Welcome and Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is January 11, 2022. I hope I always get that year right. I think Yesterday I said 2021 with some friends. Anyway, welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm super excited for this new year. We have so many good things in store for you. And as always, I'm super excited to have with us today. In studio for today's episode, my dear wife, Margi Dehlin. Hey, Margi. Hello.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:38] Hello. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] It's good to have you. All right, well, so we have a tiny bit of business. I'll try and keep it really fast and then we will. And then we'll jump to today's episode. Today's episode is going to be a new approach to New Year's resolutions. So, you know, at the Open Stories foundation, we kind of have a threefold mission of providing informed consent to Mormons and non Mormons throughout the world. Secondly, to support people who are in faith crisis. And then third, to support healing and growth after orthodox religion or after Mormonism. And so today's mission kind of falls in that third category. I think about Thrive. All the efforts that we're doing with Thrive as kind of serving that third part of the mission. So it falls right along with that. We want to acknowledge that Kara Burrell couldn't be with us today. We miss Kara, you would agree.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:42] I'm feeling the loss.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] So shout out to Kara, but we hope to have her back soon. And I guess I also just have a couple quick announcements. So as we're speaking about Thrive, I just want to remind everybody that we have an amazing day coming up. Thrive unite, which is January 22nd across 22 cities across the world.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] Progressive and post Mormons are going to be getting together to have kind of a Thrive event. We're talking Southern California, Northern California, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, all over the place. Just go to thrivebeyondreligion.com you'll see thrive Unite. You can register for that. Also, there's a thrive St. George coming up in February. If any of you are interested in finding community, becoming inspired, hearing inspiring messages about healing and growth, just check out thrivebeyondreligion.com and if you want to start your own local community, you can do that as well.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] A local Thrive community. We're going to be talking more about all the cool things about thrive in 2022 on an upcoming episode, including a book club. We want to Start a book club, kind of a Thrive, Thrive branded book club here on Mormon Stories podcast. And Margi, you're going to be helping out with that.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:02] That's right. I'm excited.

John Dehlin [00:03:04] Do you want to announce what our first book is going to be in the book club?

Margi Dehlin [00:03:07] It is going to be A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

John Dehlin [00:03:10] Yeah, I'm excited. So. Well, we'll talk more about that in the coming episodes. So let's see. I think that's any. That's all our announcements. Any other announcements?

Margi Dehlin [00:03:23] I don't think so. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] All right. Well, we want to welcome everyone who's joining us either on YouTube or Facebook. We really, really love it when these live streams are interactive. And we welcome you not only to share this episode, but on your social media so that other people can join us. But we welcome your comments and questions. Today we're going to be talking about New Year's resolutions, how they don't always work and what an alternative approach might be. So the reason why I'm saying that up front is just because I want to invite our viewers and listeners to start thinking about what their experiences have been with New Year's resolutions, maybe if they haven't worked for them, why. And we would love to intersperse that, that sort of stuff into this episode along with any comments or questions. Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:16] And just one thing. It's not an announcement, but a quick share. We wanted to share before we begin. I know in times past, I think we. We had a what's working segment. And so this kind of falls under that. Or we could call it like a good thing that we're going to share, but it's kind of a share. And do you mind if I do that before we get started?

One Good Thing: Small Things Often Podcast

John Dehlin [00:04:35] It's time for the one good thing segment of this episode. O and so, yeah, this is the point of the episode where we share something that's kind of working or that's really good. This isn't directly related to the theme of the episode, but it's an important part of this ongoing Mormon faith crisis. Thrive content. Margi, that you're sharing with us. So, Margi, you've got one good thing you want to share with us today.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:58] I do, and I want to invite other people who are listening right now or who are part of the live stream. If you have something that's working for you or something, a good thing you want to share, you can do that as well. And maybe we can just sort of all bask in the good things that we're Enjoying. But for our good thing that we would want to share is a podcast, actually. And it is a short podcast put out by the Gottmans. So the Gottmans are kind of the. Some of the foremost relationship researchers. It's John and Julie Gottman, I think, if I have it right.

Margi Dehlin [00:05:38] And the podcast name is called Small Things, Often Podcast. And in this podcast, what you can expect is it's about five minutes or less, it's a daily, and you will receive kind of practical and accessible strategies designed to strengthen your relationships. So I love it because it's short, so it is kind of doable. I don't, I'm not super strict about every day, but anytime I pop in, I'm always glad that I, that I do. And here are some examples of kind of the topics that they cover in those five minutes. I just kind of grabbed some. The importance of taking breaks during arguments, how to battle loneliness in a relationship.

Margi Dehlin [00:06:25] Who are we defining? The culture of your couplehood and ways to make a better bid for connection. So those are some examples of. But they have a whole load of episodes out already. So from us to you, there is a good thing to enjoy.

John Dehlin [00:06:43] All right. And I'll go ahead and paste those as well in the comments and we'll put those in the show notes so that everyone who wants to check out that podcast, I can just add as, as someone who has studied psychology for a while now that the Gottmans are legit. The Gottmans are kind of the experts in healthy marriages, healthy relationships, and they're science backed, they're evidence based. And so if they're doing a podcast, people should pay attention. Also they have one of your favorite, one of our favorite books on healthy marriages and relationships. Is that right? What's that called?

Margi Dehlin [00:07:21] Yes. Don't know. Green and white book 7.

John Dehlin [00:07:24] Is it 710 something principles of making marriage work.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:28] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:07:29] Gottman. G O T T man.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:32] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:07:32] And we'll, we'll add their book in the show notes.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:34] They have a load of others, by the way, but that's one that we particularly like.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] I love it. Okay, well, thanks and, and, and listeners and viewers, if you've got, you know, small things that work for you, we want to hear it and we'll share them on future episodes as well. But thanks, Margi, for sharing that one. I've already started listening and it's really good. Okay, so let's back up before we jump in and let's talk about why you would even want to do this episode. I think you Know, I, I for one, used to really be into New Year's resolutions and New Year's goals, and they just never worked for me. That's why I was really excited to have you talk about what we're talking about today. But let's, let's back up and have you talk about kind of how this all begins.

Why New Year's Resolutions Often Fail

Margi Dehlin [00:08:23] Sure. So I, I kind of wanted to do this episode because I had. I've just been noticing culturally how it's everywhere right now. New Year's resolutions, it's on Instagram or Facebook, people sharing magazines, tv. It's. Our culture clearly wraps around this idea

John Dehlin [00:08:44] of

Margi Dehlin [00:08:46] New Year's goals bettering ourselves. And so it's an acknowledgement, I think, of something that we may be experiencing if we're connecting to those outlets in any way. And I do have, like, just a major caveat, and that is for those of those who goals are working for you, meaning you set goals every year. You have great experiences with your goals and you're achieving them and feeling just great in the process. That's really important too, that, that the process of that is something that you enjoy. This episode is probably less for you, probably not in particular for you. That's my caveat.

John Dehlin [00:09:35] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:36] You're happy making goals the traditional way, and it's working for you. We love that, we support you, and this episode may not be for you.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Totally affirming of people for whom goals and New Year's resolutions work. I'll just add a quick comment from Stephanie. She writes the Gottmans are respected around the globe for their science based principles of relationships, not just spouses, but parenting too. Yep. Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing. All right. Okay. So with that caveat, let's jump in.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:12] Okay. So who is this podcast for? Just to intentionalize it. Right. This podcast would be for those who maybe regularly set goals and have a difficult time following through. Or those of you who set goals and then experience regular bouts of feeling disappointed in yourself, or maybe affirming shame cycles. Or those of you who may set goals and even achieve them. Maybe you re. You get the results, but you feel this kind of chronic pull to self improvement and perfectionism in a way that can feel, at times, exhausting. So those are who this for, who this podcast is for is what I would say. Right.

John Dehlin [00:11:03] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:03] And then I also just want to say, I know I'm saying a lot of things before we actually dive in, but, you know, I think we've had a rough year. I think we're still in this kind of strange space. You know, we're here in Salt Lake City having just record numbers of COVID omicron kind of things coming. And it has just arrived. And it places us in just a very interesting space, I think with regard to mental health, with our own resources, with feelings, you know, how much energy we feel. And so I did just want to say, while we live in a culture and while we have likely many of us absorbed messages around goals and self improvement through the years, whether that be through, you know, our religion, where we come from, or you know, our families of origin, or just culturally.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:06] Right. That you do not. You are worthy of love as you are. Right. That this is, this is not like a prerequisite for you to be lovable. And I think that's important. And I'll explain a little bit, you know, more later about why that is. But to illustrate this, I came across like an Instagram post that I really, really liked. And I just wanted to put it out there before we even begin that if you feel tired and it is enough to wake up and just try to kind of get through your day at this point, like accept that, that you are lovable as you are and no goals are necessary, no self improvement needed.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:57] And I love this, this Insta post that kind of addresses that. So it's at ANA A N A Mardol M A R D O L L so we're gonna give some attribution, but it says, I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're reading this, you survived a terrible year and that's enough. You don't need accomplishments, you don't need to finish reading lists or chores. You don't need res. Resolutions unless you want one. You survived and that was hard.

John Dehlin [00:13:36] I love that. And I just want to say if, in addition, not only am I super happy that you're on and I know so many of my listeners, our listeners and viewers love you. I really relate to this topic and I'll just share quickly my experience. My experience is that for growing up in, in, in the Mormon Church and I think just growing up as a human, I don't think this is particularly Mormon. I was always feeling like I wasn't good enough, like I needed to do better. And I'm for self improvement and self enhancement.

John Dehlin [00:14:09] So I don't think that's a bad thing per se, and I don't think it's a Mormon thing. However, I, I do remember, you know, sort of this constant cycle of feeling like I was missing things all year long, feeling Like I wasn't doing the right things, like I was not as good as I should be. And so you, you know, you get to, you know, end of December, and you're like, I'm gonna change. And you've got the holidays and you, you know, you've eaten. Maybe you've eaten too much and you've gained a little weight or whatever, and you're reflecting on the year and then you're like, I'm gonna make goals X, Y and Z.

John Dehlin [00:14:43] And so you make it. I'm gonna exercise five times a week and I'm gonna lift weights and I'm gonna eat better and I'm gonna watch my calories and I'm going to be nicer to people. And then inevitably you'd. You'd mess up or you would have that. Those feelings and that intention for many, many days or even weeks, but inevitably life would happen. And then you, you would eat too much or you'd forget to exercise, or you would get busy, or you just wouldn't feel like it. You wouldn't have that sustainable level of motivation and energy and passion. Two, three, four weeks into your resolution, and then all of a sudden your goals get scrapped and you.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] It's kind of this all or nothing abstinence violation effect where you're working really hard and then when you blow it, you end it and you. And you drop it, and then you just feel bad, like I'm kind of worthless. And then you're done for until the next year and then you come back and do it again. You're nodding. Why are you nodding?

Margi Dehlin [00:15:41] Yes. I just think it's so relatable and the, like, the points that we're going to be talking about today really stem from. So that's just beautiful. That is. That is. I completely relate to it. And my sense is a lot of other people relate to it too. And that is why we're going to kind of dig in. Today.

