Clear Thinking: Faith and Neuroscience-informed Therapy with Josh Spurlock

00:00 - Speaker 1
The premise for neuroscience-informed Christian counseling, like our starting point, is that the author of Scripture and the author of our nervous system are one and the same, and our understanding of his design gives us insight into his heart and his purpose for us. It illuminates and helps us understand discipleship, and so when we can start there, then we don't have to be afraid of what we learn from the scientific observation of his design. Instead, we can be in awe and give glory to the creator. Yeah, and we can use that understanding to help ourselves heal, using the mechanisms that he wired into us for healing.

00:48 - Speaker 2
Hi, I'm Paul Louis Cole, and this is the Brave Men Podcast Fired up for you to hear my friend, Josh Spurlock. Josh and I met. We're on the side of a river. Actually, we had talked a couple of days before. We were at Brian Carpenter's Refuge Retreat Center in Montana, but it was a couple days later into it early in the morning. I'd built a fire along the banks of this river, sitting doing my morning devotional and so forth, and he came in and sat down. Just such a great guy. And then it turned out. I'm like man, this guy is into neuroplasticity this is awesome. So you're going to hear this in the conversation today.

01:29
But he's a licensed professional counselor. He's a certified sex therapist. He's all kinds of cool things AEDP, something. He's got national numbers, whatever Bottom line is. He has a wealth of understanding of how we're built, why we think the way we think, who we are as men, the impact of father wounds we talk about that. We talk about the importance of intentional vulnerability. We talk about what it is to be a friend. I mean that's bottom line and Josh has become my friend. We don't spend a lot of time together Every time we do. It's highly intentional in its takeaway and I love what he stands for.

02:13
He has a ministry called my Counselor mycounselorcom, and that is a faith-based online therapy network and they are awesome. It's mycounseloronline, mycounseloronline, that's it. And so we talk about genuine interest in others, how you actually become friends, talk about love and acceptance in relationships. We talked about what else generational, shaping, identity formation, man we went through all—I mean, basically what happened is here. I am, you know, with everything I do with Christian Men's Network, discipling men and I've got questions. And here's this young man who has spent 20 years in depth, tens of thousands of hours looking inside the brains of men, and so it was fantastic.

03:13
I absolutely you're going to be fired up listening to this, and the problem with this particular podcast is you're going to want to listen to it again and then maybe again. So let me just tell you I know you might be on a treadmill, you might be driving in a car, wherever you are, but you might want to get something at some point. Write some things down. We've got show notes that we post, all of that kind of stuff kind of help guide you through it. But, josh, living life without regrets what does that mean? How do you get there? How do you actually seek help? How do you ask somebody for help? How do you get vulnerable with a friend? How does that start? I think these are great questions and Josh has great answers. And we get into it. Discuss it.

03:59
For all your discipleship tools to help disciple your family, to be involved in a group of men, brothers, a band of brothers, a Bob, a band of brothers. To be able to do that, go to cmnmen, cmnmen. Hey, thank you to everybody who's been involved in what's happening in the Middle East with our Arabic translations, and thank you to well I mean, I could go on down the list, from Bishop Bronner to Dino Rizzo, right on down the line all the great friends, walt Landers and others who have been a part of this, and then this amazing team who, maybe after you listen to this, or before or whenever it is, is over there right now ministering training teachers and leaders in the Middle East with Maximized Manhood or Discipleship Tools in Arabic. Can't wait to go back in February of 2025 for some great events and all of that.

05:00
Every time we do an event, it isn't just about that moment, even though that's important, because a man makes a decision that tips him into where he needs to be, because men are like trees they tend to fall the way they're leaning. So a lot of what we do at events is getting men leaning the right direction so that we make decisions later. And so an event, really, it's that spark that helps you make a decision to get into a group of men, band of brothers, to get into discipling your family, praying with your wife, being a good employee, being a good employer. You know being a good employee, being a good employer, you know all the stuff that we do in our daily life. It is not just a Sunday faith, this is a daily walk with Jesus Christ. So fired up that you're here, can't wait for you here. Josh Spurlock, remember cmnmen. And then back on that Middle East thing. Again, I just got to say thank you, man. I'm fired up about that stuff and what's happening there, and I thank God for men like Josh Spurlock who help keep us emotionally, spiritually healthy so that we can help other men also be healthy. I'm glad you're here with me today.

