. You go out into the that was. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Your self care, right? [00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. You shoot the deer and bring it home to your family. Like self care. I mean, if you survive the day, good for you. Nowadays, with the rise of industrialism and labor unions, five day work weeks, eight hour days. Henry Ford was a big proponent of this. He's the one that kind of changed it and went to the five day work weeks. There's a fascinating article I was reading on this. They were making the case that he really changed things, because before, it's like ten hour workday, six days a week. I mean, there's just no you could basically work yourself to death. What time do you have for quote unquote, self care? When you're working all the time, you don't have time for anything else, and you really didn't have money for anything else. Well, he started paying his workers more, $5 a week, which was fantastic at the time, double what the average was, and that gave them time. And also with the I think he did five, nine hour days. So still 45 hours weeks, but drastically different. So now they have some money, they have some spare money, and they also have some time to use it. That starts to create this culture of, oh, that's interesting. The roaring 20s come right after this, and there's lavishness and the great gatsby, and everything comes out of it. You're also coinciding with new inventions as you hit the this is making life easier. This is giving us more time. Now, the housewife that stays home has vacuum, has a dishwasher, has things like this, and I don't know the exact years of when these things were invented, so nobody get mad at me. Well, the dishwasher wasn't invented till 1970. [00:12:24] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:12:24] Speaker B: I don't care. My point is there's multiple inventions making life easier, which gives you more time to do things. When you have more time, how do you fill it? You start looking around, am I happy? Am I happy? Coincide with the rise of mental health. A lot of the mental health professionals, yeah, you had Freud back in the early 19 hundreds. 18 hundreds. 19 hundreds. And Carl Young and guys like that. But Rogers and Ericsson and those guys that really took off for mental health and really brought it into the public consciousness were the into the such. And so for perhaps the first time in history, people are asking, am I happy? You didn't have time to think about this before. You just didn't. You had time to think about, is my family taken care of? Am I working enough? Is maybe somebody happy with me so I don't lose my job? But am I happy? You just don't see that concept a whole lot in history. You see some, sure, the Stoics and going back to the Greeks, but once again, same problem. There tons of time on their hands. Tons of time. Well, now we have a ton of time from inventions and things like that. This leads to things like no fault divorce. This leads to things like having this and am I happy? And asking these questions instant. Mood boosters, antidepressants and porn and sugary foods that spike the dopamine and all sorts of things that we didn't really have. [00:13:43] Speaker C: Even something as simple as the TV. I mean, like with that extra time, the family sits around the TV all night. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. So technology comes in, you have the TV now we have iPads now we're never not connected. And we get into the social media age. And in the social media age, the question seems to shift from am I happy? To am I happy as so and so. That's a big shift. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Interestingly about this. I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guy, he made a point and he said that to some extent it's natural for kids and he was talking more so about adolescents and teenagers. He said it's natural for them to only see the world from their perspective. Kind of a self centered thing. And I got to thinking about it, I was like, I don't think that that's always been the case. I think that is a very recent thing. You think about in the 18 hundreds. You think about the prairie days or whatnot you really think the twelve and 13 year olds were, that their life was revolving around themselves, that they were operating just out of their own perspective? I don't think so. I think back then, those were the times where kids were being raised under the pretense of you're a part of a family, you're going to work for the family. We are a group of people working together. They were a part of communities they were part of churches, of course, way more back then, and kids understood that a lot more. There wasn't near as much time to think about themselves. Now, you do see kids, their their whole world revolves around, like you said, Joe, their next dopamine hit, I mean, kids that literally their days consist of when do they get to play the iPad next, when do they get to play video games next? That hasn't always been the case. And so I do think that is an interesting thing to look at and consider as you look at the way kids have been raised and the way they operate now versus the way they operated even 100 years ago. They were a part of a family, a community, a church, a school, and so they didn't view the world just at the end of their nose 100 years later, down the road, 120 years, where we are now, that's pretty much what all of them do. It's about them. It's about what they enjoy doing and what they want to do. No wonder we've got a society full of adults that are obsessed with self care. [00:15:54] Speaker B: That's very interesting. I think you're spot on in that. Yeah, it was us. Care, really. You're part of a system. And what do we struggle with most nowadays? Everybody's trying to figure out where they fit into the system. Interestingly, which is the Enneagram and MBTI and Myers Briggs and things like that, is everybody wants to fit into a system, but that's only because we don't naturally have one. From exactly as you said, church and family and smaller societies and neighborhoods and such, we don't have that anymore. So everybody still is clinging for that because we want to be part of a community. Self care arises out of nobody feeling connected to a community. When you are very connected to your family, you don't have the need quite as much. However, here's what I'd say to that. I think this is why to say I think this is why the church really looks down on self care as they're looking at all of these problems and all of these issues, saying, yes, this is very selfish, and why don't we get back to people focusing more on the church and focusing more on the family? And that's true, but here's the difference. The reason it's important, the reason this discussion matters and why I think that we have to take a different approach than we always have in the church is because we're in a different time than we've ever been. And what I mean by that is, again, it used to be survival. Self care used to be just kind of built in. Naturally. When the sun goes down, you stop working. When you get home, you don't take work home with you. You go home and maybe you cook a meal with your wife or you sit down, you have some really good family time there is no TV. Maybe you have books. It's too dangerous to stay out late. You got to get home. Horse and buggy. Right? You can't be ripped off in the middle of the night. You can't be beaten on your way home. So you better get home. You got to make sure things are taken care of, make sure the kids are taken care of. And there's nothing to do. Therefore, there's a lot of your work. Work. But then when it stopped, it stopped. And that's basically your life. And so they didn't have time to think about self care, or their self care was naturally built in by, again, the sun going down and them not having electricity or not having cars or things like that. So we look at it and say, well, we live in an incredibly privileged society. We do. And well, these are all first world problems. Yes, but there are times where this is going to sound really bad. The primitive life does sound nice from time to time, not having to go out and hunt animals every single day. But just the idea of this is. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Why not knowing what the term inflation means, right? [00:18:23] Speaker B: Correct. You look at people around the world and this is going to sound terrible. I'm going to get flamed for this because it's like, this is such a first world problem. I've been fortunate to travel the world. I've been fortunate to go to third world countries, probably second world countries, whatever you want to say, and first world countries. And every single time, third world countries are happier, they see, we can't figure out how to be happy in America, and we are so blessed. Yes. We're also cursed. They have a harder life day to day in terms of maybe they have to walk a long ways to get water, things like that. But the problems of the day are thinking about survival, whereas we in the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs are traveling up to self actualization. People in the bush don't have time to think about self actualization. And this is where we really spin off, know, and I'm not saying that in a bad way. I'm just saying they are taking care of their needs. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. They're worried about safety and they're worried. [00:19:14] Speaker A: About they're still on step one is essentially what I'm saying. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Correct. And so they don't really have time to think about the higher needs, quote, unquote. This is first world problems, as we say. That's also what creates deeply unhappy people is we do have time to focus on those things. Everything else is met. And so we're starting to hit the mental health of like, now I can think about trauma. Now I can think about how my life has been affected. Somebody that is worried about where they're going to get their water every day doesn't have time to focus on traumas. And for that, in a way, they kind of and I'm not saying that they live easier existences. I can't imagine what that would be like. But it does provide different problems, and we can beat ourselves up so much and go, why aren't we happy? We're focusing on problems like inflation. We're focusing on problems like social media that has exploded and we know what everybody's doing at all times. It's information overload and that creates deeply unhappy people. And I think it's time that we stop beating ourselves up for you can't figure out how to be happy. I have 10,000 more worries in the day. Not as weighty, not as weighty, not near as weighty. However, you have three concerns in the day that are incredibly weighty, or you have 10,000 concerns that aren't as weighty. Which one's going to be more happy? Do you see what I mean? Does that make sense? Jack, the entire time I'm just listening. [00:20:26] Speaker C: To you rewrite the Unabomber manifesto live on air. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Well, thanks. [00:20:32] Speaker C: No, but I mean oh, goody. That's one of those that when you say the Unabomber manifesto, you expect, oh, there's a crazy person. No, this is one of the most intelligent people our society has ever produced who was messed up through government experience. It's a whole backstory. But that was the premise. It starts off with the industrial Revolution and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race or something like that. And that we are we're over socialized overstimulated, over everything. Like, everything that you just said is like, we've been presented this set of problems and our interactions with each other have totally changed. And essentially his point is saying everything that we've created for ourselves has almost broken people's brains. He wrote this before social media, and social media has just dialed that up to a ten in ways that I don't think he even could have seen coming. And so, yeah, no, it's not to justify any of the crazy stuff he did, but it is one of the most fascinating things you'll ever read. It's not that long. I would highly recommend it for this specific discussion. And when you say first world problem, I know the meaning of that is usually like a problem. It's supposed to be, like you said, a minor problem. It's not. You have to find where food is. But no, literally, it's a first world problem. [00:21:47] Speaker B: It's a problem we have to deal with. [00:21:48] Speaker C: That is a real thing. And so I don't think that should be overlooked. [00:21:52] Speaker B: And again, we have 10,000 of those. We don't have three to five problems a day of trying to solve it. We have 10,000 problems we're trying to solve to even as much as driving on the street, getting in your car and driving down the street. We don't think of that as a worry. I take my life in my hands every time I get behind my wheel. I don't know what people are going to do. That's one of those that is it in my consciousness? No. Subconsciously, I know that's a weight. Thinking about inflation, thinking about working for whatever's going to happen, thinking about the government and what they're going to do, and thinking about vaccines and COVID. I mean, all of those things compound problems which create our need for self care. [00:22:33] Speaker A: That's what I was going to get at, Joe, is like, you're building this we're, I guess, building this case as to why self care is so talked about now and one might argue is needed now when it wasn't 100 years. Is that kind of your overall premise there? Because that's what we're building towards here. And so I actually was curious. I wanted to get all of us on the record. Joe, you asked a question as you were introing this and you phrased it so well, and so if you got it written down or something, go ahead and cut me off, basically, like, is the constant discussion about self care, is it a man? I'm trying to figure out the way you put it. Is it like a pause or the. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Cure, I think, is what I yeah, basically. [00:23:14] Speaker A: Do we need more or less or something? I'm curious to get all of us on the record, because my take on it is actually that I don't think more self care is the cure. I do think a lot of the focus on it is the cause of why we're in the state that we're in. And it's the simple reason of it's just more time you're spending thinking about yourself. Again, I agree with everything that you guys just talked about, with the times we're living in and the fact that we've got more mental burdens on our brain and things to think about. I think most people are going to be served better if they think about themselves less. And I don't mean that they don't think about the way that the world affects them and how they're going to take care of what I mean is, I simply think all this focus on am I happy? What do you know, the question we talked about before? Are you fulfilled in your job? All these things. I think it's just an overbalance of focusing on yourself. And so, again, Joe, the way you phrased the question, I should have jumped on it. When you talked about it earlier, I didn't know what because it was very much a which side of the coin do you fall on? And I think I fall on the side of the more we focus on it, the more harmful it is. I really do think that I think if we spent more time focusing on man be centered in your life, around your faith, around your family, around your values, around your work, that's what you need. Not that you don't need to take care of yourself, but I guess I'll sum it up to say the more we focus on it, I do. Think the more harmful it is. Does that make sense? That would be the side that I would fall on, I think. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Jack, I want to know your side. [00:24:52] Speaker C: When we misdiagnose a problem, then the medicine we give the problem is not going to be the right one. And I think we're misdiagnosing the problem of why people feel like they need self care more than anything. It's because we and Joe, this is right to the point of everything you like to talk just a staggering lack of friendship, a staggering lack of companionship. Yeah, I mean, it's just loneliness more than anything else. And so our solution for that is go buy yourself some candles and go sit in the bathtub with a book by yourself. Get away from everybody for 3 hours. Your solution to loneliness is getting by yourself. That's the wrong solution. And so I really feel like some of the things in ecclesiastes for a man to enjoy his work, but you've got your family, you've got your wife and kids, you got friends, whatever. You've got those people that you can just relax and chill out around. I think that would go a long way towards making people happier. And so again, the self focused I had a really good point, and now it's disappearing because I'm not well, let's real quick before Joe gives go ahead. [00:25:58] Speaker A: Real quick before Joe gives his side. To kind of illustrate this, I don't know if you guys saw there was like a kind of it was on Twitter. It's a TikTok on Twitter. I'm not on TikTok, but I saw it on Twitter. Kind of went viral about this woman talking about how amazing it was that she didn't have kids because of all the things like it was a Saturday. Did you see this, Joe? And she talked about how there were these shows that she got to watch, she got to sleep in. She could go get, I don't remember, some know, Karen type of food. And then she got to catch up on all these shows. And basically her point was, you parents with kids aren't do that, so don't look down on me. Basically kind of bragging about the fact that she had all this free time because she didn't have kids. And it hit me while we were talking about this, Jack, every single one of those things she described could also fall into the category of self care. Sleeping in could be fall into the category of self care. Sitting and binge watching TV shows, getting the favorite type of coffee or food that you want, that could all be categorized as self care. And yet that woman's world was wrapped up in herself, was wrapped up in not thinking about anybody. I mean, she was literally boasting about the fact that she didn't have kids. And because of that, she got to do all the things that she was doing. To me, that perfectly illustrates what we're talking about here and again, Joe, I'm curious where you follow on this. That's what I hear and that's what I see when I'm not talking about all self care, but I'm talking about the emphasis on self care. That's what I think of well, and. [00:27:23] Speaker C: The thing where she's got to get on TikTok and tell you I'm not miserable, I'm really happy this that's usually what happens. I'm sure you are, but there was this clip from The Simpsons. I didn't spend a lot of time watching The Simpsons, but it was this nerdy guy, and he was bragging to Homer Simpson. He says, I sleep in a big race car bed. Do you and Homer just kind of I just, I sleep in a big bed with my know, like, oh, bummer, I don't have the race car bed, but it's kind of mean that's. Yeah, and that's what I see when I see this woman. Well, I went to the Beyonce concert, like, cool, that's the other, you know, I watched a stupid movie made for kids with my kids and they loved it. And we had a big old, like, why is that better than this? But this is the point I was going to make. And then we'll get side note, I. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Can'T think of anything less enjoyable than a Beyonce concert. Sorry, go ahead. [00:28:12] Speaker C: True. Yeah. Misery in herself. What I was going to say is some people remember playing the old video game The Sims, and it's where you had like this created human being and you lived their life and you'd get a job and you'd build a house and you'd try know, you're just living an avatar life. I mean, that was the point of the game we've turned ourselves into. Know your social media. It is your SIM. It's like this little figurine of yourself that you're setting out there. Very interesting trying to present that as something, project that as something because it's all individualism and everybody has that little figurine and you're trying to get that figurine noticed. You're trying to get that figurine loved and that that figurine receives so many likes a day and all of those things. And you think, man, if I get to the top of that pinnacle where my little figurine gets 10,000 likes a day and is successful and all that, well, when you win the game of Sims and your little SIM is a millionaire and everything goes great, you turn it off, and you still got to face your real life. And I think everything that we build on, the individualism thing and the self care, oh, boy, your little SIM, you made him happy by taking him out to a Beyonce concert, whatever it was. Okay, but you're not happy. And so we are doing everything in service of our SIM, which is an individual when it's interconnectedness, that makes us actually happy. [00:29:36] Speaker B: It gives us purpose. You look at that woman's TikTok, which we found on twitter, not TikTok people. Just so everybody knows, we still are very against TikTok Train, but that woman's video was devastating because it's like, what is your life? You can wake up late on your Saturday and you can watch all the TV shows in the world until the day you die. What a worthless existence. [00:29:59] Speaker A: And your life, I'm not to nothing. [00:30:00] Speaker B: I'm going to say, what a worthless existence. And not only is it I got to watch a movie with my kids, it's like my bloodline is going to, Lord willing, continue for 500 years. Yours is going to die off while you get to watch your favorite TV show on Saturday. [00:30:11] Speaker C: He's got to race a kid. [00:30:13] Speaker B: That's exactly it. Wow, I got all of this cool stuff and you lack purpose, you have no direction in your life and nothing that's really worth getting out of bed for, like kids, like a spouse, things like that. It's just meaningless. But here's what I'll say, and this is interesting because I probably disagree with you a little bit, Will, only in the fact that I think if self care was done well, if self care really was what it was intended to be, I do think it could solve the problem. I think you have a lot of people that do self loathe and that's why they have the SIM, the avatar. What you're talking about, Jack? I think they don't like themselves. They are deeply unhappy with being alone and therefore they do all of those things to prove to themselves that they're not self care. Looks like what you're talking about getting around other people. That is self care. To your point, Will, that's the only way I would disagree. I think you and I are on the same page. It's just how we use the term. If we use the term from the world's ways, self care is a selfish lover of self. That's really what comes that woman's TikTok comes to mind. Like brings to mind two Timothy three, verse two last days there'll be