John Dehlin [00:16:01] We're doing this. We have a comment from a viewer. Matt Hoyland writes, my very concepts or goal of goals, objectives and progress were extremely intertwined with my missionary programming. I've been deconstructing and reconstructing them for years. Very excited for this. And of course, Diamond Dave writes, margie is awesome. Okay, so. All right, so that's kind of set a little bit of the stage.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:28] About what? What doesn't always work for some people.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:32] So what's an alternative?

Margi Dehlin [00:16:34] Yeah, well, I like to kind of start. And I know this isn't traditional, but I think it is Important with your why. So I think oftentimes we feel kind of driven forward. We have this aspirational self that comes forward when we're thinking about self improvement. And what I've noticed in my years coaching and in just sort of research, what comes up around research and how this works in psychology is the aspirational self the way we go about things when we're aspiring or kind of, how would I say, like in this place of we're not worthy. And this is tricky. So I'm asking people to go to the why and go to the root of why you want this change, what it means for you to have this change and to kind of lean in and be curious.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:31] If your why comes from a place of deficit, it's going to play out differently psychologically for you and you're less apt to be. To have the desired, let's just say, effect or action. And so what I really love is to try and if you can connect to a why you want this change, why you want this behavior in your life or this, you know, transformation in your life and have it come from a place of honoring yourself. So it would, what that looks like is it would really feel good to me to be able to do this, or, you know, it would actually I would enjoy this change or I would like to.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:22] And it's very different language. And the thing that's tricky about it is if we're just looking at behavior, you can't tell the difference, right? You can't tell if someone's driven by perfectionism or by this sort of scarcity of love mindset or this hustling like gotta be good enough, gotta perform a performative thing, you can't tell the difference, right? But that route of I'm doing it for myself, I'm doing it to honor myself because this is something I want for myself and being really gentle and where it comes from, love and deserving that you deserve these changes, you find it plays out actually really differently. And people are more apt to be successful and have less of the psychological backlash coming from that place of self, love and what you want for yourself and it feeling honoring and it affects what you're asking of yourself.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:21] Right. And we'll talk a bit more about that as we kind of go through the difference between, let's say setting goals and. And setting intentions or let's say a focus word for the year. Does that make sense? Yeah, that come through.

Audience Comments on Goals and Religion

John Dehlin [00:19:37] We have some great comments coming in. So Kyle writes, I have struggled hard with goals ever since they were shoved down my throat on my mission. Super excited for this episode and the wisdom they have to share with us. And then Stephanie writes, I was an athlete and was trained to always be working on physical self improvement. Then I got debilitating arthritis and have felt guilty for not improving skills every year ever since. And what I think both of both of these comments, both Kyle's and Stephanie's are speaking to, are kind of intrinsic motivation.

John Dehlin [00:20:15] And I think that's what your opening point is as well, about getting to the why. Because we're all so accustomed, let's just say as humans, but also as Mormons of, you know, the church told us to do it, our parents told us to do it, the prophets said to do it, the scriptures said to do it, our mission president said to do it. And those are often our wise now, not always, but for many of us. And what we haven't ever been taught is, I think, to really listen, not even to the Holy Ghost, which some might associate just with conditioning. In other words, whatever the church has taught us, that's our brain associating with church teachings to follow that what we've never been taught is to really go internal to, you know, like, like Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within.

John Dehlin [00:21:03] Not that we're necessarily Christian per se, but to listen, to get quiet, to listen to our own voice and, and to figure out what our internal drives are, our internal motivations and, and I think that's what you're saying, that maybe it'll take some practice, but it's worth doing.

John Dehlin [00:21:25] Why is it. Because that can be a more sure foundation, that can be more motivating than something external. Why are you. Why do you think it's important to practice going internal and learning to listen to your own voice?

Margi Dehlin [00:21:41] I feel like it. It's similar. Well, research kind of proves this psychologically, but I think it works. I wonder. Here's what I'll say. I wonder if it works kind of like shame. Like shame is not particularly, particularly motivating. And I think, I think sometimes goals can come from this place of we feel bad about this, right? We feel bad in this way about ourselves or we really want something to change. And it comes from this place of like I want to say sometimes it's not only self criticism, but sometimes it can be self aggression.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:17] And when what we find is if you shift that to a place of like, I really deserve this, like, this is a form of me showing up for myself. Like, what would it feel like if I actually showed up for myself in this way? Because I really feel like this would feel good for me or this would be honoring to me. It's really, it's. It's a totally different way of going about pursuing change.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:45] And yeah, and you find that the results follow, but it's also more process oriented and we care about process here, and so we'll be touching on that a little bit later on. One key thing, though, that I, I wanted to just sort of touch on is an element to consider.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:09] So one thing I remember Noah Rashada at a retreat talking about so shout out to Noah and Secular Buddhism podcast. But I remember he's talking about the power of gratitude at one of our retreats. And in that he was saying, boy, people can write gratitude lists all day long. And I'm sure there, you know, there, there might be some benefit to that. But where the real benefit comes from feeling gratitude is actually when you emotionally connect to the thing you are listing. So think about it like you could write a gratitude list. Okay, what am I grateful for? Okay, I'm really grateful for my health today.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:47] I'm super grateful for, you know, that I got to sleep in or had a good night's sleep. I'm really grateful. And you can kind of shoot through that list. Right. And you've, you've done maybe the goal of being grateful, you're grateful thing, but it, it changes the experience, actually, when you slow down and you're like, wow, I'm. I'm going to connect to the fact of what it felt like to get good sleep last night. Right. When you slow down to emotionally connect, that's where the power is amplified. And I think that's the same here. I'm asking you to reflect on maybe some subtle things you want for yourself this year that would feel honoring for yourself.

Connecting With What You Truly Need

Margi Dehlin [00:24:27] And then I'd ask you to emotionally connect to what it would feel like if you were able to give yourself more of that this year.

John Dehlin [00:24:37] Yeah. I'm reminded of this idea of shoulding all over yourself. Right?

Margi Dehlin [00:24:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] That we're so conditioned to should things we should be doing. And maybe it's. Maybe if we can really discover what we want to do, that can become a little bit more motivating then always just doing what somebody else has told us we should be doing.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:02] Yeah, I love that the aspirational self, if you want to know, that's that should shows up all the time there. And we will be giving concrete examples so that you can tell the difference between, let's just say a traditional goal, like an example of a traditional goal later, and Then. Then what happens? How do you make that an intention? What that would look like, what's the difference? And then, you know, also a focus word. What if. When to use a focus word and what the difference, you know, so you can see it. But yeah, that aspirational self is all over like weight loss or diets or, you know, working out or, you know, and so really being conscious of. I'm. I'm asking you to bypass that. I'm asking you to go deeper than that and to connect with something deeper.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] Love it. All right, so we're going deeper. We're going internal. I love it. All right, so what's next, Margi? What's the next.

Problems With Traditional Goal Setting

Margi Dehlin [00:26:10] Well, I thought it might be useful to look at sort of some of the characteristics of the traditional goal setting approach so that we could then contrast it. How does that sound? With kind of the intentions? What? Do what? Let's just talk about the difference. So if we're, if we're thinking about traditional goal setting, you know, goals are often made from a place of scarcity or a sense of inadequacy in ourselves. Right. And unworthiness. So there's this desire. There can be this desire for, for self improvement, and it can also be at times an addictive, an addictive kind of process to bettering. But it's kind of. Oftentimes it's born out of sort of scarcity that I'm not good enough. This is wrong with me. So also this desire to kind of fix. Need to fix myself, does that make sense? That's one of the first things.

John Dehlin [00:27:15] So that's. The desire to fix things is a model of brokenness that I think we also learn, maybe in humanity, but definitely within the Mormon tradition, that we're fallen, that we're depraved, that the natural man is an enemy to God. And so we're broken. And just like a machine, if it's broken, you got to fix it. You know, if we have mistakes, if we are doing what we should be doing, then we're broken and we got to fix it. And you're saying maybe that's not the way or the way you like to look at things.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:49] Well, it's not. It's not really that. It's that. Well, it is a little bit that I just think it's. It tends to be less effective, and that's important. And, you know, I am interested in. In healing and I'm interested in feeling inspired and connected to myself in this life and goals sometimes. And that's another thing I'll I kind of can bring up is goals often have you disconnect from yourself. So depending on the goals you make. But an example of this would be, let's just say I want to run 30 minutes a day, five days a week.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:32] That goal kind of makes it so that no matter how you're feeling, right. You're not really checking in with how you're feeling. You're just trying to run every day for 30 minutes or. And so sometimes our goals actually can disconnect us from ourselves. And, and so that's something that I feel is problematic for a number of reasons. So, okay, we're having this process. It. Yeah, you'll see once we kind of compare contrast. But right now these are just characteristics of traditional goal setting and how they contrast compare with intentions.

John Dehlin [00:29:13] Okay, so, so goals too often are made out of a sense of scarcity.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:21] That's right. They also tend to disconnect you from yourself. I'm not saying they always do, but oftentimes aspirational goals do because it's about a result. It's. It's really not about the process. It's about you getting to an end. Right. That's the point.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] So goals are about results.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:40] Goals are about results.

John Dehlin [00:29:41] Which Buddha, secular Buddhism would kind of say it's more about the journey than the end. Is that right?

Margi Dehlin [00:29:46] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:29:47] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:47] It's very much results oriented. Goals often disconnect you from yourself. Goals oftentimes tend to be aspirational. We talked about that earlier versus honoring. Right. So instead of let's say self critical as opposed to self love. Right. So goals also like there's this whole smart goal structure where that can work for people. I'm not saying, you know, it's a terrible thing, but where it doesn't work, I think it's worth kind of offering. It's highly evaluative. So like you were saying early, earlier, there's like a pass fail to a smart goal. You do it or you don't. There are all these confines and oftentimes that that ends up being very rigid on a human being that has a lot of things going on. You may have illness or different circumstances or different resources come up. And so it can work for some, but it tends to be constrictive and kind of rigid.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:53] So you have that binary structure of what success looks like versus failure. And that, you know, is very results oriented, but it also can prevent real progress. See, because at any given moment you can fail and then you have that. You have that. What's it Called where you swing back and it's like, okay, now I've ruined the day and so I might as well just. Or I've ruined the week. So. So I might as well just like cash it in now and go back to versus this.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] The.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:26] If you were more process oriented and less, you know, this kind of judgmental about your progress, then you would be noticing and you would be taking notes and not judging so much. And so you would, you would set yourself up for more progress. It would be like, oh, so in that decision, I noticed this about myself. And I don't necessarily have to judge it harshly. I'll use it for data. And as a result, now what do I want to do for lunch? Or how do I want to move forward in my next decision? And so it be that process versus the end really allows for you to be gentler with yourself, to be human. And as a result, more progress tends to be made, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] So goals can often be too binary, as we talked about earlier.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:20] Yeah, you're either failure on the.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] On the wagon or you're off the wagon.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:24] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:32:24] Not. Not helpful.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:25] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:26] And very punishing. I think goals traditionally tend to be made around New Year's. So we talked about this, I think, a little bit in the winter kind of Christmas podcast. But if you haven't listened to that, you can kind of go back because it's not really just about the holidays, it's really about the winter season. But it kind of, if we're going to talk about energy, sunlight, and kind of what's going on with the average person in January.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:55] Winter is kind of a time of hibernation, of a lot of contemplation and reflection. Our energy tends to be lower and so, you know, to kind of pile on some, you know, things that are going to require effort in January that may not work for everyone. And I noticed this personally for myself, if, if I'm going to be doing intentions for the year, I tend to do them at a different time of year, not necessarily in January, where, you know, I'm trying to be a little bit slower, a little bit more internal, a little more reflective.