06:22
On Brave Men, here is my friend, josh Spurlock. You know one of the things. That was a couple things were remarkable to me when we first met Josh. One is that you have a lot of experience for being a younger man and, of course, for being a younger man and, uh, of course, for me everybody's younger.

06:48 - Speaker 1
There's that point in their life where everybody's young, yeah, I here's.

06:53 - Speaker 2
What I don't say anymore is I don't say, well, back in the day, yeah, because, because most guys go, oh, you mean like 2010? I go, no.

07:08 - Speaker 1
I was thinking 75.

07:14 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a little bit different paradigm, it's like man, but you have a lot of experience and then you're a visionary. And to me, what you remind me of, josh, is acts 217, where it says in the last days, I'll pour out my spirit and all flesh. Give yours, give your, your sons will, daughters will prophesy, which means speak life, yeah, which I believe you do in the hearts and lives of people through my counselor online. But it also says I will take young men and give them visions, and take old men and give them dreams, which is a flip of how we normally think of young and old men. We normally think of older men as men who have vision and younger men as dreamers. But with you, it's been that God's given you, at a young age, a vision to help people and then the whole dreamer part is hey, we could do this online.

08:19
Yeah, I mean to me to put together healing, counseling and use what's currently available, and I'm sure you're already looking at how AI works and all that sort of stuff with what you do. But it's actually remarkable, josh. Well done man.

08:37 - Speaker 1
Man, thanks. I appreciate that you are somebody who has done something significant and you understand the ups and downs and the trials and the pain and the grind of being faithful to something God puts in your heart. I know that it's a small feat, and so I appreciate your ability to bring that experience and see what the journey.

09:02 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. See what the journey, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we met, uh on the banks of a creek, I guess a river up in wyoming, yep, uh, and brian carpenter's place refuge, and we got to talking and I started talking to you about the issues that men face and then when I found out your depth of background on that counseling, uh, that's where we got into that. Now I've just not only appreciate what you do, but, like the first thing I guess most of us would ask, is uh, not about us, but for a friend, right, asking for a friend, asking for a friend? Number one would be why are guys screwed up and why don't women want to have sex?

09:48 - Speaker 1
Well, I think you answered the second question with the first one. You know, women don't want to have sex. Women are screwed up you know, we can solve the first one we can resolve the other, you know.

09:59
Yeah, okay, maybe I asked that in the wrong order, then Maybe you know, Now a good question, though, right that you know, as a certified sex therapist Okay, maybe I asked that in the wrong order, Maybe, no. No question, though right that you know, as a certified sex therapist, you know it's a space that I work with couples all the time and just kind of navigating in the impasse and the difficulty that we have there. What's that about and how do what do we each bring to the conflict and the difficulty that's getting in the way for us? You know, for the husband, for the wife, how do we work through those things and resolve it, but I think the beginning place around.

10:37
Why do we struggle in the places that we do as men, and it's a generational thing.

10:44 - Speaker 2
What do you mean?

10:45 - Speaker 1
it's generational I mean our shaping as men and understanding ourself emotionally, understanding how to relate well to our wives, how to show up as dads. That's programmed into our brain through the experiences of life that we have with men grow up and broken. The brokenness in one generation passes to the next. Neurologically.

11:19 - Speaker 2
It's just how our brains are built that's, that's okay and I get that because that's that legacy, heritage piece. Uh, what your dad didn't tell you, um, your dad wasn't there, what somebody else did tell you, that formed your thinking of who you are as a man and not right.

11:40 - Speaker 1
You're thinking.

11:42 - Speaker 2
The brain structures, the literal structures of your brain, and how your brain processes information in the worldplasticity of the brain, yes, is shaped by external forces starting well, you know, birth, yeah, I mean very early on, and then a whole bunch of it just gets hammered into us when we're like seven and eight. Yeah, I mean because we kind of tend to think our teenage years were sort of forming years, but we already were we were already in motion in a significant degree well before wow yeah, and our parents in

12:35 - Speaker 1
our teenage years is impacted significantly on the programming that came prior to that. Like, there's this identity piece here I just want to share because I think it's super helpful to understand how God designed the brain to build itself. And it is when you look into the face of your kiddo or your grandkids. Right, you're looking into their face and you have just delight in them. Right, they make you smile. And it's not because they've done anything to earn that. Right, they've. All they've done is eat, poop and sleep which is actually pretty fascinating when they're little.