lovers of self. That's exactly what it is. You are not thinking about anybody else. However, if you define self care as getting what you need, what you would recognize is my life is very worthless and I can't stand being alone. However, here's where therapist in me comes in. If you don't like being alone, you need to figure out why. There's a difference between being alone and loneliness. And if the only way we feel the loneliness is by being around people all the time. 24/7 there will inevitably be times where you are alone. Your spouse can't go into the bathroom and do everything with you. There will be times when you are alone with yourself. Do you like who you are? Self care comes in when you start to really work on who are you really and why do you not like yourself? And this is the self loathing that we're seeing. Time and time and time again. And all of the things we get from social informing us we are not enough. I'm not enough. I don't like myself. Porn addiction is rampant when people are alone. Loneliness is a huge trigger. Why? Because we don't like who we are. When we look in the mirror, we don't like who we are. So how in the world am I going to love my spouse appropriately when I hate who I am? Therefore, I end up being selfish to try to overcome my hatred of self. I'm trying to love myself, quote unquote, by doing all of these things and everybody's getting left in the dust. In reality, I need to let the love of Christ permeate my life and work through why I don't like myself. Which is why I'm a trauma informed therapist. A lot of the times we have trauma, we have attachment wounds, things like that, that cause us to feel like, I really don't amount to much. I'm not worth very much at all. Do we tell ourselves this, like, consciously? No, it's all subconscious. But this is why people are so fidgety and can never be alone. This is the importance of self care is really getting to the bottom of why can't you be lonely? Why can't you be alone without being lonely? Why can't you live in your head for 2 seconds without having to fill it with junk, fill it with social media, fill it with Netflix, or fill it even with people. Even with people. Like, why can't you do that? And when you learn to love yourself and learn that it's okay for me to be alone, I'm not lonely. I'm alone. I'm alone with God. Be still and know that I am God. That's really where it comes from. When we get that, then we start inviting people into our circle and it's less done from a selfish way of I need them to stop my mind from reeling. And it's more of I genuinely want them. I want relationship. And that's the difference, in my opinion, of where the world goes south. They need all of these things. I don't think we should need any of it. I think we should want people. I think we should want to do certain things, but God is the only thing that we need. You can go back to the beginning in the garden. But I was just preaching on this last night. Well, Adam needed Eve. God saw the need. Adam didn't actually see it. And what does God do after he recognizes the need? In 218? He brings all the animals for Adam to name. So Adam would say, wow, I don't have anybody that's like me. I want someone like me. God created the want in Adam. God recognized the need, not Adam. He created the want in Adam. Therefore, I want Eve. And when I want Eve, I will continually come after my wife and chase her and know the man that I need to be and take dominion and everything else, because I want this person next to me. I really do think that all good relationships are formed out of want and not need, in my opinion. And it's the same way I think. [00:34:31] Speaker C: There'S a Mary and Martha element to this know, obviously, Martha going and going and going and going. And kind of like you were saying, you can't be alone, can't stop, can't. And I think this is something that I think runs in our family a little bit. Joe of like, you feel like if you're not working, not doing something of value, like, I've got to get up and do something. I can't sit still. Even the football game, commercial breaks, I'll get up and clean up the plates, get something going in the kitchen. I got to be doing something, got to be doing something. And so the ability to just sit still, which is what you see with Martha of, well, Jesus is here. I've got to have this place clean. I got to get this ready. I got to get this, I got to do that, I got to do that. I don't think anybody would call it self care to go sit at Jesus's feet, right? And in a sense, in the way some people mean it, it is. But in another sense, it's just more, I don't know, taking a break, like prioritizing or whatever it may be. And so, I don't know, I feel like the self care terminology really shades this in a direction. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Yes, it's been tainted. The self care would be, like you said, prioritizing. Prioritizing what you need, not what you want. Martha wanted to go make everything look she wanted to be busy. You need Martha. You needed to be like Mary and go sit at Jesus's feet. Self care in that moment would have been her stopping what she's doing and just going and being with Jesus. That's what she needed in the moment. But you're right. It's been tainted so much by the world that I don't think we have. [00:35:57] Speaker A: A proper to where it's just about dopamine chasing. That's really what it is for a lot of people. So let's get to the Church's teaching on self care, because we've spent a lot of time describing this is kind of the way the world paints it, and these are the problems with it. Again, kind of thus the reason for my kind of negative association with it. And Joe, I do see your point that, listen, you frame it the right way and you define it the right way, that it can be extremely valuable, and you could even call it the cure. How does the Church fit into this? Because we have teachings like and I think we've hit this point before on a previous podcast, but we'll hit it again, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, what does the as yourself imply there? Does that imply I mean, you would imagine and you would surmise based on the grammatical structure of the sentence, that love your neighbor as yourself implies that you have some level of love for yourself. Otherwise you're not going to be able to love your neighbor appropriately even with the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you implies that you know what you would want to be done to you. And so there's a bit of, I guess, self focus even within those two commandments. Obviously the general focus is, hey, other people, other people, love other people. But again, as yourself implies, there is some level of focus on yourself there. And so I wanted to get your guys'thoughts on, first of all, that kind of concept, but also kind of the way the church treats this, I guess. Topic of discussion, self love, self care. I can count on approximately zero fingers the amount of sermons I've ever heard on can, you know, count on zero fingers the amount of classes, you know, unless maybe I sat through one of Joe's classes one time, so maybe one finger. I don't even know if you've done that before, Joe, but if you have, I know. I'm sure I sat through it at Jackson Temple. We don't talk about it is the point. It does not get a lot of coverage. It does not get a lot of press. And I do think it is kind of viewed as worldly I do think it is viewed as something that the world thinks about, and therefore we need to have no association with it, really. What are your guys'thoughts on? I guess that but then also in the ideal world, what should the church be doing about it? Should we have sermons on it? Should we be talking a lot more about it? What are y'all's thoughts on that and the way the church currently handles it versus the way the church we believe should handle it? [00:38:17] Speaker B: Jack, take that one. Or you want me to I've been. [00:38:19] Speaker C: Talking about you roll with it, and then I'll tell you why you're wrong. Go ahead. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Okay. I think we should be talking more as a church about it, but it's really about and we have had sermons on finding joy. I just find a lot of them to kind of be loud in the practicality side of things, of, like, just found joy in Christ, like, oh, wow, I didn't know that. Okay, you know what I mean? I think we need to have some practical ideas of what that looks like. I do think that Philippians two I'll read this. I have this on the ally. Philippians two, three, and four says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interests of others. And the merely actually is added. I don't know if that's italicized in my NASB here. Do not merely look out. So it really would just say do not look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interests of others. I think the also causes the merely to be added. The idea is, yeah, you do have to I mean, if you're killing yourself, you're not going to be much good to help other people. But yeah, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. I don't have any problem with that. I don't think my understanding of self care goes against that idea of doing nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. Matter of fact, I don't know that I want to get into this discussion immediately, but I do have problems with Jesus Others yourself. Joy, right? The joy principle. Jesus, others yourself. That is great. In a lot of ways, I understand yourself comes last. But the problem is, and this is where I think Jack and I would probably disagree, you can't give others what you don't have. So if you don't have a proper respect for yourself, if you don't have a proper love for yourself, if you are busy self loathing, that is a form of self love. That's not appropriate. Self loathing is selfish way more than self love is selfish. In my you talk about focusing on yourself a lot, and so what we end up doing is jesus Others yourself. I just give and give and give and give and give, and when I give, I expect them to love me in return, and that will tell me I'm worthy of love. Well, hold on a second. How is that not selfish? [00:40:26] Speaker C: Who's at the pinnacle of that, then? [00:40:29] Speaker B: It is yourself. [00:40:29] Speaker C: Right? Jesus others is yourself. It is using Jesus Others yourself as a guise for yourself others Jesus or yourself Jesus. You're still number one in that. And it's a twisted way to make yourself seem like you're putting everybody else first, but it's all about you in the end. And so you're not actually practicing because I think Jesus Others yourself is philippians 118 ish through two four, which is to live as Christ and to die as Gain all the way up through consider others more important than yourself is part of how you live for Christ. You're right that there's a lot of people that live ostensibly putting others first, but it is only because what they're getting out of it. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:12] Speaker A: This is why and the point I made earlier, a lot of this would be solved if you simply think about yourself less. This is why, again, I think the added focus on self care and the more infamous what is it? It's more navel gazing. It's more considering yourself and yourself and yourself. And again, I'm not anti considering yourself. I mean, I think there is a difference between self interest and selfishness. All of us are self interested to some extent. I think we have to be. And again, I am not saying that you can't ever have any time to yourself and any boundaries whatsoever. My only point is I read Philippians Two here. I read a lot of the New Testament. The point seems to be think about yourself less. The more you think about Christ, the more you think about others, and the less you think about yourself, the better. And in the current self care push, I guess I don't see that the Jesus others yourself thing. I'm not really sure where I fall on it. I do know the New Testament seems to teach think about yourself less. That is the goal. That is what we should be striving for is sure self interest, make sure you're provided for, make sure your family's taken care of. But man, spend your time on this earth thinking and serving Christ, thinking and serving others, and yourself does seem to come last. [00:42:26] Speaker B: There, I think is ideal. [00:42:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's the right thing. And again, where it goes wrong is where people are doing a cynical version of that to still put themselves first. But on the idea of loving yourself, the second greatest command, love your neighbor as yourself. And so a lot of times people go, well, that means you really got to love yourself properly. No, I think he's talking about what is innate in you. And Ephesians Five shows this as well, when he says husbands with your wives, nobody hates his own flesh. And it's kind of thing of when I'm hungry, I go eat. I don't have to be taught that now. I mean, there are people who are so messed up that they don't even go eat. Okay, that's a mess thing in there, but that's pretty rare. Most people to some degree are going to get themselves what they need. And so I think what Jesus is drawing on when he says love your neighbor as yourself is you spend all day thinking about yourself. You spend all day doing what you need for yourself. Do that for somebody else. This is not something you have to develop. This is not, well, do I love myself enough to go love others first? No, it's the part of yourself that you automatically spend all day in your own head thinking about yourself is exactly what will's saying, think about other people the way you think about yourself, because you already do that. That's not something that's developed. That's your nature. [00:43:43] Speaker A: The other thing about this and Joey, then you can hop in here is man goodness. I'm not trying to denigrate anybody who has the mental health struggles that come along with this self love, self care. I'm not trying to just absolutely denigrate them. At the same time, christians should have every reason in the world to have a proper view of themselves. You know why? Because God saved us. Because God views us as worthy. Because God loved us so much that he literally gave us a path to heaven that we could never earn of ourselves. Just read Ephesians two if you're ever struggling with feeling bad about yourself. And sure, that's an oversimplification, but my point is we should always have the proper perspective of viewing ourselves in the appropriate way, viewing ourselves as worthy, viewing ourselves as worthy of love because of God's love, not because of anybody else. Sure, those things can be secondary. But I guess my point is and Joe, we got at this in a gym episode recently, that's got to be the foundation. And if it is the foundation, I think you're perfectly set up to go love your neighbor as yourself because you properly understand the way God views you and that you are worthy of love. And that's why you look at yourself and you're like, yeah, I am worthy, I am this, I am that. It's not an arrogant, it's not a boastful thing, it's viewing yourself the way God views you and that ought to propel you to go and do that for other people. Does that make sense? That to me has to be at the foundation of every Christian's perspective on this concept of self love. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Well, and that's why I say I do identity rings and your identity with God is at the core. I have your identity like your relationship with yourself second before anybody else. And that may be going against what you guys are saying. But to my point, if you understand how God loves you and you understand that you are worthy of love, not based on anything you've done, how much more can you love others? You don't need them to treat you well to love them. You don't need them to do anything for you to love them. Because I've been loved in a way that I can't even begin to imagine and because of that I'm brimming with love. And this is the self love concept, in my opinion, from God is I don't know why I'm worthy of love. That's from God. Like why he sent Christ to die for me. That is just the love of the Father exuding through me. And if I've been loved that way, how in the world could I self loathe? How in the world could know, say, oh, I'm worthless. And to Jack's point, if I don't get up from the couch and start doing things, if I'm working, I just really feel worthless about myself. Where we go wrong is when we try to fill that worthlessness, in my opinion, with just going out and doing a bunch of things because ultimately it's selfish, it's what Jack's saying, where we've inverted it. We are going doing a bunch of things, we're going out and helping others to inform ourselves we're worthy of love. Those don't inform nothing. God informs you you're worthy of love. You get that one right and you'll love others appropriately. You'll love others as you love yourself. If you are working from a place of a deficit. Everything you do is trying to inform you you're worthy of love. This person loved what I did, therefore I must be a good person. No, god is what makes you good, not anything else. And from that you can then go do good things and never expect a thing in return from them and still do good things. Because coming from God, not from them. Does that make sense? [00:46:52] Speaker A: It does, but not to keep beating a dead horse here. That's where I think the self love, self care thing is off base. Because what does that concept teach? It teaches you need God and a bunch of other things. You need God and you need your time alone. You need God and you need your boundaries and you need all these things. To me, again, it just fosters this atmosphere of, okay, sure, God's sort of enough, but I also need all these other things to go my way. Essentially. There's a lot of obstacles in front of me, and once I get past all those, that's when I properly self love again. This world is rough. There's a lot of things people have messed up parents and messed up childhoods. And Joe, you deal with that. Of course. You know that better than either one of us at the same time. Again, I just think with God as the foundation should be the fuel to properly propel us past all of the, well, I just got to have this, and I got to have this and I got to have this, and then I will love myself. Does that make sense? I think the self love and self care concept kind of pushes the idea for Christians got to have God, but then you also got to have a bunch of other things and then you're good. I don't necessarily think that's the case. [00:48:00] Speaker B: But I would say God's the foundation. However, there are times where you do need to be alone and be quiet and be still and know that he is God. [00:48:07] Speaker A: Jesus did. Yeah, I agree with that. [00:48:08] Speaker B: Correct. And that's what I say, is Jesus was a master at self care. Jesus didn't heal 24 7365. Jesus had times where he gave and gave and gave and gave. But it's like, you know what? I need to go into the boat and sleep. That's what what I need in this moment. Nobody looks at Jesus as selfish for that. It's like the guy gave everything. However, I need to go be with my father. I need to go pray. I'm going to go into the wilderness for 40 days. Well, Jesus, why don't you start your ministry immediately? I know what I need. I need time to reconvene with my father and right path. That's my point is that's what self care looks like is this is what I need in this? [00:48:40] Speaker A: It's not. I need to go binge 8 hours of Netflix. I agree with them that. [00:48:45] Speaker C: I hate there we say, well, Jesus practiced self care. And it's like that spectrum is exactly what treat yourself. Like 8 hours of Netflix versus I'm going to go pray to the Father or I just need a break from ministering to all these people to get away. I need to go eat. Sometimes. Self care for some people is literally as making sure you have eaten and slept. I hate calling that self care because it's in the same box to some people as all these other things. Because the other thing is self care is such a recent invention where it's like that was just natural. That was again, what you're saying, what do I actually need to function and get up and do it the next day? And for some people, they get to the point where they can really make it. I just need my bath with my candles. I just need my spa day once a month or else I'm not going to like, you don't need that. I mean, you might enjoy you know. [00:49:38] Speaker A: What it reminds me of? And this is a very minor thing, but all those people that early in the morning, they might say something dumb or be in a bad mood and they're like, just because I haven't had my coffee yet, I've just got to have my coffee. It's like you don't need your coffee to be a nice person or to not say something stupid. You know what mean? Like don't use that as your excuse. Again, that's very minor. But that's what made me think of that. Jack is kind of fruit to the same tree. [00:50:02] Speaker B: But we also have to recognize this is where I give a little pushback in the fact that everybody's operating out of burnout and we say we should focus on others more. I almost disagree with you in the fact that I think we're focused on others poorly in the wrong way. But we're focused on others more than anybody has ever been in the history of the world because I can get on social media and I know what everybody's doing at all hours of the day. I'm not close to anyone. I mean, not me. I'm close to you guys, my family and such. But we're not close to anyone. But we know everything about everyone. Therefore we feel like we are and we're more connected and we're more thinking about other people than ever in history. [00:50:39] Speaker C: Not in a beneficial way, not in a serving way. No, I agree with well, in a selfish way of like when I go on Facebook, I don't go to those you don't get onto social media. [00:50:49] Speaker A: How can I serve them? [00:50:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the idea of like, okay, how can I get their attention and their adoration? [00:50:55] Speaker B: I agree. [00:50:56] Speaker C: It's all selfish thing I was talking about. And so I wouldn't call that focused on others. I would call that trying to use others as a mirror for myself. [00:51:05] Speaker B: But I still think we're thinking about think. We're thinking about what other people are doing. We're thinking about things in the past. I need to think feeding my family and I need to think about going to work and not losing my job. Nowadays we're thinking about 10 million people on the planet. Yes, I agree with you. Not in a good way. But my point is I think a lot of people are operating from burnout. That's why we've given rise to the self care is like you need to think about yourself for a second. In a roundabout way, they've been thinking about themselves all along. The reason why I want to reclaim self care is you start thinking about yourself appropriately, which is aligning yourself with God. I realize why