John Dehlin [00:33:37] Yeah. I should refer people to our episode about Christmas, right? Is that where we talked about seasons and the importance of seasons and winter and how winter, just like with nature, is a time for trees to shed their leaves and to have their roots grow deeper and for bears to hibernate? You know, nature seems to say winter is more the time to slow down and reflect and maybe for some who want to make big changes or even small changes, maybe spring might be a better time to start sometimes than winter.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] Why are you smiling?

Margi Dehlin [00:34:14] Because we're going to get to that.

John Dehlin [00:34:15] Oh, sorry.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:16] But yes. No, it doesn't. No, that's great. Yeah. I mean, winter, like kind of. I feel like if there's any type of vibe to winter, it's a little bit of rest. So, you know, it's absolutely understandable if at this stage in the game you're like, wow, I'm feeling actually a little bit tired. And so maybe the timing of New Year's goals doesn't, doesn't actually mesh with what you feel.

John Dehlin [00:34:47] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:48] So that, that's kind of the how goals tend to show up and manifest and then we can contrast them to intentions if you want.

John Dehlin [00:34:56] Yeah. Okay. And again, I'll just say it again, for a lot of people, goals really work. And so that's not to say goals are useless or bad for all. It's just some of the downsides of goal, of a goal approach for some. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:12] Okay. So the next. I'll just, I'll just read a really quick comment. Bizarro Ward says yay, Margi. Love it when Margi comes on. She always has something thoughtful and useful to share. Anyway, thanks, Bizarro Ward, for, for your comments. And also our dear friend Barbara Hogan is tuned in. She writes, I am moved by Margi's loving phrase. It's a way I can show up for myself. Thank you, Margi and John, for spreading your kindness. Hey, Barbara. Shout out to our Texas friend Barbara.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:48] I love it.

Introducing the Intentions and Focus Word Approach

John Dehlin [00:35:49] Okay, so now it's time to talk about intentions or a focus word approach. So tell us what you mean by that.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:57] Yeah, so if we look at intentions. One thing I really like about intentions that sometimes are missing in goals is that they tend to take your, your kind of present, your present situation, your present energy level or mental health or resources into account.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:19] So, and you'll see that later when we get to kind of examples. But when you set an intention, that's actually, that should be something that you reflect on right before you make an intention, which is why we have you connect kind of to your why, why, why do I want to see this shift in myself? Where's it coming from? Is it coming from me? Would it feel honoring or, or is this more of a fix it type of, you know, goal or.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:50] So that's one thing I really love about intentions. And that's a very inward thing as opposed to external. It's much more Internal to start with. All right. What are my resources? What's my energy level and how's my mental health right now? And how can I honor that with what I'm asking myself to kind of do?

John Dehlin [00:37:13] So maybe like a massive change, you might not have the energy for that, but maybe for a small change, small shifts.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:21] And I love that you said practice, because I really love the idea of what you're really doing is creating practices and then you're reflecting on those practices as you go.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:35] The second thing about intentions I really love is they'll wait.

John Dehlin [00:37:39] Real quick. Can you define. Did you already define what an intention is and give an example so that people can understand what we're talking about here?

Margi Dehlin [00:37:46] Yeah, I would love to do that. Should I have given an example of a goal?

John Dehlin [00:37:50] No.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:51] Oh, I did. I did. A goal, kind of. I did this sort of. I want to run for 30 minutes, five days a week. That's. That's an example of a kind of a traditional goal. An intention would be more like it. An intention could be, I am going to practice mindfully eating this year. Right. I'm going to lean into mindfully eating. I'm going to be aware of when I eat food and noticing when I'm full. That's an example of an intention.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] So goal would be, I want to lose 10 or 20 pounds this year.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:29] Yeah, we were going to do this kind of then, but let's do it now.

John Dehlin [00:38:32] Oh, we were. I just want to frame it at a high level. We can. Yeah, I don't want to.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:36] An intention is like, I would. I would love to move my body more. I would love to. You know, it can even be, I would like to start each morning with a glass of water. That's an intention.

John Dehlin [00:38:54] Intentions are sounding. I talk a lot about acceptance and commitment, therapy and. And that's my training for my psychology background. Intentions sound a lot like values. So instead of saying, my goal is to lose weight, my value or intention for this year is to move more or to eat healthier. Are intentions similar to values? Or maybe not.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:19] They definitely, I feel like, can be extensions of a lived value. It's the living of a value. Okay, Yeah, I would say. But see, you can use values and make aspirational goals, too. And so, yes, they. They oftentimes do connect to values. The difference is oftentimes in the statement. And if they come from a place of scarcity or a place of abundance, something you want for yourself, and if in phrasing it, there's sort of a pass, fail to It. Do you see that? If you say, I want to run five days a week for 30 minutes and you miss three days in a row, you're done for the week.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:00] You're not going to make five days a week. You've wrecked it. Right. That's just sort of psychologically how it works. If you say something like, you can even. It's not even about making it not daily. You can say, I really would like to move my body, but if you put a time on it, then you're really, really reflective about what time that's going to be. And we're going to talk about this more in a bit, but I would really like to move my body five minutes a day. And there's a reason why you're saying five minutes a day. Or I'd love to get up at breakfast, lunch and dinner when I'm working and, you know, walk around the house or step outside for sun or. Anyway, so it's content, but it's also language. That's the difference between an intention and a goal.

John Dehlin [00:40:51] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:53] All right. So some intentions could be body movement, healthy, healthy eating. Right. Learning, reading.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:02] It could be anything. It could be how you show up. We've got examples at the end that we're going to hit. It can be how you show up for your spouse. You know, if you feel like, I want to be more loving with my kids or more connected with my children, it can be around finances. It can be like, you know, it can be around any category, really. That's important to you?

John Dehlin [00:41:23] Goal is I won't yell at my kids this year. And then yell them. You've already ruined your goal for the year. But if your goal is connection with your kids.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:30] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:41:30] You can accidentally yell at them, but then you just circle back to connection.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:35] That's right. And that's why the wording matters.

John Dehlin [00:41:38] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:39] Right. And the judgment, quite frankly.

John Dehlin [00:41:41] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:42] That you're. You're practicing. And when you say you're practicing, see, there's. It's inferred that you're human and that part of this is going to be learning and part of this is going to be not being 100% all the time. And you're building that into your experience. It's very much about expectation, what you're asking of yourself and if it's really humane.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] Yeah. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:04] How's that? How's it going?

John Dehlin [00:42:05] Great.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:06] How are people connecting to it? I would love to hear if people want to share, if they've explored this way, explored making goals and what their process has been. Or if they've tried something like an intention, and if they notice a difference for themselves, that I'd be really interested to hear.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Absolutely. Yeah. So. So viewers and listeners, feel free to, on Facebook and YouTube to go ahead and share anything you're resonating with. And we'll share it here.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] And while we're waiting for that, so what. What's next? As you're kind of framing intentions or the focus word approach.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:42] Okay, so intentions also allow for a choice of. There's a choice of leaning into a new behavior. Right. So an example around this would be, boy, there's a lot of. A lot of things around dieting, I feel like, this time of year, or. Or losing weight. And I love this idea of you're creating a practice and a choice around how you eat, as opposed to infusing more control or rigidity, which can play into all sorts of things, particularly around food. You know, not just, you know, problematic eating patterns, but even sort of, you know, disordered eating. Right. We just. It's an area where. I'll just say control and rigidity tend to be punitive. They tend to just not really work out for most of us. So I love for intentions, there's always a choice in the moment.

John Dehlin [00:43:49] And, yeah, they're not controlling or rigid. That you're flexible.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:54] That's right. There's flexibility.

John Dehlin [00:43:56] Yeah. I remember in my. In my studies, psychological flexibility was really valued. So instead of like, yes, no, quantitative, structural, binary, categorical. Just being flexible.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:10] That's right. Yeah, that's right. Another one is that the process matters as much as the end. If not, maybe even more. So we're looking at how we're talking to ourselves, how we're practicing, how we're showing up, we're collecting data a day that you actually, let's say, don't move. Let's say you're. Let's just take an intention where you try to move five to ten minutes a day. There is no lost experience.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:39] It's like, let's say you have a day and you weren't able to move for five to ten minutes a day. Then you use that as data. How did I feel? How did my body feel? How do I feel? You know, how is my mood? How did it affect my day? What didn't work? What stood in the way of me? It's like everything becomes valuable as opposed to sort of this dismissive, I failed and now I'm on to the next day. So the process matters as much as the end in intentions.

John Dehlin [00:45:13] Yeah, it's about the journey. It's not about the end.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:16] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:45:16] Yeah. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:17] So another thing about intentions is they. They're less evaluative or judgmental. As you could see in the other example, you weren't bad. You didn't fail for not moving that day. It's neutral. You're collecting data. That's all it is. It's not a judgment on your character. You weren't a failure. And so because of that, actually that backlash isn't present. You don't get the psychological shame and the. The disappointment in yourself. And starting all those scripts about kind of who you are. So it kind of protects you from that.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] Okay, perfect.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:58] Okay,

John Dehlin [00:46:01] I. I'll share just one comment. Aposta, babe. Linda James writes, my intention is to sing more often.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:08] I love that. Yeah, that is beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:46:11] And then Christian friend writes Linda James. That's a great one. Music is healing. And Linda says, very healing. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:22] Just sharing a little bit of feedback from our audience.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:25] I think intentions also allow you to connect with yourself. So intentions aren't just vague, you know, so. But it allows you. Some people do well with a bit more structure and a bit more structure. And an intention is like the movement, five to ten minutes a day. That's a str. More structured intention.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:47] But it allows you to kind of reflect on yourself and to again, do what we said in the beginning of the intentions, which is to kind of be able to connect with your own mental health and where you are and what you need. Do you need more structure or do you need softness and gentleness? And if you need more softness and gentleness, then, you know, Moving more in 2022 offers more gentleness and softness. And if you connect to that sort of. That's my desire every day and it's posted somewhere, then that can be kind of what you need and what is effective for you. So it allows that kind of balance between do you need more structured intention or do you want to go with something kind of softer that keeps you safer and kind of more in this place of gentleness?