13:23
So they don't really have a down to earth thing.

13:27
But they're inherently valuable and they bring joy to you as that child, as that infant looks into your face and sees your delight in him or her it begins to shape identity in a way that says I am an object of joy and delight in the world, not because of anything that I have done or earned or any performance measures, but just because inherently I am. And I know that because I see it in your face and the experience I have with you Tell me who I. I am reflected in your face.

14:05
that begins to build the, the very beginnings of the brain structure of self-identity and in the in the absence of that, right or in a insufficient amount of that yeah, a performance-based identity begins to build that my values, based on what I do and what I can output and I got to earn being acceptable, and that begins a trajectory for life that is significantly impactful and will continue to be significantly impactful until it's course-corrected or healed down the road, which is the good news. Right, neuroplasticity. The good news of neuroplasticity is God designed us to be able to heal and change, that we're not locked in at an infant and then just stuck with that the rest of our life.

15:00 - Speaker 2
You know the thing that really strikes me about neuroplasticity when I think of it and you're give me your background again, just for everybody, because I know your background in the sense of your training and things, because it comes from almost in some ways we would think, two different directions, right. Yeah, your training different directions, right?

15:24 - Speaker 1
yeah, you're training. Yeah, so I started out in bible college studying biblical languages three years of greek, two years of hebrew, and I knew that I was going into counseling. It was interesting because I started in the counseling program at the school I was at and then, you know, first week on campus felt the lord speak to me and say for what I have for you to do, you need to understand the scriptures deeply, you need to shift into biblical languages. I was like okay, and so I did.

15:55
Yeah, One of the hardest things I've ever done.

15:58 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I would think so. Greek and Hebrew, knowing you're going to be somehow using that in helping people become emotionally healthy.

16:07 - Speaker 1
Right exactly, and so finished biblical languages, went on to grad school, did a master's in counseling and then on to sex therapy training, certification in sex therapy and launched the counseling ministry. That my counselor online about 17 years ago at this point and begin working with folks, but then really felt challenged not just to be a provider but to be a discipler of providers, to actually be a part of multiplying impact, and so began early on working on what has evolved into a two-year postgraduate residency in what we call neuroscience-informed Christian counseling training.

16:56 - Speaker 2
Well, hang on, say that again, nicc, because I think to me this is awesome, to me this is awesome because when I was back in the day, when I was young people looked at this as oh this mumbo jumbo thing. You know, we just need the Bible and if you memorize enough scriptures you won't be screwed up. So these guys all memorize scripture and then five years later they're going dude. I have no idea why. I'm hooked on porn. Yes, yes. Because I can— there's a fundamental misunderstanding here.

17:43 - Speaker 1
You know, the premise for neuroscience and foreign Christian counseling, like our starting point, is that the author of Scripture and the author of our nervous system are one and the same. That Jesus designed our nervous system and our understanding of his design gives us insight into his heart and his purpose for us.

18:08
It illuminates and helps us understand discipleship, because he designed the nervous system and he breathed the scriptures into existence, and so when we can start there, then we don't have to be afraid of what we learn from the scientific observation of his design. Instead, we can be in awe and give glory to the creator yeah and we can use that understanding to help ourselves heal, using the mechanisms that he wired into us for healing yeah, I think this is huge.

18:43 - Speaker 2
And again, when I talk about that, how it used to be, looked at, what's beautiful about today? And and it was, uh, there was a report you know this whole report, surgeon general about loneliness, yeah, and how we are as men today. And and, uh, the average man has 1.7 friends, yeah, and everybody knows who the 0.7 guy is. Yep, you know, it's like that's a guy who doesn't show up when you move Right, exactly. So we've got something in the neighborhood of 25, 30 percent, three out of 10 men who could not really name you more than one close friend. They couldn't say, yeah, I don't have, you know. And then you've got a lot of men who really, you just don't have anybody.

19:41
And so the beauty of what you're doing, josh, and what I believe we're removing, is men can actually talk about some of these things. There's an openness to this, but one of the misconceptions about all of this and I want to get back to neuroplasticity, because I think God designed us that way, because the washing of the water of the word heals us but a lot of us as men, we may have had conflict in our sexuality when we were young. We think getting married solves it, right yeah only what's the misconception there?

