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Episode 32

[00:00:00] Zach Spafford: Welcome to another beautiful Mastering Monday. Actually right now it's Sunday night. The sun is setting and the kids are out making the gleeful noises that signal an amazing day is ending. It's about bedtime here in Milwaukee and I'm sitting down to record and I'm thinking, what is the skill, the thing that my audience needs help mastering this week?

[00:00:23] What can I bring them? And as I'm thinking about this, I'm listening to my kids having just so much fun and the joy in their voices. And it reminds me of the scripture in second Nephi verse 25, it says, Men are that they might have joy. And this has always been one of my very favorite scriptures. My favorite, gospel, piece of doctrine is that our purpose here is to have joy.

[00:00:48] If you look throughout the entirety of the scriptures, there are very few places where it says why we're here. And it's interesting to me, a lot of people have often searched for the meaning of life. And to me, this is it. Men are that they might have joy. But it's also interesting that in this very, very same chapter, there is a verse that says that there's opposition in all things.

[00:01:13] Verse 11 talks about opposition in all things. And as I have, worked with clients, worked with people who are addicted to various things, alcohol, food, pornography, I have, felt that this takes on a new meaning in my life because it shows me something really important. And I asked my clients this, I say to them, what percentage of life should you feel good?

[00:01:37] And some people say 90 percent of the time they should feel good. Some people say 75 percent of the time. Some people say 80%. It should be a 60 40 split. Sometimes it's 60 feeling good and sometimes it's 60 feeling bad, but it depends on, what they're thinking about that day and. When we think about how we would like to feel, we think about, I want to feel happy.

[00:01:59] I want to be in a place where, joy is a part of my life. I think a lot of times we negate that second side of things, that opposition and all things. One of the major reasons we fall into buffering or addictive behaviors is because we're often avoiding negative feelings.

[00:02:18] Avoiding feelings leads to what I call doubling down on negativity. So when we have a feeling, when we feel sad or lonely or upset or whatever, that we find to be negative and we don't want to face that feeling head on, like we talked about in the example of what to do when a bear attacks a couple of episodes ago. Where you face that feeling head on, you feel it all the way. Instead of facing that feeling and we choose to drink or we choose to use pornography or we choose to engage in addictive behaviors that are something that we wouldn't choose if we were choosing the very best thing that we could choose and that loneliness doesn't really get addressed or that sadness or that upsetness in one way or another that feeling of inadequacy that a lot of highly successful professional men deal with. We find that not only are we dealing with the, that same feeling later.

[00:03:12] The pleasure of the moment fades, the alcohol fades, the pornography fades, the whatever that thing is that we're doing fades. And we're again in that moment where we're again dealing with the loneliness or the feeling that has driven us to engage in an addictive behavior. And we haven't addressed the first thing.

[00:03:33] And now we've added on top of that second feeling. And that might be guilt for doing something that we didn't really want to do, but we did it because it's easy. Because it feels good in the moment. Because it brings a little bit of dopamine into our brains for a period of time that's usually not very long.

[00:03:52] And essentially, we've doubled our pain. We've added pain on top of pain. And of course, then we can, Often make that worse because we double our pain again, or we increase our pain again by choosing to think, "well, I've done something I don't want to do. And I'm broken, I'm bad, I'm irredeemable."

[00:04:12] we put shame in the mix. And so now we have even more pain on top of the pain on top of the pain.

[00:04:19] So my thought tonight was, what can I do? What can I say tonight so that tomorrow morning when someone opens up their podcast player and they're listening to this podcast and they're thinking, how can I make my life better today?

[00:04:34] What can I say to somebody who's listening so that they can put more joy into their lives? So tonight I want to talk about four ways that you can create joy in your life. And as we go through these things, I want you to think about your kids or the kids that you know, the joy that they have in the moments that they're just playing and enjoying their day.

[00:04:56] Whatever time of day it is, whenever it is, think about those moments when you just hear that gleeful, joyful laughter and the fun that's being had.

[00:05:05] So let's jump right into it.