Margi Dehlin [00:47:42] I'd say so. I love that about it. And that kind of plays into intentions tend to be more honoring of yourself for all these things that we've talked about. And less self aggressive, less self punitive. It tends to not trigger that negative self talk that goals can.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] Yeah, because those things can just de demotivate you. They can discourage you. After a while, you. You just become a new negative authority for yourself. Instead of having some external patriarchal figure or whatever, or parent berating you and demotivating you. You can have that voice inside your head doing that and. And I can wear you down.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:29] Yes. And where we're talking about healing, I just feel, I feel like we all deserve that healing and we can offer it to ourselves.

John Dehlin [00:48:42] It's almost like reparenting ourselves, giving, becoming the parent for ourselves that we didn't have maybe sometimes growing up and giving

Margi Dehlin [00:48:52] ourselves the love we deserve instead of waiting for others. Yeah. Love it so. And then the last kind of part of intentions that, or even a focus word approach that I really love, and this comes from my experience, is just you can make them in the spring. So if we were going to kind of look at a time of year, we can clearly, we can, you know, come up with an intention or desire things for ourselves any time of year. But if we're going to look at what time of year naturally infuses us with more sunlight, we naturally have more energy and we're kind of working, working with the world around us. I think spring is a really natural time for many of us to kind of feel a little more wind at our backs if we're going to try something new or start practicing something new.

John Dehlin [00:49:52] So maybe it might be more energy or nature congruent to have spring resolutions instead of New Year's resolutions. Maybe.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:01] I think so. I think so. For some.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:04] For some, yeah. And as a person who leans into the seasons quite a bit, I just feel like it works really marvelously. It's something to try out. If you're feeling a little more restful

John Dehlin [00:50:17] right now, especially if New Year's resolutions fail for you, guess what, you're in luck. Just, just switch to spring intentions.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:27] Wait, so there was a funny Instagram post the other day of like, if, if sort of American culture New Year's fails, don't worry because then you have Chinese New Year's. You have. And it went through the whole year of different New Years. I just thought it was so funny. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] If at first you don't succeed, try, guess what.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:47] Anyway, so that's kind of a difference between was that helpful? I hope it was helpful. And if you have questions or if I, if I missed something, do let me know.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:57] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:50:58] Yeah. So what's next in your outline?

Intentions vs. Focus Words Explained

Margi Dehlin [00:51:00] So I just wanted at this point, before we kind of, we were going to hit some examples and allow folks listening to kind of see the difference through examples of, let's just say traditional goal setting versus intentions versus using something like a focus word. And when you would use a Focus, word versus intentions. I just wanted to kind of maybe accent the power of noticing in this process that we're all in process.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:39] And so if we can lean into these new practices, so intentions, birth practices and I can kind of go into that more with the examples. But let's just say if you're wanting to move five to 10 minutes a day, maybe that yields a practice of walking down your driveway at lunch. Right. We're, we're, they're tied to, to new things we're doing. And if we are able to be curious about ourselves and our experience of what we want or what we wish for or how we want to show up for ourselves. Right. If we can kind of, if we're able to connect to that curiosity and noticing it allows for this getting to know ourselves.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:32] That becomes a beautiful thing, right. Instead of a judgmental thing again in a self punishing thing. It's like I notice that I have more energy in the morning and so I tend to want to move more or I notice if I move before I start my day, I'm more apt to be successful at it. Or I really love moving in like outside in nature. I really like that. Do you see how all of this is data about yourself or on a day that you weren't able to get to it, it can be like what, what blocked me from allowing that to happen today? And what happened and what did I notice?

Margi Dehlin [00:53:14] Oh, I noticed I actually felt less energy. I felt more tired today. Right. Isn't that interesting to kind of notice that more movement gives me energy and it's not in this sort of self evaluative which we have been so trained and reinforced to kind of look at ourselves in that way. But the power of noticing in a neutral lens, in a curious lens where our lives and what works for us and how we experience particularly these changes we want for ourselves. It is data and data is pretty awesome when it comes to yourself. And then you can use that data, see to then go ahead and infuse your practices so that you will be more successful.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:06] See you use the data then to help you guide you forward and propel you forward. So it's a beautiful thing. All about power of noticing. It's a very coaching term as is practicing. So those two terms I really love and invite you to consider using that terminology in looking at intentions and or a focus word and what you are hoping to kind of integrate into your lives this next year.

John Dehlin [00:54:37] Love it. Now we're gonna, we're gonna go back through just a couple concrete examples just but before we do, there's at least two comments that I think are worth kind of presenting to you, Margi, to see if you have any great response. Is that okay? Okay. So Christian Friend writes, giving ourselves the love we deserve, powerful. I wish I could do this.

Healing From Unworthiness and Self-Compassion

John Dehlin [00:55:03] So I don't, I don't want to get us too far off track, but for those of us who just feel like we were just too conditioned to feel inadequate, to feel unworthy, to feel ashamed, to feel broken. Do you have any books or podcasts or just quick tips or tricks about how someone who feels like they've spent a lifetime in shame learning to start giving themselves the love they deserve or even feeling like they're worthy like they deserve love? Some people probably are so conditioned to feel like they don't deserve love or compassion that they don't even know where to start. So is there any just quick tip or direction you might be able to point Christian Friend and others into?

Margi Dehlin [00:55:50] I'll probably just because of how my brain works, I probably will have to think about resources.

John Dehlin [00:55:57] Okay,

Margi Dehlin [00:56:00] a little bit. But what I can say is there are a couple questions I feel like in there, but what I would just say what who did it come from? Just so I can.

John Dehlin [00:56:09] Christian Friend.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:10] So Christian, I feel you is what I want to say. And like I feel very much that that's why I'm sharing today is because I feel like in many ways I went the goals route and I was, I was pretty successful at it other than I became addicted in some ways to sort of self improvement. And it was a way I feel like I worked to feel worthy of love, to feel lovable. And so all I can say is for people that are like, how do I even start? How do I even begin? I tend to have people begin with what they yearn for, what they're longing to experience in their everyday.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:06] Whether that's I long to feel grounded. I long to feel moments of peace. I long to feel. But go with the longing or also you can lean into joy or pleasure. Pleasure is a great place to start at the beginning because we all deserve pleasure. And pleasure really allows for us to get out of our brains, get out of sort of our thinking brain where all that conditioning is and it allows you to connect with the present moment in a really beautiful way. I mean, pleasure, in short, kind of reminds us of why we want to be alive. Right?

Margi Dehlin [00:57:50] So those are kind of the two things. And if I were going to say how do we slowly integrate loving ourselves into our lives when maybe we would say Our conditioning, all conditioning or a lot of conditioning has pointed, you know, elsewhere. I would say we practice.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:13] That's how we do it. And that means that we slowly become aware of what types of thoughts we have about ourselves, what we tell ourselves, what we believe about ourselves. And that can be journal work, what things you may believe about yourself that is outdated, that you actually don't believe in your heart.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:36] And then you start cultivating new, really new beliefs that you can kind of start aligning your thoughts with. But it is a practice and it takes time and it happens in small moments. But I clearly fervently believe and have. Have experienced a lot of change as I practiced. So I'm encouraged.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] Yeah. I think I'll add just maybe three books that came to mind for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:08] Great.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] There's the Harvl Hendrix book, Getting the Love youe Want. And that's. That's primarily a couple's book. But what I love about that book is that it has you go back into how you were parented and it gives you actual. It has like a workbook and it gives you exercises for going back into how you were parented so that you can kind of become more conscious of the messages you received in your childhood, which I think can be an important first step to then kind of repairing, kind of reparenting yourself.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:39] Beautiful. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:59:40] Even if it's not for a spouse, it can be for reparenting yourself in terms of kind of learning to love yourself better. That's the first one. You and I, when we went through a really hard time, 2012, that book was an important part of our healing. Would you agree?

Margi Dehlin [00:59:58] Very much so, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:00] Yeah. Okay. So that's. I. And I'll put these in the show notes and I'm also posting them, pasting them in the comments. The second book that I think can be really helpful in this regard is Tiny Beautiful Things.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:15] Right. That's a great one.

John Dehlin [01:00:17] By Cheryl Strayed.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:19] Cheryl Strayed.

John Dehlin [01:00:20] It's a book of essays that she wrote under a pseudonym, Dear Sugar. But it's just like one of the wisest books I've ever read about self understanding relationships, healthy boundaries, repair of unhealthy patterns stemming from parent, child relationships, et cetera. So I really recommend Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:44] And can I say something really quick about that, please? One thing that's so unique to that, to that book, I feel like, is that people really write into. It's Cheryl Strayed. But it's under this column. Dear Sugar. Right. Is that they really.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:02] They really. I Feel like open up a door into their private, dark spaces and their suffering. And I really love the voice of Cheryl Strayed and how she kind of brings forth this really compassionate, wise voice that. That on some level you feel like is you. It's like your deepest you, though, that maybe over time and years and conditioning has been kind of clouded over. And so to hear that voice, to hear her written voice and what it feels like to have that level of just, I hear you and I see you, and here are some thoughts about what you deserve and how to kind of grapple with the pain and suffering of being alive. It's just it. It's almost like getting reacquainted with a piece of yourself.

John Dehlin [01:02:06] Yeah, I love it. Okay. And the third, so. So that's Tiny, Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. The third that I think a lot of people really love these days, and I've read about half of it is Glennon Doyle's Untamed. And a lot of people are really valuing that book. And I think you liked it. Is that right?

Margi Dehlin [01:02:25] I did, yeah. I found it valuable.

John Dehlin [01:02:28] So, you know, no book's going to be perfect. No book's going to be the best answer for everyone. Go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:33] Yeah. And were you done with your resources? Because I just thought of a couple. So ironically, even for people that don't have children, Shefali Sabery and Conscious Parenting. So, like, the Awakened Family is one of my favorites. Or you could do the Conscious Parent, probably less the second book she had out of Control. But they introduce principles that as you read about them, you think you're reading about them for your children, but what you realize is you're reading about them for the child in you.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:10] So it. It allows you to kind of parse apart what we've been raised to think a good child is a good child, a successful child, and why that isn't what we're after. It. It's just a beautiful, beautiful book that you can use to re parent. And it allows you to kind of clarify in your own mind maybe some of the needs that you've had that are unmet, you know, that have been unmet. So anyway, that's one that I wanted to add, and then I felt like I had another, but.

John Dehlin [01:03:45] So say that again.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:46] So that's Shefali Savery, the Awakened Family.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:49] Kind of goes through the myths of what we've been taught about children. And anyway, that's really valuable as is would be the Conscious Child. I mean, the Conscious Parent, written by Shefali Savery. Too those two books for sure, for reparenting.

John Dehlin [01:04:06] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:07] And. Oh yeah, I feel like that's all for now. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:04:15] All right, good. So those are, those are some resources for, for those who are looking to learn to practice self love. Okay, let's see. One other. There's a lot of comments coming in saying that people just love you and adore you, Margi. So yeah, I'll just read one. Casey Jude writes, I always appreciate when Mark is a guest. I know I'm going to learn something. Delivered kindly and patiently.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:47] Oh, so that's.