20:18 - Speaker 1
well, I think the misconception is multifold, one I want to bounce off of the friendship piece that you're talking about. Okay, because there's overlap actually between these.

20:30 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think so.

20:32 - Speaker 1
In that you know, and back to the generational piece, that if you look at our struggle with friendship and we look back one generation, most are going to look back and see that their dad struggled with friendship also and lacking having a relationship. And the reason why we struggle with it is we didn't learn the relational skills, the friendship skills and the vulnerability and how to engage in relationship vulnerably in those formative experiences, and so we don't have an internal working model, we don't have a map for how to do intimacy in these relationships and connection, and so we long for it and we need it and we feel the loneliness, but we don't know how to engage it.

21:17
We haven't had the experiences to form that into our brain and nervous system that enable us to do that and, as a result, the pain that we then feel. In the absence of that, we look to medicate through one means or another.

21:34 - Speaker 2
There has to be an outlet somewhere. In other words, we have to assuage the pain.

21:37 - Speaker 1
Yes, we have to assuage the pain, and sex is a powerful mechanism. The neurochemistry of sexuality and the neurochemistry of pornography is so and is a powerful, uh, pain killing agent. There's no intimacy in there, because it activates our intimacy circuits. Sex is meant to be intimate, sex is meant to be connective in relationships, so meant to be a bonding activity. And and then our loneliness and our pain of our loneliness, and in our loneliness and our pain of our loneliness. A pseudo intimacy that activates some of the neurocircuitry associated with that bonding and that connectedness through the pornography assuages that pain for a little bit, brings in a bunch of shame and other stuff behind it.

22:26 - Speaker 2
Yeah yeah, and other stuff, yeah yeah, shame, guilt. Uh, pushing, what I mean? What are the effects of pornography on a, on a man's brain? You know, we've seen the whole pictures of uh, this is your brain, this is your brain.

22:42 - Speaker 1
On drugs, yeah, I remember that one when you're looking at it with porn, it's significantly impactful. It changes our relational circuitry in the way that we view the opposite sex and how we relate to them. It distorts what's supposed to be a bonding activity about connecting emotionally and physically with our spouse, turns it into a commodity of sorts. That's about you know transact becomes transactional becomes transactional because of that. Yeah.

23:15
Um, and it's about you know my felt need in a moment as opposed to a shared relational experience with a person. So it changes our relational wiring. Then it creates anxiety in the nervous system. You know you get that kind of same sort of like withdrawal that you might with alcohol or other kinds of pain-killing agents that we would turn wow that that when we're feeling stressed in life, you know we need a fix in order to address that stress and pornography becomes that fix.

23:50
And then you need a heavier fix and you need a heavier fix.

23:55 - Speaker 2
So now that begins this cycle, that, if you will, causes us not to think properly. Now our whole thinking synapses. You know that, whatever it is a billion or synapses a day, or a trillion, whatever the thing is, now we're rewiring our brain.

24:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely, wow, yeah. And the earlier that starts, the more as it goes down the road, the the trajectory of that is magnified. Yeah, you know. So you got guys that have really early exposures to pornography. You know dad had hustler magazine by the toilet, or, yeah, internet availability, you know, it's just kind of right there. And so you get exposures at five, six, seven, eight, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old and begin to shape the circuitry down that pathway and as the brain is building itself developmentally, that changes the trajectory of the brain building itself.

25:03 - Speaker 2
So the issue of pornography in that sense, Josh, seems like what you're describing is. In that sense, Josh, seems like what you're describing is it's not just that moment of looking at an image that we had Joshua Broom on. We were talking about the victimization. Everybody's a victim the person watching, the people in it, the whole system and it's an attack of the enemy. And John 1010, it says, the enemy's trying to take you out. At any point in time, the enemy's trying to take you out and part of that is just distract your life. So the issue is not just that moment. There is a series of things we'll put into motion then in our brain. Actually, physically, physiologically, we're changing the shape of our brain, even in the way we conduct our business, Totally.

25:55 - Speaker 1
Really? Yes, in fact, pornography is actually the symptom. If you can understand that that it's a symptom, it's not actually the problem.

26:09 - Speaker 2
Okay.