you're squeamish to use it with Jesus, but that's what I'm talking about is getting what you need. You did not need to get on Facebook and Doom Scroll for the last 2 hours trying to figure out what everybody else in their life is doing. You needed to get on the phone and call a really good friend and talk for 2 hours and connect with them. So yes, you're thinking about others in an appropriate way and I do agree with that. But I think we are burnt out with everyone around us. What I would say to really is get back to almost primitive times. Get back to when the lights go off, you turn your phone off, you get that out of your room, go back to all of the things of which yes, I know. I was going to say, I can see the uniform coming up. But we get back to really the way things were before all of this. In my opinion, that's the best form of self care you can possibly have. [00:52:28] Speaker A: You read my mind. That's exactly what I was going to ask you is practically speaking, because I'm aligning with you on okay, you're not talking about the way the world defines self care, you're talking about actual self care. And so I was going to ask you, practically speaking, what does that look like? Because you're talking about burnout and stuff like that. Man, I totally agree. Trust me, there are days that I feel burnt out of man, I need a need. I need something and where the world sees again the I need Netflix, I need a Beyonce concert, I need my coffee, whatever. What is it? Practically speaking, you just hit at some of those and I'll list a few and then if you want to maybe give a few more jack, hop in there. I do think there are a lot of Christian, and I'll just use my perspective, husbands and fathers that need to their self care, practically speaking, is dinner around the table with their family, away from their phone. I agree, dinner at home. Not dinner out to eat, but dinner at home around the table with their family for some. I do think it's after the kids have gone to bed, sitting on the couch with your wife and having a conversation and actually talking, having a face to face conversation, that's not the glamorous version of self care. I think that's self care, obviously. I think when you can find the time, 30 minutes in God's word and 30 minutes in prayer, again, not very glamorous, not necessarily the dopamine hit that is self care. I think there's a lot of things and maybe you could even say sitting down with a book and reading. You could even call that self care. You see what I'm getting? There are certain practical things that we don't really think of when we're talking about self care. That again, eating dinner with your family, taking time, just having a conversation with your wife, spending half an hour in God's word, going for a walk with your kids outside, playing with them outside. It's not the dopamine hit. It's not glamorous. It's not the Netflix binges. To me, when we're talking about self care, that's the proper practical examples of self care to avoid the burnout, to set the boundaries of this is how I'm going to spend my Tuesday night or whatever. This is how I'm going to spend the next 2 hours. That's what I think it properly looks like. [00:54:26] Speaker B: Hit the gym. Focus on yourself. Make yeah, that's a great meals. Get in bed on time and put the phone outside the room where you're not tempted to just scroll and scroll like get to sleep and actually get appropriate sleep so you can get up in the morning, so you can have your coffee with your wife and study the Bible together. That's self care. We look at self care as well. I needed this, I needed that, and I needed to scroll. My self care time is just watching Netflix until midnight. Yeah, and then you can't get out of bed at six before your kids get up to have that time with your wife. That's not self care, that's selfishness. Self care in this situation would be put the Netflix down, pray with your wife before bed, go to bed, get up early and have that time with her. That's going to give you the biggest bang for the buck and that's going to help you feel in control of your life. Remember, the whole point of man is to take dominion. That's why God created us to rule and to take dominion when we're not ruling ourselves well, because we're too busy on Netflix, we're too busy doing all sorts of stupid stuff, scrolling social media endlessly. That's not self rule. Our job is to rule everything within our dominion or everything within our purview. To rule it and to rule it well. Self care is what's going to help me be the best ruler of my domain. And if that's getting in bed on time, put everything down and get in bed on time. If that's picking up that book that your wife put on your nightstand that she's been begging you to read for the last three months, read it. That self care to me, is doing what you need. Not always what you want, but doing what is going to help you glorify God, what's going to help you be more like Christ and what's going to rule over the things that God has put in your domain. So those are the type of things and from a woman's perspective, this is where you get into the bath and everything else. Sometimes a woman's been around the kids all day. Put the kids down. Husband, just talk with your wife. Hold her, hug her. That is her form of self care. We look at it as she just needs to go take a two hour bath. [00:56:10] Speaker A: No me time, right? [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah, me time. I understand the need for some me time type of thing from time to time where, hey, sometimes you're just burnt out. I get it. At the same time, you need to be very intentional. The person who takes a bath every single day because she's got to get away from the kids. Come on. And what frustrates me in that is you think the husband has been messing around all day at work. You think that's all his me time because he got to go to work? No, neither of you. How about you have we time? How about you get together and really do something together after the kids go. [00:56:40] Speaker A: To you come up with that yourself. That's pretty good. I don't know. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Think about it in the moment. But I think those are the things that are important. The discussion and Jack, I want to kick it to you, but the one discussion we did not have, and I know for sake of time, I don't want to get into it too much, but is the idea of boundaries, because these are abused right and left, because some people say, I need boundaries. I need boundaries. That's self care setting boundaries. Talk about a spectrum, man. You have the boundaries of, like, I can't possibly take on one more project because I'm losing time with my family. I'm losing sleep. I don't even have time to eat yet. You get better at saying no to people. And a lot of times that comes from if I say no to people, they'll hate me, and it goes back to self. Whereas you have the other people that are like, oh, boundaries. I can't possibly say yes to so and so at church. She really needs this from me, and. [00:57:27] Speaker C: She'S really basically, I'm never going to do anything I don't want. And I can sound like I'm taking care of myself by calling it a boundary. [00:57:36] Speaker B: That's so rampant. Oh, little Miss So and So had surgery at Know. It's just a boundary of mine. I can't do anything on Tuesday nights. I just need to sit home and watch Netflix. That's just a boundary of know. And so I really take the meal to so get over that's. We abuse the same way of self care. It's got a real bad connotation. Boundaries are starting to have that connotation cloud. And Townsend had a boundaries that was appropriate, that was proper. We have blown that way out of proportion to anything I don't want to do. To your point, Jack, that's really dangerous. [00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a sprinting away from obligations, essentially. And we were talking about it before we started. Like, flakiness is the way that I put it. And that's one of the biggest pet peeves that I have in people, is know, the agreeing to something and then backing out because of boundaries. Just, I really need this time and whatnot and yeah, Joe, to your point, the people who are joe, if I invited you to dinner and then you called and you were like, listen, man, it's been an insane day. Can we reschedule? I'm not going to look at you and be like, man, you flake because you barely have time to sit down. Well, you sit down for your job, but you know what? You have a lot of time to sit down. No, what I mean is you time to stand up. Yeah, that's exactly right. [00:58:48] Speaker B: That's more accurate. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Joe works all the time is my point. Joe does not have a lot of time to himself. And so I get it. There are people that use the boundaries excuse or use even the self care thing which tied into this, just to basically never do anything that they want to do. Or if they're, quote, unquote, not feeling it. I'm not really feeling it, I can't do this or that. Hashtag yeah, that's such a bad character trait and such a bad quality in people. And man, young people get all the hate. There's a lot of 38, 40 year old people, adults that are very guilty of this. That's kind of their mindset. And I don't really want to do it. I'll flake out of it. [00:59:24] Speaker C: This is one of the dangers of therapy speaking, I think, especially for Christians, but everyone does it is none of these terms have strict definitions. And so because they can sound scientific or even medical and have a proper application, as we've established, self care, if defined properly, actually has a proper application. But when it's I do whatever I want, or I just go binge or spend however much money I want, and I mean, just basically every therapeutic term, you could throw in this trauma. Oh, I've just got trauma. Maybe that means your dad beat you. Maybe that means somebody looked at you funny. I mean, the spectrum is so broad for that toxic we've talked about before. Oh, well, that's just a toxic person. It might mean somebody who is trying to undermine you actively and destroy your life. Or it might mean somebody who said, hey, somebody who gets on your narcissist, somebody who told you you were wrong. Yeah, everybody who I don't like is a narcissist. All of these terms, again, they actually have a narrow, useful definition. And because that is a technical definition, that is useful, but people don't use that or they don't know that. And so it becomes whatever I want. And so boundaries is one of these of like, there actually is a real useful boundary, real proper use of the term, but it just can become anything and everything you want. And so I think this stuff is incredibly dangerous because it gives people a legitimacy that otherwise it's like, no, you're just being selfish. As will say. All you're doing is thinking about yourself, and you found clinicalized terms to make it sound like you're doing something positive. So I think be very careful. How do you use any one of these terms that we've been talking about? [01:01:14] Speaker B: I think, coming back around to it. And the point that I would leave on, I think, as we're looking to wrap up when it comes to Jesus others yourself and loving others and loving yourself, self care and all of these things, I would run it through the filter of, is this the way that God would love if Christ were next to me? Is this what he would want me to do? What would Jesus do? That's exactly what it comes down to, the little bracelet and everything. If that's what you got to wear, what would Jesus do? Would Jesus want you to put the phone down and get in bed so you could better serve your family in the yeah, yeah, he probably would. Would Jesus want you to duck out of that obligation that you swore that you were going to do, but you're just not really feeling it tonight? I think Jesus would say, let your yes be yes. Let your no be no. If you made the commitment, you show up for that. How would Jesus love somebody else? If the love and we can really go down the rabbit trail of am I doing it for the right reasons? Better to just love people and then figure out the reasons later. However, if you're finding yourself getting burnt out because you're just constantly giving and giving and giving, giving, why are you giving? Are you giving in the way that Christ gave, which is fully, completely selflessly, where he had no he didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasp. Philippians Two so are you giving in that way, or are you looking for something in return? And if you find that a lot of your self care or a lot of even your interactions with others are really hoping to come back around to make you feel more worthy of love, that's the wrong reason you have to do it from. I've been loved beyond anything I can imagine, not off anything I've done. Therefore, I'm going to love them not off anything they do. It has to exude from there. And you don't burn out when it's really rooted and grounded in God. So that's just a litmus test. If you're worried about that, if you're worried about loving others, is this the way Jesus would love them? If you're worried about self care, is this what Jesus would have me do in this moment? And I really do think that by and large, that litmus test will work pretty much every single time. That was a great way to wrap. [01:03:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I've got a whole other tangent I could go on that would kick us off 20 more minutes. We don't have time. Oh, man. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Save it for the deep end. [01:03:21] Speaker B: There you go. Deep end. [01:03:23] Speaker C: Talk about the movie the Truman Show. Some interesting stuff and application. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Anyway, brush up on some stuff. [01:03:31] Speaker C: Sounds like you haven't seen that one. [01:03:32] Speaker B: You haven't seen that Truman Show. Oh, that's good. Dude. [01:03:35] Speaker A: You all know at this point, if you name a classic movie, I probably have not. [01:03:39] Speaker C: That's true. That's one of those that honestly, it's a fine movie. It's not my favorite movie, not the greatest movie. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Whatever. [01:03:46] Speaker C: I almost think you need to almost required watching because it's very applicable to things like this. But yeah, like I said, I'll save that for the deep end. And we'll push that to Friday. Focus plus subscribers get your comments in, but anywhere. Our Facebook page, our YouTube unbeknownst, unfortunately, to some of the deep thinkers, when you comment on Facebook or YouTube, it might show up in a deep end episode. We might discuss it even though it's exclusive to Focus Plus. So we always appreciate the comments, and it makes us think a little bit more about our takes. And so keep those coming. [01:04:21] Speaker A: Let us know your season rankings, too. That's always interesting. [01:04:25] Speaker C: I forgot. Are you like Harrison with your fireplace all warmed up and ready to go? Your maple cinnamon drinks and baked goods? [01:04:34] Speaker B: No pumpkin candle next to your bath. Right? [01:04:40] Speaker A: Harrison's practicing self care. [01:04:42] Speaker B: That's right. That's perfect. That's what he needs. Yep. [01:04:46] Speaker C: All right, we'll wrap right there. Talk to you guys next time.