John Dehlin [01:04:48] Thank you, Casey Jude. Okay, Another, another comment question. Stephanie writes, yes, this is helpful, but help me integrate that saying about good intentions, paving the way to hell. So this is just addressing this idea that the fear, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And now Margi Delin, wife of Mormon Voldemort, Mrs. Voldemort, if you will, is now encouraging the usage of intentions because

Applying Intentions to Real-Life Examples

Margi Dehlin [01:05:17] I want to take them straight to hell. That's, that's, that's my intention. No.

John Dehlin [01:05:24] So what would you say about people that are concerned? Maybe I'll say it differently, that intentions are weak sauce, that you set a goal, it's hard, it's firm, and you, you're tough and you toughen up and you, you make it happen. But intentions are weak sauce and they're not strong enough to really motivate meaningful behavioral change.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:45] Yeah. I think, you know, that actually reminds me a lot of anything. It's like values too. Right. Oftentimes in my coaching practice, we'll talk about a person's values as a way to kind of anchor them forward, to ground them. But if all you do is come up with something that's common is like to kind of think of six to eight values and that's as far as you get.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:12] Yeah. I don't know that you're going to see a lot of change in your life that way. So when we talk about values, it's the same thing as what we're talking about here with intentions, and that is that you create practices. So. Right. Like a value is only truly a value if it's lived. So from a value we want to actually have you develop, how is this value showing up in your life? How are you living this value? If I came in and spent a day with you, where would I see it? Where wouldn't I see it? And oftentimes you find that oftentimes like people that are suffering or feeling just a level of feeling unfulfilled or they have a value, but it's an unlived value.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:00] Maybe they have just a couple ways that they live it. And so we have to actually develop that value and have it be more lived, have it show up more in the everyday. And I look at intentions very much the same way.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:14] So for some people who are overachievers or who have disconnected from their bodies in the name of weight loss or to be smaller or to, you know, we don't want to go highly structured. And because it. When you do, there can be a psychological backlash. So what we want is something that matches, you know, the human being we're looking at. And that's, you know, on a level what I'm asking you to do is, because I'm not your coach, to reflect on what you need. For many of us, we hit in between.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:50] So for me personally, you know, I'll tell you, I have. I set a goal one year in January to eat. No, I didn't want to eat sugar, Right. So it was just sort of like, I'm not going to have any sugar. And that January, I ate more sugar than I probably ate the whole year before. Like, it was just all about the sugar. And that was a pretty good lesson. Talk about kind of collecting data.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:25] So I think we have to know ourselves a little bit. And the difference is that we create practices from. From our intentions. We're not just. If you need them to be looser, we allow them to be looser. If you need them to be more structured, we would ask that you create what you need for yourself to be successful and to see this lived intention show up in your life. And so we can. This is like a really lovely segue, actually, into our examples.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:00] Okay. To kind of show what it would mean and some different examples. And if you have an area, let's say that you're interested in people who are listening right now and you're having a hard time coming up with an intention.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:19] See if you can ask us, and we'll see if we can kind of help you create something that feels honoring to you. Right. Not aggressive. Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:09:32] All right. So that's. That's some good feedback. Okay. So now we're gonna move to, what, Concrete, Some concrete examples, to kind of put meat on the bones.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:43] Yeah. Okay. And do you want to. Do you want to do some, too, or do you feel like I can.

John Dehlin [01:09:48] Yeah, I'm. I'm kind of technologically kind of managing a lot of the technology.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:55] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:09:56] So I will jump into, but I'll

Margi Dehlin [01:09:58] follow you where you feel or where you have insights. Okay. All right, so you know, so let's just say so with any type of goal, remember, we're going to have you connect with your why, why you're doing it. And we're having you try to pinpoint honoring change or shift as opposed to, you know, that kind of self critical fix approach.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:25] But a traditional goal that a lot of times I see this time of year, and I've noticed because I do lift weights in a gym, is that gyms tend to fill up every year kind of in January and February and by March usually people are like, it kind of clears out. There's actually kind of a joke around that.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:47] So a traditional goal around like working out would be like, I'm going to go to the gym three to four times a week and run 30 minutes. Starting in January. Right. So that's a very traditional goal. January, New Year's, that's the typical time we have just sort of this ironclad and flexible approach.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:12] And so another example of a traditional goal is like my goal in January that I shared one year where I was like, I'm not going to have sugar for 30 days. It's a very traditional way of kind of going about a goal. Another thing that you might see is I'm going to lose ten pounds. Right?

Margi Dehlin [01:11:34] That's another kind of traditional goal. If we were going to take those and actually create an intention right around those. So an intention taking those from traditional goals into an intentional goal, we would substitute I'm going to the gym three to four times a week to run for 30 minutes right into I'm going to move my body for five to ten minutes a day. You could say, I'm going to move my body most days if you need it looser, where you don't want to punish yourself in a way that feels good to me. Right. I love that because it's connecting. You're going to do something.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:12] Maybe one day yoga is what you feel. Maybe another day, a short walk is what you feel. Right? Maybe another day you're just kind of walk. Maybe another day you're lifting a little bit. Right. But it allows and requires that you check in with yourself. The other thing I really have found is when people maximize or are very aspirational in their goals, they tend to like, what would I say?

Margi Dehlin [01:12:40] Maximize time, maximize effort. And what we've learned is, and I'm going to let me give you this example, okay. Let's say you really want to increase muscle mass. Okay. You want to start lifting weights, or that's something that you want to do.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:56] But your goal is, I'm going to lift weights three days a week for 45 minutes or an hour. I want to do this circuit, my full body circuit, right? That's my goal. What happens sometimes is that, that goal, before you ever get to the gym, you're like, I don't want to get in the car.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:17] You have blocks come up, I don't want to get in the car. 45 minutes is too long, you know. And so what you've done is you've created a mental hurdle that you never ever get to the gym. Or another example would be like, I'm going to do 50 push ups a day or a hundred push ups a day. I just really. Or you know, you get the idea, right? But if you really, if you had said to yourself, instead, I'm going to do five push ups a day. Something that doesn't have the mental hurdle, right? If you just do the five push ups a day, oftentimes you're going to do that more successfully.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:57] You'll get down for the five for the five push ups, whereas a hundred often, maybe you'll do it once when you have a lot of mojo, maybe twice. But you never actually get in the habit and you have the backlash of all the days that you don't. So we want to create intentions also that don't create mental hurdles for you. And what happens, what can happen is you get down for the time first, five push ups. And once you're down for the five push ups, you're like, I can do, I could easily do 10 more. Oh, I'm going to take a break. And you know what, I'm going to do 15 more after that is once you actually are engaged in the activity.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:35] This is true for walking. If you say, I'm going to go for a 10 minute walk if that hurdle is low enough for you to get out there. Once you're out there, you're like, oh, now I'm really enjoying it. I can go for another 10 minutes. And this really was true for me in practicing yoga, where I would try to Practice yoga for 30 minutes a day and I would never do it. It was just, it was too much of a hurdle. Whereas I just changed it to say, I'm going to do five minutes. I would be able to get on the mat for five minutes and then once I was on the mat, then I'd do it for a little bit longer.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:09] And in the end, I did more yoga during my weeks than I would have if I had kept it at 30 minutes. If that makes sense. So there's kind of that mental hurdle. So back to intentions. That's why it's five to ten minutes a day. It allows you to be successful or more successful. And that's a read you really have to do for yourself. But that's why we keep it kind of less versus more. Another one.

John Dehlin [01:15:35] I heard Sam Harris make that same point. You know, a lot of people say they want to experiment with mindfulness or meditation and they want to do 10 or 20 minutes or 30 minutes and they get really ambitious. And Sam Harris, who I think has studied the brain quite a bit, has said if you just do it for a minute a day.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:52] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:15:53] It's more important. Sometimes building the habit, even with small habits, is actually more effective, is more important than how, how long you do it for. In other words, if you just show up at the gym and just lift a couple times, you don't feel like it at all. You show up and you just had a poor or a lazy workout day. The fact that you showed up was kind of helping you build the habit. And if you meditate for just a minute, the fact that you, you know, built the habit is actually potentially more valuable to you in the long run than a lot of the actual activity itself.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:35] Yeah. And this is all of this thought process we're giving to you is around noticing and it's not around judging. It's challenging. This pass fail kind of. So because I could have said I just, I can't do yoga because I can't get on the mat for 30 minutes. That's the pass fail paradigm. Like I'm failing at this versus being able to say, you know, what's the block? What's preventing me from, from kind of getting on the mat? It's too long. I have to make the time shorter. And then once I'm there, I'm there. And the same is true with weights. This noticing plays in with going to the gym.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:11] Let's say you make a goal about going to the gym and you really have a hard time getting to, to the gym, getting in your car. Maybe it's cold outside, maybe it's dark, maybe it's. And you, for some reason you have this continual block with you not doing the failure model you're noticing. Wow, it's really hard for me to feel motivated to get in the car in the mornings. Well, maybe you order a couple hand weights, maybe you and, and you put it together. A simple practice in your bedroom that you practice and then you're more successful. Like this is the power of noticing, collecting data and kind of adapting and getting to know yourself and show up for yourself in the process.

John Dehlin [01:17:55] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:55] Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:17:56] It does.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:57] So let me do a compare contrast. Just because I did the. The traditional goal was I'm gonna have no sugar for 30 days. Right. So an intention again, we don't. First of all, I'm gonna just say I don't really love goals of deprivation. I don't love, I'm not going to have or that's just for me and my, let's just say eating disorder background. That doesn't super jive. And I also feel like psychologically it doesn't jive for many of us. So you could instead say I'm going to lean into eating more greens, I'm going to lean into eating more whole foods in the next 30 days and I'm going to notice how it makes sense me feel when I do.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:45] Right. Then it's less performative. It's process, it's more about I want to notice how certain foods make me feel. I'm going to just be collecting data and people are tend to stick to that in a way that's more helpful than in say a punitive sort of deprivation model of no sugar for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:07] And then lastly, I'm going to lose this amount of pounds. Boy, if there's a place that we know research wise it doesn't work. It's with diets and kind of things. So you know, you could instead do something like I'm going to practice when I eat, to be more present to when I eat, to really taste the flavors and to notice and savor each bite of food no matter what I eat and to stop when I feel content. I'm going to practice this every day.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:41] And so this is how we stop intentions from being fluffy and we actually make them show up and we practice in the daily moments of our lives. So those are some examples of the difference. And I can talk about the focus word if you want, other than unless some comments are coming in that you want to share.

John Dehlin [01:20:05] Yeah. Okay, so just to summarize, what I hear you saying is don't get too specific, right. Don't be outcome oriented, don't be restrictive or punitive, get centered on your intentions. Be process oriented, have modest kind of behavioral goals and always check in with you about how, how these intentions worked for you when you acted on them, what it made you feel like. So you can kind of develop that intrinsic motivation and positive reinforcement. Are those some of the things I'm

Margi Dehlin [01:20:46] Hearing you say yes and build practices around your intentions. Find ways to help yourself with the intentions you have. Notice what time of day you love. Notice again the details about inside versus outside, about what feels good to you about. And that is what keeps it honoring to you. That is what keeps this an act of self love as opposed to, you know, an act of sort of punishment or fixing yourself or if that makes sense. So the practice part is really key.