26:11 - Speaker 1
Walk me through that In the same way that again, turning to alcohol, and alcohol is not actually the problem. It's a medication for the problem. Instead, the difficulties with the alcohol is the symptomology that's coming from it, or rather that's gambling, workahololism, whatever the drug of choice is that's assuaging the pain. Those things are symptoms of the underlying difficulty and part of the underlying difficulty. There are different pieces, there's different contributing factors, so we have to learn to get curious and explore, allow the whole thing to be just in a process of understanding what needs healed and where these symptoms are coming from.

26:56
But in part, you know, we look at the relational brokenness that we talked about or like around this friendship piece, like in a healthy context, when I'm experiencing pain in my world, that the way that god designed that pain to be metabolized and move through well, that's a great connection.

27:22
We bear one another's burdens. That's not just a night. I can show you the brain imagery scans. And I can show you the brain imagery scans and I can show you the neuro research where the secular scientists have discovered that what they call co-regulation and dyadic regulation is how our nervous systems are wired to process, through pain and grief, the result we can't do it on our own in an isolation. Wow, it's impossible. Wow, in an isolation.

27:46
Wow, it's impossible, wow, and our inability to do that causes us to then turn to these other things that become the symptom. And then we chase symptoms, like we try stopping pornography without addressing it. It's driving the pornography struggle.

28:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah, we just grit our teeth. Yeah, I'm going to stop. And then, even if it's successful at this, it pops up somewhere else yeah, yeah, well, I mean even, uh, you know, because really a lot of times we we talk about alcohol, porn, whatever I think a lot of guys just swash their stuff with hobbies. Oh yeah, you know, just hobbies. Yeah, I think some guys they'll work out two hours a day or twice a day, first in the morning, then in the afternoon, and all they're really doing is trying to just yep deal with this inner thing.

28:39
Yeah, the best, this is the best way in the best way to know how. And the thing that's most easily accessible, yep, okay, and that they can afford, right, yep, okay, so, okay. This is fascinating to me. So, really, what we're talking about with Christian Men's Network, with what you do with my counselor online, we I know you do this and what we do is we say, hey, you need to be part of a tribe, you need to have a tribe, you need to have your Jesus had his three, his 12, his 70. You know, you need to be part of a and you need to be part of a local church.

29:18
And when you're part of a local church and you know the stats, the stats are because, dude, these sermons that I've heard from me, from whoever they'll talk about, man, you know, and it's kind of a guilt-driven thing hey, the divorce in the church is higher than divorce in the world. And we're going yeah, that's BS. The fact is the latest research I've seen. You can shed a greater light on this and tell us more about it, but the latest research I saw, josh, is that if you're engaged in a local church as a couple and you bring your family. Your 12-year-old doesn't have a choice. He's going. It's not like people say, well, we're letting our seven-year-old make a choice, no, that's why you're the parent, anyway. But when you're engaged in church? My understanding of the latest research is the divorce rate for people engaged in local church family there is under 10%.

30:19 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you know I haven't seen it that low, but it is significantly lower than the general statistics and numbers that are out there. It's a hugely protective feature to be.

30:36 - Speaker 2
I think it was in the Barna research that Kinnaman and Mark Matlock did on men when they did that report on men. Yeah, yeah, but the fact is that what you're really doing is saying you're going to be healthier as a man if you're with a group of men.

30:57 - Speaker 1
Yeah, what you're doing is you're acknowledging God's design. You're acknowledging the. Creator's design and when the scriptures talk about not forsaking, gathering together, and they talk about community and engagement and how we are one to another, sometimes we think of those things as just kind of like nice things to do or nice life hacks or tips. It sounds like a Bible life hack. Yeah, it's like a bible life hack. Exactly that's how we kind of think about them, how I think about it, and yeah because I look at the, the neuroscience and the research.

31:41
I knows how he made us and we don't work well if we don't engage the way that we're designed and we need connection, we need one another, we need to be loved by others, we need to love others, we need to bear one another's burdens, we need to rejoice with one another. As we rejoice, grieve as we grieve the tough things in life and if we don't, it jacks us up.

32:18 - Speaker 2
You know we need. In other words, we need more than just a handshake at the front door, Right, hey, dude, how you doing? Yeah, I'm good. It's a good start. Yeah, I'm good. So walk me through. What does that look like to be healthy as a man in relationship with other men and friends? Yep, and you talked about vulnerability. Yeah, that's not an easy thing for us as dudes. Man, it's like man, I don't know. I'll be vulnerable as far as far as uh, I really hate it that the chiefs won again. You know, I mean, that's as far as my vulnerable.