[00:05:06] One of the first things that I think every individual who wants to have joy in their life, they need to create a skill of seeking the good in their life.

[00:05:15] So when you seek the good in your life, you're doing something really important. You're consciously Observing the wins in your day.

[00:05:22] Now, little kids are pretty good at this, right? They'll come home and they'll be like, dad, mom, I did this thing. It was amazing. And you look at it and you're like, Oh yeah, okay.

[00:05:32] That wasn't really amazing, but for you, it was amazing because from your perspective, it's new and exciting and you've built something and it's amazing.

[00:05:40] Consciously observing the wins in your day and then sharing them. One of the things that I do with my kids every night when we sit down to dinner is say, Hey, who had a great win today?

[00:05:50] Because I want to draw that out of them because as they get older, they tend to fade away from that moment where they show up at the dinner table and they're like, "Hey guys, this is what I did." And I want to draw that out of my teenagers and my older kids. And I'm trying to create an atmosphere where observing their wins is more important and more of a daily skill and habit than observing their problems. Which is another part of seeking the good in your life, is avoid seeing problems where there aren't any.

[00:06:22] Kids are really good at this. They tend not to see a whole lot beyond what's readily apparent. They don't really go and create a lot of problems by adding worry and stress and thinking about things that really aren't a problem, but that if you're an adult, you can tend to bring into the mix.

[00:06:43] This is something we all do, and sometimes we do it in the name of being conscious and conscientious of what might happen, but sometimes we put too much into it. It's not always a good idea to worry. It's not always a good idea to think about problems that are existing. Outside of your bubble that you have no control over.

[00:07:05] Avoid seeing problems where they aren't. Keep them out of your life. And then the third thing in seeking the good in your life is believe what you want to believe about yourself. If you're somebody who's been using pornography for a lot of years and you're trying to choose consciously to get away from that, begin to believe that you can stop looking at pornography.

[00:07:27] Begin to believe that about yourself. This is a self confidence in, in a nutshell, begin to believe who you are is who you want to be. And I'm not saying make stuff up about yourself, but I am saying you can have an aspirational belief about who you are without having any proof about your ability to achieve that yet.

[00:07:46] All right. So the second thing that you can do to bring joy into your life is become willing to feel your feelings all the way. We talked a lot about this in what to do in Bears Attack, right? And which is honestly my favorite title of any podcast I've ever listened to or created because it's one of my favorite things is Bears in the Woods.

[00:08:07] And I told you, I grew up in Alaska and I would always take a slower scout with me whenever I went camping because I didn't want to get eaten by a bear. When it comes to our feelings, And you just really have to listen to the podcast, but , when it comes to your feelings, the best thing to when you are dealing with your feelings is face them full on.

[00:08:28] The same way you would a bear. Deal with it head on. Don't let it control you. Don't lay down and play dead or run from them. Face them and really be willing to feel them all the way through. Feel them to their fullest. And this to me is the epitome of opposition in all things. If you want to feel the fullest joy in your life, you really have to be willing to feel the lowest lows as well.

[00:08:54] And I'm not saying you have to dwell there and stay there forever. In fact, when you're feeling any given feeling, it generally lasts about 90 seconds. If you're really dig right into it and feel it. But this is something that is going to require practice. If you are not practicing feeling your feelings, you're not going to get good at it.

[00:09:13] And. For a lot of us who avoided our feelings for a long time, a lot of these professional men that I work with, these high powered executives that I work with, they're dealing with their feelings. In very short bursts, but a lot of times they're pushing them off so that they can get stuff done and move on.

[00:09:32] And I'm not saying that you shouldn't get stuff done and move on, but I am saying if you are not dealing with your feelings, you're going to find that you're going to be trying to avoid them in one way or another. And practicing the ability to really feel your feelings, even if for a short period of time, is going to provide you with that ability to feel the negatives. And then also really feel the joy in your life.

[00:09:57] And in a lot of people they tend to find that they're numb, not just in the lows, but they're also numb in the highs and feeling your feelings is a key component of that. So practice that. And then another component that I like to tie in there is it's part of self confidence.