John Dehlin [01:21:28] Love it. We're getting a lot of really good suggestions. I'm going to save them to the end because you've got just a point or two more. Right. So viewers and listeners, I've got a couple final tips from viewers and listeners that I want to add. But Margi, let's have you finish out your outline. Is that okay?

Margi Dehlin [01:21:44] Yeah, I hope this is helpful. We decided to pick just a few areas that people oftentimes make goals around and then kind of, we thought it might be helpful to create intentions to give you examples of intentions around those things really quick. Okay, so one area that comes up for some people is around parenting, right? So, you know, let's say you lose your temper or around your children and it makes you feel kind of, it makes you feel bad or you feel like it's doing damage to the relationship. Right? So one intention. An example of an intention that's not super fluffy like I don't. And not like a goal, which is I'm not going to yell at my kids or would be, I'm going to practice creating a pause with my children when I feel, when I feel triggered.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:45] And we've gone in, gone, we've talked about the power of the pause. But in short, a pause is when you start to feel in conversation like, you know, your heart starts speeding up, your face gets red, you can tell you're starting to kind of lose connection with yourself and you're, you start to feel kind of internally triggered is that you can say, hey, I really love you. And I'm noticing I'm having some things come up and I really care about you. So I'm going to take a moment and just, you know, take a break and I'll come back to you in a minute. Right. That's an example.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:20] You have an intention, you want to show up for your children and not. And not be angry or yell or hurt them out of anger. And you've now created a practice to support that intention. Right. So that's one example.

John Dehlin [01:23:36] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:37] Another example for a lot of people is around money this time of year. And let's say you have, you want to save for something and you've connected. And again, we want the Y, you to connect with each of these things with the Y. So let's save with, with finances. You want to save for, you know, you've got a car on the fritz and you need to call. You need to save for a down payment of a car, right? Or to. So that's kind of your, Your why is you can kind of see this thing coming and you want to be able to kind of pay for a car.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:13] So that's your intention. I want to save right for a new car. I want to save this amount of money. Maybe you, you make it a little more structured. I have the intention to do this. But let's say you in. In reflecting, which is also what we're asking you to do. As you reflect in your why and looking at your circumstances and your mental health and your resources, you notice about yourself. Wow. I buy a lot of, you know, purchases from Amazon. I make a lot of quick kind of purchases, you know, and I can be reflective about that and I don't have to feel shame about that, but I'm noticing it about myself and that's good data to have.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:56] So what I want to practice then, as part of my intention to try and save is I'm going to practice waiting 24 hours before I purchase anything. I can put it in my wish list, but I'm going to, I'm going to create a little bit of a pause before I buy.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:14] That's an example, another example of creating a practice that then supports your intention, if that makes sense. And then I feel like the last one was around a messy house. Is that the one I feel like you came up with was someone wanted a clean house or a clean environment. I feel like.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:39] And my thought on that is first, if you. Is this with children or without children? Because I feel like that's really different. Right? But you know, an example of, you know, I would want you to do your. Why.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:56] Why do you want a clean house? Is it because you have judgments about yourself if you have a messy house? Because if so, I would probably invite you to connect to if you have a deeper why. Right? Because we, we ideally don't really want to do goals for other people and their perceptions of us. We want to actually connect with ourselves and what we want for ourselves. So if you're Y is, I notice I, I feel a lot of anxiety when the house is messy. And I, it would mean a lot to me to have a space, you know, that's clean and you do the emotional connection to sort of what it would feel like to have that.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:44] And let's say, should we do it with kids if you have kids versus not if you have children? I feel like this is a really different, again, a different scenario than if you don't. But let's say you have children that make messes because that is what children do.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:05] Is that you. Now you get to kind of be creative about it. Right. And you can. I would probably invite a reframe around what a mess means. Right. That sometimes messes or evidences that people live in your home can be heartwarming. Right. And I used to do this for myself when my kids shoes or backpacks were around is just this is. This is evidence that I live with people, that I actually share my life with people. And when this evidence is gone, it will probably be because they're gone right from my house. And how important is it that at all times everything is perfectly picked up as opposed to actually, you know, working on a practice of accepting that some order of like some sense of mess is part of where.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:00] Where we are right now. Right. And it speaks to the love and the presences that are in this. Sharing my space with me. Right. So that may be a practice. Right. Maybe it's on cultivating a sense of what mess means and have it less be about judgment and more be about, you know, sharing space. If you feel like there's a legitimate problem with messiness or disorganization, then we can move into creating a space for yourself. Like where you're able to have a neat space or a space of order, whether it's your. That you create one space for yourself, that you can go and meditate or you know, feel a sense of quiet or that's another intention is just, I'm going to create a space in my bedroom or create a space wherever that's neat and tidy and it's just for me and I can go and feel it during the times when I'm overwhelmed or when my children were really young and they played.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:05] Oftentimes I had designated spaces for play. So you can. Instead of the whole house feeling like it's a play space, that there are designated areas where there are toys for the kids and that helped confine it to a certain area and then in turn made it easier to. To keep clean.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:26] There are just. Do you see how many intentions you can create? Another intention, if you have little kids could be, you know, we'll clean up before I go to bed or I clean up at this time during, like, everyone helps clean up before dinner. Everyone helps clean up before. Or that you have this sort of where you play music and you tidy the space.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:47] All of these are practices around intentions to have a cleaner space is that helpful without sort of the rigidity of a goal that's tied to maybe a judgment about what it means to have books or school supplies around or art supplies. I remember really working hard on this because I tend to be a very tidy human. But when my children were little, I really worked on reframing because I loved them to be creative and have art projects and to use their imaginations. And I literally retrained my brain to think of it like my children are creating. Creating. Like, this is. This is beautiful. To see paints and paper and out means that, you know, creativity is happening here.

John Dehlin [01:30:37] Love it. All right. Well, this was. Margi, this was a really lovely and an important topic that we covered. I know a lot of people in the comments are loving it. There are some comments, suggestions or questions, and I thought we would just take a few final minutes to kind of go over them. Is that okay? Yeah, okay, sure. Some of these are suggestions. Some of these are questions or comments.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:02] Great.

John Dehlin [01:31:03] Read them. So Maven writes for me, a book that has helped me is one small step can change your life. It shows that taking smaller steps can be more motivating for lasting changes than making big, complicated plants. You're nodding your head, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:20] Why, that's so beautiful. And I couldn't agree more. And it reminds me of the work of the holistic psychologist who talks about how we regain trust in ourselves. And it's through one small promise to ourselves every day. And it could be like, I'm going to drink water or I'm going to, but it's small. And what happens is over time, you know, through that honoring of the promise to ourselves, you build and build and build, but it plays right into that. I love that, like, with my whole heart.

John Dehlin [01:31:52] All right, thanks, Ma. Next comment is from Douglas Fun. Have you heard about nonviolent communication? Oh, I should say. Didn't Nana give me the book Atomic Habits for Christmas? Is that right? And that's a book my brother also strongly recommended. I think it has this idea of really small habits that you get in the habit of doing no matter what, and then you chain them together, and over time you can build a real. And I don't know if any of this is even contradicting everything we just talked about in terms of, like, habits versus goals versus intentions, but it doesn't matter. We don't care what you do.

Habits, Environment, and Practical Resources

John Dehlin [01:32:29] There's no dogma or doctrine here. We're going to just provide resources that people find helpful and let you go on a journey and exploration of what's useful to you. But Atomic, in addition to the recommendation Maven just gave us of One small step can change your life. Atomic Habits is another book that my brother and others have recommended.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:49] And to use an example that you kind of provided there, a morning routine is a perfect example of that is like let's say you want to meditate for start a meditation, meditation practice and you start with a minute a day or something that I understand a principle of Atomic Habits is tying it to other things. So having a little bit of a morning routine can tie together a bunch of things you want to feel or experience in your mornings. And it ties it together through the form of routine. Right. So that's an example of that and I really love that. And there's this idea like, of remember, it's about you connecting with yourself, with your own why and remembering to any change you make.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:38] Well, first of all, remember, you don't need to make any changes to be lovable, to have a, to experience joy this year to, you know, so then I feel like once we really embrace that, then it's more about what we feel inspired to do. And that's just a really great place to stand as opposed to, you know, wanting to fix ourselves in contrast.

John Dehlin [01:34:04] Yeah, good, good, good. Okay, the next, the next comment is from Douglas. Have you heard about nonviolent communication by Rosenberg? My life coach introduced it to me and it completely changed the way I think about how to approach relationships. Parenting with empathy.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:25] Yes, I have. Yes, I have. And I've read a bit of it and it was beautiful and I need to get back to it, but that's a great resource for people.

John Dehlin [01:34:35] Okay. All right, let's see a couple other quick comments or questions. Okay. JC writes there was a recent Hidden Brain podcast on choice architecture how the world supports our intentions or not. A suggestion was make environment, promote the action. Like having a gym bag pre packed and ready to go. So yeah, shout out for Hidden Brain podcast. Jc thank you for the tip. Margi, any thoughts on. Yeah, trying to create set up an environment that's going to positively reinforce the behavior that you want.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:17] Yeah, I really love that. I think that goes into play. I've heard it with regard to whole food eating that you go to the grocery store and you, you know, in your home you stock foods that you actually are looking to Eat or. Yes. That on some level you're thinking through if your environment actually supports the thing that you're most wanting or not. And so, yeah, that's another, I think, for those that feel like that would be helpful or support, you know, knowing yourself well enough to know if you have the energy, if you have the fortitude right now to look into environment as well as kind of behavior change.

Margi Dehlin [01:36:10] But I mean, of course, it. I am all over how environment affects the decisions we make. And for many people, even laying out their workout clothes. Clothes makes it way more likely that they will work out the next morning something as simple as that. So environment matters.

John Dehlin [01:36:31] Yeah. Yep. I love it. Okay, let's see. And yeah, the Hidden Brain podcast is an important one. Okay. Christian friend writes, what intention, goal. What intention or goal could I set in order to embrace my sexuality? Okay, this is kind of a heavy one or kind of a significant one. I am wondering if I'm queer, but I don't know how to accept myself for who I am. Wow. Okay, Margi, any quick thoughts on that?

Audience Questions on Sexuality and Identity

Margi Dehlin [01:37:02] I feel like you should take this one a little bit. You take one.

John Dehlin [01:37:06] I mean, I think I'll give a quick answer. Christian friend, if you were raised Christian or if you were raised Mormon, you have decades of negative associations with same sex attraction and same sex behavior or being gay or lesbian or bisexual or however you might describe it. So just like Pavlov and the dog and the bell and the food, if you go read about behaviorism, you're going to have decades of conditioning that's going to make you have what we call homo internalized homophobia or internalized homo negativity, where you may be gay or lesbian or whatever, and you may also have conditioned loathing or hatred for gay people or lesbian people or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:37:57] And so the only way I know to kind of work through that is to lean into that, not to lean away from it. So to read about it, to listen to stories about LGBT people, to get to know LGBT people, and even to start experimenting with friendships with LGBT people and then eventually to actually date. And your brain is going to be firing, don't do it. It's evil. It's terrible. God, God will hate you. Jesus will cry, angels will weep. If you're gay, your brain is going to be firing all these messages. And the trick is to figure out what your values are and to start moving in the direction of your values in spite of what conditioned fears or thoughts or emotions your brain fires at you because you're, you know, what you learn from Acceptance of commitment, therapy or act or whatever secular Buddhism is that you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions.

John Dehlin [01:38:50] Your thoughts and emotions are just story, they're just chemical firings in your brain. They're useful, they can be helpful, they can protect you, but they also can harm you. And you have to learn to have a more healthy relationship with your thoughts, your feelings, your stories, your beliefs, etc. So my quick thought is lean into a Christian friend, healthy, informed, values based experimentation with your sexuality and just learn from it. Collect data, make friendships, go on dates, be healthy, be safe, go slow. And over time you'll gather more data. You won't erase the conditioning in your brain, but you can learn and develop new pathways of learning in your brain over time.

John Dehlin [01:39:42] But it only comes through behavior. And so that would be my quick advice to Christian Friend. And we could do a whole podcast on this level, on a whole episode.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:53] We really could.

John Dehlin [01:39:54] I hope that was Margi. Anything you want to add?

Margi Dehlin [01:39:57] I love that by the way. I feel like too, you know, Esther Perel always, you know, once you, let's say you experiment with John's kind of invitation to turn inward and notice your own thoughts, your own programming, challenge your own beliefs. If you do have any beliefs or fears around your own sexuality or judgment, judgments and once you've kind of dabbled there and feel free enough, I would say something that might be valuable is to lean into what Esther Perel talks about, these questions of what turns you on.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:44] And it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't have to be sexual things. For many people it's like when my partner listens to me or. But to start exploring yourself and the way you feel connected and intimate with yourself. And I really like that as a first kind of step because otherwise you're, you're relating and trying to find something in the other that you actually don't know for yourself. So this internal exploration of what turns me on and what turns me off and it can be sexual things, it cannot be sexual things. There might be, you know, images or you know, certain things that you can't but that you're starting to actually learn with curiosity and non judgment a little bit about yourself. And you give yourself space to explore and feel pleasure and intimacy with yourself in a safe way. That's what I would say.

John Dehlin [01:41:45] Love it. Okay. I hope that was useful. Christian friend, thank you for being vulnerable and asking a tough question. We wish you luck. Also I'm going to add Christian Friend. Therapy, therapy, therapy. There's a therapist group in Salt Lake City called Flourish Therapy, I believe they're called. They have LGBTQ experts on staff. You can also find any lgbt. There's an LGBT affirming Therapist Guild in Utah. You can go up and Google that and we'll try and include those in the show notes. But you can find LGBTQ affirming therapists that can help you in that transition. And I highly recommend you help find a professional that can help you because there's a lot of great people who have done that and can do that. Can I say something?

Margi Dehlin [01:42:35] Can I respond to a comment I just saw over on the screen?

John Dehlin [01:42:39] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:39] I think JC was mentioning functioning, the power of a partner.

John Dehlin [01:42:42] Yeah, let's read the comment.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:43] Yeah, go ahead.

John Dehlin [01:42:44] Casey writes, another tip is have a committed partner doing the same thing. So this is a tip for, you know, obtaining the types of behaviors you want in kind of a habit. And so JC writes, another tip is to have a committed partner doing the same thing, like workouts. A study showed dogs were better partners for new walking or step goals than people, though adopt a dog. They don't make excuses. Anyway, I think JC is saying have a partner. Having a partner helps you behave in ways you want.

Margi Dehlin [01:43:19] And that reminds me of environment. Right. Because then you have this accountability and this support in your environment. So I totally, absolutely. And I feel like that's actually researched. Agree. And I just wanted to say too, I was listening to new research on depression recently and, oh, I'll have to like, attribute the research. But anyway, and what they found was one of the most successful interventions for depression was, and I think this is just so insightful, was to get an animal to give the person a purpose and something to care for. Because oftentimes, you know, in, in the clouds of depression and in the suffering of depression, you are willing to give something to an animal that you won't.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:17] You. You can't give yourself. And part of that was a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning. But part of that too, was exercise. What they found was we all probably have read about how beneficial exercise is for people with depression, but it's really difficult, I think, when you're in a truly depressed state to oftentimes, you know, have the motivation to go for a walk or to work out. But what they found was you have this comfort, you have this nurturing presence in an animal. You have a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:51] And then also it gives them a reason to exercise. Is that the exercise shot up for people suffering with depression when they had animals. And it's because they were wanting to give to the animal something that on their own, they wouldn't have given to themselves. And I just thought it was kind of a really fascinating piece of science there. So thank you for the comment.

John Dehlin [01:45:14] I love it. And I'm just going to say I've started working out with Alan Mount of marriage on a tightrope. We work out three mornings a week. And it's been a really fun motivator for me because you both get the workout and you get a friend that you get to hang out with and shout out to Alan Mount, and it's been really fun.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:31] And you have an amazing spouse that you take walks with.

John Dehlin [01:45:33] Yeah, yeah. We walk together three, four, five times a week.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:38] Like environment matters.

John Dehlin [01:45:39] We've done for a long time.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:41] Environment matters.

John Dehlin [01:45:41] Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. Okay. Lots of other things. Maven. We'll just read all these. Maven writes to Christian Friend. Could journaling help you? Writing down things that seem interesting or stand out to you and when you notice fears or negative thoughts coming to journal. Margaret, any thoughts on. I think it's called bibliotherapy. But just learning to pay attention to yourself and write things down in a journal.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:07] Yes. I think writing and journaling is so powerful. Such a great idea. And being able to explore exactly like fears, but also beliefs, like internalized beliefs that maybe are coming up through your thoughts that you actually no longer believe in can be really beneficial. So what you were taught to believe about, you know, certain forms of sexual sexuality and what you actually do believe and choose to believe can be really transformative. And then you're able to actually practice and connect to. To your. You actually use it as a practice when you have those negative comments or all that, you know, negative programming to substitute it with your own thoughts. That's how we rewire our brains. It's just sort of thought by thought. So that's a beautiful idea.

John Dehlin [01:47:04] A lot of comments coming in from Maven, and this is what I really wanted to include. Maven writes to Christian Friend, I am asexual and found a lot of sexual stuff repulsive for me. I gave myself permission to own that and never force myself to do or try to like something I didn't want. I really. So first of all, you know, we have a. We have a child that's come out as asexual. So I just love that sort of representation on the podcast. Because Mormons are so obsessed with sex, we don't even think about the reality that, let's just say 1% of the population I'm just throwing that number probably more.

John Dehlin [01:47:39] Probably more. Or, you know, probably identify along the ACE spectrum and aren't interested in sex at all. So I do like to just kind of mention that we need to remember that. But also, just like Maven's general advice of, you know, if. Let's just say you have an intention or a goal or you want to nurture some sort of behavior and it's just not working for you, it's okay to just say, that's not for me. And the whole world may like something. The whole world may want something.

John Dehlin [01:48:07] I thought that I really wanted something. And it's okay to just kind of take some baby steps into a certain behavior and pay attention to what you think and feel and just kind of say, I'm getting off that bus. I'm getting off that train. That bus or train isn't for me. Thank you, Maven. Any. Anything you want to add to what Maven said?

Margi Dehlin [01:48:25] Just that I love. I love that comment, and I love the power of noticing and trusting ourselves and being more observing and letting go of judgment. I just think if there's a way that can be inspiring and motivating to kind of move forward and honor ourselves, I feel like that's where it's at. So beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:48:52] I love it.

The Focus Word Concept and Final Examples

Margi Dehlin [01:48:52] I realized that we never really got to the focus word. Should I say a quick word about that? Quick word about the focus word.

John Dehlin [01:49:00] Oh, I thought you covered that. I thought you covered the focus word.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:03] I don't think I did, actually. I feel like. So what I would just say about the focus word, which I brought up, and I did this for a few years, is, you know, we. You can use a focus word if you notice a word is going to be kind of the. An umbrella and inform a lot of different areas. Okay. So whereas an intention can be kind of specific, a little bit more specific about some type of shift or change or something you want to feel in your day.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:35] A focus word allows you to kind of. It's a sh. It's a focused way to think about an approach or an intention to a lot of different situations. So an example of some focus words that I have used in the past were nourish. I used nourish for a year, and it was like I could use that for seeking out nourishing relationships, for seeking foods that nourished me, for seeking movement that nourished me. And do you see? So in every situation, I'm kind of flagging. Is this. Does this feel nourishing? How you know, is this Feeling to me, how can I feel more nourished?

Margi Dehlin [01:50:18] Another example of a focus word that I used for a year was be. And that was an answer kind of to my constant striving self was that I really for a year wanted to focus on being activities and being in the moment. And I was able to use that with relationships again, being present to how I exercise, connecting to the greater world. So, so you use a focus word oftentimes when you feel like it's a gentle nudge about how you want to, let's say, approach a day and approach many different facets of your life.

John Dehlin [01:51:04] Okay. Okay. So focus words.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:06] Yeah, one thing that's common.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] So the most common ones you've used,

Margi Dehlin [01:51:11] I've used be and I've used. And that was in juxtaposition to like do being versus doing. I surrendered a lot of my kind of striving for a year and really just focused to be present with those that I loved and in my life in for myself and in exercise. And then the second one that I've used is nourish, meaning what I just explained.

John Dehlin [01:51:35] Okay. Like, all right.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:37] Okay. All right, Couple more comments and suggestions. Diamond Dave writes, I work in finance and I put my credit cards in a bowl of water and freeze them. Impulse buys go away after 10 minutes. What do you think about Dave's suggestion to freeze your credit cards or debit cards? Wow. It's kind of intense.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:01] Yeah. And effective, apparently so.

John Dehlin [01:52:05] Yeah. All right. JC writes, creating a pause. So important I could probably, I should probably close the online shopping window for the video cam. I am considering and think about it a couple more days. So JC is self regulating their impulse buys. Do you ever have to worry about that, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:52:26] Interesting. Yeah, sure. I mean, and I feel like within sort of the minimalism circle, some people do it for 30 days. So it's, it's whatever, it's, it's more important, I feel like, to kind of know yourself and create a pause that kind of works for you to allow yourself to really think about if you need it and to create just that space of like, actually I am choosing this for these reasons as opposed to, you know, reacting reactive, purchasing impulse buying.

John Dehlin [01:53:00] I love it. Okay, next comment. JC writes, I, I love, love, love Margi's reframing of messiness. And then Christian Friend writes, margie, that's powerful. My little ones leave a mess, but their presence is so appreciated and I don't look forward to when they won't be little anymore. Thoughts on that, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:53:25] I love that. And I really connect deeply with that and I think there's just so much magic in and healing honestly, as we approach our little ones and creative play and recognizing their imaginations and the power of imagination. So I really love that. Warms me up just to hear you say it.