[00:10:14] Being able to feel any feeling, knowing that you can feel any feeling and know that that's the worst thing that could ever happen to you, that really provides you, I think, with a level of understanding and confidence that, if the worst thing that can happen to me is that I feel bad. Then I can probably do anything and create anything and move forward and build and be the person that I want to be, even though I know in short bursts or in bursts, or even sometimes long bursts, I'm going to feel bad.

[00:10:45] Because it's uncomfortable to create something. It's uncomfortable to build something. It's uncomfortable to become the person you want to be in the beginning. But eventually, that's gonna become easier and easier.

[00:10:58] Alright, number three. And this one, I think, is really important.

[00:11:02] We're all screw ups in one way or another, all of us screw things up. It happens. There's no question that there's not a single one of us listening to this podcast or on this planet who does it right every time, all the time. And this third thing is remember that you are learning.

[00:11:20] And this really is the ability to trust yourself, that having this capacity to say, " I don't have to be perfect yet. I'm trying. I'm learning. I'm understanding the world around me." And I get it. You might be a 45 year old man who's like, "Ugh, I can't believe I went back to this vice that I'm dealing with this addictive behavior that I have sworn off 10 times. I should know better."

[00:11:45] No, no, no. Don't. If you think about it that way. You're going to find yourself shaming yourself. You're going to find yourself trying to block the bad feelings. In this process, remembering that you're learning isn't about saying, "Oh, I should be better already." It's about saying.

[00:12:04] "Oh, there's something that I'm missing. Let me go back and study this again." And this is a conscientious ability to look at what's happening in your head. Look at your thoughts. See how they're creating your feelings. Look at your feelings. See what actions those are creating and see where it is that you would like to adjust yourself so that you No longer return to that problem.

[00:12:28] Remembering that you're learning it's twofold. On the one hand, it's this catch all, "Hey, don't be so hard on yourself," but on the other hand, it's also this. "Oh, wait a minute. It's my job to figure this out. I now have permission to try new things and try to figure out what the problem is and why I'm still where I am and why I'm not where I want to be yet."

[00:12:52] Humans, people, we love problem solving. So remembering that you're learning is a great way to catalyze that desire to look for the issue and figure it out and adjust.

[00:13:04] Putting yourself in that mind frame of I'm going to find the way to grow and become the person that I want to be.

[00:13:11] All right, last one.

[00:13:12] And this one to me has been the most important one. And I wrote an article about this and I even did a podcast episode on it about the atonement and how important it is and what the difference between the atonement and agency is.

[00:13:24] I want everyone to recognize that the atonement has bridged the gap.

[00:13:29] A lot of us, we get into it and we think, " I'm not going to be able to grow past this," or the Atonement is for somebody else." But the truth is, is that we just have to get on the bridge. The bridge has been gapped. We just have to get on the bridge and choose to accept the Atonement in our lives.

[00:13:46] And now, we can move forward and not feel guilty about all of the stuff that Has happened or shameful about all the stuff that has happened, but again, return to our agency and say, how can I choose differently? How can I become more like my heavenly father and put the atonement to work into my, in my life?

[00:14:08] I think in a way you could say that man's purpose is to feel the depths of sorrow and the loftiness of joy each to their fullest. That doesn't seem quite as poetic but knowing that your purpose is to feel joy is is to have joy then understanding that you are going to feel some negativity from time to time. In fact about half the time. It really gives you permission to feel those feelings all the way through rather than avoid them or rather than say, "I shouldn't be feeling this" or Judging yourself for being sad in moments when sadness is necessary.

[00:14:44] And as I listen to my kids playing on this beautiful spring evening, and I hear the joy in their voices I've come to a realization that kids are really good at taking the moments as they come. And every time I recognize that it's this renewed lesson that becoming who I choose to create is an intentional return to the principles of the gospel, including.

[00:15:05] Becoming as a little child. All right, everybody. I hope you have a little bit more joy this week. I hope this has been a great Sunday evening for you, and take care. Tomorrow is going to be an amazing mastery Monday for you, and I will talk to you guys next week.