John Dehlin [01:53:49] Agreed. Elizabeth writes, my wife has given up on my shoes being around the house. She also knows that if I died unexpectedly, she wouldn't be able to move my shoes. I think, I think she's basically saying you just, you know, you learn to love the quirks about your loved one and when they're gone.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:11] Oh, she wouldn't be able. Absolutely. That reminds me of what's the movie with Robin Williams and Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:19] What about it?

Margi Dehlin [01:54:20] It's the. Because it's the quirks that we love and remember.

John Dehlin [01:54:24] Yeah. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:25] With those we love, those things that maybe initially annoy us or seem inconvenient are oftentimes the things that stick with us. And if we can get that framing without losing the human, like, how beautiful is that? And baskets are brilliant for shoes. Just baskets in every. Throw them in a basket.

John Dehlin [01:54:48] Margi tends to be the orderly one in our household. True, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:53] What? I don't know what.

John Dehlin [01:54:56] All right. Maven writes, listening to my favorite music is a requirement for doing chores I like least that I've learned. Doing the small steps, things like I'll wash dishes for five minutes. I do that. I. You. You like me to make the bed in the morning, and I don't love to make the bed. So I just turn on a good podcast. And if I can listen to a podcast, I'm a lot more motivated to make the bed. And so anyway, that's.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:24] That is something we. That is used in coaching a lot. It's called a pleasure pairing. And it actually goes with a lot of different things. So for people that want to exercise, but maybe not feel as motivate, as motivated, if you pleasure parrot, meaning you listen to your favorite podcast, you put off listening to a podcast that you really love, except for exercise or oftentimes with laundry, it's like adding some aspect of pleasure. It can be listening to something you love, putting on music. It can be using fragranced dryer balls or some part that like turns a chore or turns something that you don't want to do into something that you actually enjoy doing.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:08] And that can be really worthwhile to think about as you're thinking about shifts or changes is if I can notice that this is hard or I notice a block coming up. If I Add some pleasure to it. Does it. Change it for me.

John Dehlin [01:56:22] Yeah. J.C. makes a great suggestion. J.C. recommends listening to Mormon stories while doing chores. I think a lot of people listen to Mormon stories while mowing the lawn or washing the dishes or exercising or trying to get to sleep.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:37] And some people even use it to go to sleep.

John Dehlin [01:56:39] Yeah. Apparently my voice can be boring and sleep inducing and lulling. Should I be, Should I feel complimented by that or feel insulted by that? Which one? Do you have an answer? Okay. Elizabeth writes, I always have to lay out workout clothes at night because in the morning if I let myself think, I'll just think about going back to bed.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:02] Exactly, exactly. I have heard that that is, that can be true.

John Dehlin [01:57:08] Maven writes, remove as many obstacles as possible, physical and mental barriers alike, to make positive habits easier in the moment they need to be done. So remove barriers is a suggestion. Christian friend. Oh, he gives us a little more info. Christian friend writes, thanks for responding to this. I'm actually married, so I'm not going to act on my same sex sexuality by dating. And that's complex because honestly, Christian friend, that's a, that's. That to me that means even more. Get a therapist. If you're happy and fulfilled in your marriage, then be happy and fulfilled in your marriage. But mixed faith marriages can be very difficult over time and sometimes having a therapist help you through that process, or even a couple's therapist help you and your spouse through that can really pay off big dividends later.

John Dehlin [01:58:03] So that on the one hand you don't shrivel and die if you're really oppressing and suppressing some of your internal desires or your core identity. Or on the other hand, you blow up your relationship by acting out in ways that your spouse feels violates your, you know, your commitments to each other. So all the more reason, Christian Friend, that you consider finding a therapist who is an expert in mixed orientation marriages. That's my little modest suggestion. Margaret, anything you want to add to that?

Margi Dehlin [01:58:36] I don't think so.

John Dehlin [01:58:37] Okay. All right, well, let's see there. There are a few more comments here. I'll read from J.C. thank you, Margi, for sharing this research about pets. I did not know about this. Well, I did anecdotally, but not in a formal study. So thank you to you about your tip about pets. Margi.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:03] All right, well, there are other comments coming in, but we're coming up on the two hour kind of mark and I think that might be a good point. A good point to end. Somebody is saying, Maven writes, John, start An ASMR channel. I think I get what that is. That's like kind of the. The voices, right, that. That put people to sleep.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:29] Yeah, it's the sound, right? It's what people do with food and what people do with.

John Dehlin [01:59:34] Yeah, I love it. JC writes it's blasphemy. Go to Sleep with Mormon Stories podcast. No way. The guests are so compelling. I get very emotional. Not sleep inducing. So for jc, they. They use Mormon stories to get riled up, not to fall asleep. Thoughts on that, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:59:52] Not really, but.

John Dehlin [01:59:54] All right, well, let's see. Oh, Christian writes. John, do you have any resources for finding therapists like that? Yes, I mentioned before, Christian Friend. In Salt Lake City, there is a therapist guild called Flourish Therapy. I think Flourish F L O U R I S H they have a lot of LGBT affirming therapists. Also, again, in Utah, you can Google LGBTQ Therapist Guild and there'll be a big old list of LGBTQ affirming therapists. Natasha Helfer has an organization called Symmetry Solutions. She has some LGBTQ affirming therapists there. I think there are lots. And so if you can't find them by Googling, feel free to reach out and we'll try and share some with you offline. But those are some. Some recommendations, so thanks for asking, Christian Friend. All right, so, Margi, any closing thoughts or ideas or feelings? Because we're wrapping up and this has been such a lovely two hours. Any final thoughts?

Closing Reflections and Encouragement

Margi Dehlin [02:01:04] I guess maybe just as I just am very aware of the environment and climate right now, of the new year, and all the energy and all optimism and expectation, I think that comes into approaching a new year. And so, and I get that. And I think it's really natural to have that. And if you feel infused, beautiful, and, you know, definitely go with that. And if you feel more restful and with limited energy, know that wherever you fall, that you are whole and worthy of. Of good love for yourself. And if you feel inspired and like you want to give yourself some extra love and create these shifts, I hope that you do so in a way that feels gentle and feels profoundly loving to who you already are.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:08] So we're looking for feeling inspired, taking rest where you need it, but knowing that you know as you are, you are fully lovable as you are. And the rest is just self exploration, joy, pleasure, experimentation, you know, and growth and healing. So treat yourselves well amidst it all.

John Dehlin [02:02:34] I love it. Now, Margi, you do life coaching. I know your practice is super full and you've got a wait list, but if people really want to work with you to do coaching, I have approval from the board to allow you, because we do this with all our guests, to allow you to kind of let people know how to reach out to you. If someone wants to work with you as a coach, how. How would they do that?

Margi's Coaching and Contact Information

Margi Dehlin [02:02:55] Yeah. And even if you're not interested in coaching, you'll get kind of a flavor. For some of my perspectives on my blog. It's called beautyinthenow.org so you can. I do have a number of blog posts there. If you did want to reach out for coaching, there's a way for you to do that under the coaching tab there as well. And yeah, I'm on Instagram and Facebook and anyway, I appreciate connecting with you all here in this space, so I love it.

John Dehlin [02:03:27] Okay. Well, you're lovely and I adore you.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:32] Did you have any final thoughts?

John Dehlin [02:03:34] Yeah, yeah. No, just that I like. I like intentions. I like grace, I like self compassion. I like baby steps. I like enjoying the process, the journey, not the ends. I know that I've tried. You know, I've successfully lost like 25 pounds over the past past year or so, but I always have this journey of, like, eating healthy and exercising, but also enjoying the holidays or meals with friends.

John Dehlin [02:04:07] And so for me, food and weight and exercise have been lifelong battles since, let's just say, college. And I've just found that self compassion, you know, intentions, moderation, baby steps works a lot better than kind of all or nothing, you know, January based, you know, New Year's resolutions and goals. So that's why I, I was super excited when you brought up the idea of doing this episode. That's why I love it and value it and that's why I'm so glad to have you as a partner on this podcast. Margi Dehlin.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:46] Oh, thank you. Right back at you. And we just, we hope it was helpful.

John Dehlin [02:04:51] And as a life partner, it's wonderful to have you as a life.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:53] Oh, shucks. Seriously?

John Dehlin [02:04:55] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:55] Thank you. Feel the same.

John Dehlin [02:04:58] We did miss Kara today. Can we say that Kara Burrell get back here soon on Mormon Stories podcast. We like having you as a co host.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:06] We sure do.

John Dehlin [02:05:07] So shout out to Kara and. And also just shout out to everyone who makes the Open Stories foundation possible. Her, Gerardo, Jennifer, Brooklyn, the OSF Ward, Clint and Clint and Carrie and just. Yeah. And we're really grateful for everyone who donates to the Open Stories Foundation. We had our best year ever in 2021. So if you are a donor to the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [02:05:33] Thank you. If you're not a donor, but you really value this content, we are happy to give this content away for free. We don't ever want anyone to feel shamed for enjoying this content for free. But we do lose 10 to 20 donors every month. Regular donors, recurring donors. Their lives get busy, they lose interest, they fall on financial hard times. So if we don't replace those donors every month, then we start to lose, lose our sustainability and we start to have to lay off resources or cut back on resources or do less of what we're trying to do. So if you do value this podcast, if you do value Margi coming on, if you value Kara, if you value Gerardo, if you value our YouTube channel or our TikTok channel that that now has over 110000 subscribers on Mormon Stories podcast, YouTube channel, our Instagram channel, if you, if you value all of this programming, we would encourage you to please become a monthly donor subscriber.

John Dehlin [02:06:32] Just go to MormonStories.org click on the donate button. Sign up for 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. Your donations are tax deductible in the US we're transparent in our finances and all that we do.

John Dehlin [02:06:48] All that we do. Here goes to our mission of informed consent for Mormons and non Mormons, supporting Mormons in faith crisis and supporting healthy, happy living after Mormonism for those who feel like they want or need to leave it it. So please become a monthly donor today. Thanks to all of you who donate. Thanks Margi for tuning in and be good to each other. Be kind to each other and let's keep doing amazing things in 2022 and beyond. What do you say, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [02:07:16] Deal. Thank you everyone.

Outro and Listener Appreciation

John Dehlin [02:07:17] All right, thanks everybody. You guys take care. Thanks to all our viewers today that commented on both Facebook and YouTube. We love your comments and suggestions. Please come back again soon. Please share this with everyone. Please give us positive reviews on Apple podcast, on Facebook and wherever you can. Please share this episode with as many people as possible. Email us your ideas@mormonstoriesgmail.com comment on YouTube or on Facebook. It helps with the algorithms and it helps with the ongoing dialogue. And yeah, give us any tips, tricks, Suggestions, Criticisms@MormonStories Gmail.com we would love to always hear from you. Love you guys. Take care. See you guys all again really soon.

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