33:00 - Speaker 1
Yeah, how do we walk through that? Like you can't, you can't have real friendship, real connection. You can have superficial interactions, you can have your extrovert seven, hey, buckaroo kind of engagement and then the introvert goes.

33:23 - Speaker 2
excuse me, I'm going back to my kid.

33:27 - Speaker 1
Exactly, but in neither scenario are people really developing real friendship or depth wow, and because it's impossible without vulnerability. How do we do that? How do we do vulnerability?

33:40 - Speaker 2
yeah, how do you tell guys?

33:42 - Speaker 1
yeah, yeah, so I. It begins with just the cognitive assertion that this, this is actually a thing that I need and this is actually a thing that God designed me for. Right, that if we don't, as long as we're locked into this place of I don't need that, that's not real, that's not valuable, then we're never going to explore. How do I lean into it? Right, and so we've got to start with going.

34:14
you know what I actually do need friends, and I actually need real friends, not just superficial friends, that to be healthy and whole as a man, as a dad, as a husband, I actually need real friendship. So how do I get there? Like I I don't have what I need for that right now. If I did, then we wouldn't be having this conversation that if we got that wiring from experiences when we were growing up, then it actually flows pretty naturally, which is why you see, some folks are like they engage community. Really it seems easy for them and for the rest of us because I didn't get that growing up it's like man, why is it so easy?

35:02
It seems so easy for others, it's so hard for me, like why is that? What's wrong with me that this is so hard for me, when it doesn't seem hard for some people? That I observe and it really has to do with did we have the experiences that equipped us to know how to do that and it just kind of flows somewhat naturally doesn't mean that we don't have to be intentional, it just flows fairly naturally to engage, whereas if we didn't have those experiences, it doesn't flow naturally and we're kind of like I'm not sure even where to begin or how to start doing that and it's scary and I don't like. It's vulnerable even to admit that. It's scary to myself, that I'm afraid of putting myself out there or leaning in because I don't know what I'm doing here.

35:50 - Speaker 2
So that has to be part of resolving I love this phrase metabolizing pain. It has to be part of helping men process this with what you do, josh, with my counselor, and so how do you help a man start towards that? Let's say that we all know it's kind of like Peter Atiyah in his book Longevity. He said we all know that if you get a little bit more sleep as much as you should and if you'll work out three hours a week to four hours a week, you'll live longer than 90% of the people in your age group. He said we all know that we don't do it Right. So let's start with. We all know we should probably be part of a local church community. Okay, let's start there. Now, how do I walk into that in a way that you know is not fully exposed? But how do I, how do I start that journey into that?

36:50 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So once we cross the bridge of going, you know what, maybe there's something to this and I actually do need community and maybe some of the difficulties I have in a life whether it's my marriage or my kids or work, or how I navigate stress or whatever the case may be could be related to me not having real friendships in my life. And I would go say what are my next steps? And I think, as you described and as we're talking about and as we believe, the local church is a place to kind of begin with that.

37:30
and I think, if you're not engaged with any kind of local church as of yet, then you kind of start by trying to ask around, just like you might if you're looking for a mechanic or else right today we've got reviews and whatnot, because if you can find another guy who's got a good experience with the church community that he's a part of, then not only do you find the church community, you already have somebody that you know that's a part of that community yeah, yeah of something to build off of there, and then you have to prioritize it in your schedule, like there's only one way to develop friendships and that is to spend time with other men.

38:14
If you don't prioritize it and make space for it in your schedule, it ain't going to happen Any more than two muscles is going to happen without doing the reps in the gym.

38:25
Like, the friendship muscle doesn't develop, the neurological building blocks that doesn't develop if you don't carve out time to engage it. And then there's this next piece. That's important because sometimes we've got guys that do all of that, right. They either they show up to church, maybe they're part of a men's group, they come to men's breakfast and maybe open gym night and you know, and play basketball, or they golf with a group of guys or something like that, and so they have proximity to men. But it's super superficial, right.

38:59
Like we're not ever going to talk about anything that's got emotional exposure or vulnerability. We're not going to talk about the things that hurt, the things that are scary. We're not going to go there and so we can live our whole life, even in proximity to lots of other men, and never develop any real meaningful connections and friendships. So we have to be willing to get vulnerable. We have to be willing to take risks and put ourself out there. We have to be willing judiciously, right. I mean you're like wearing it around your sleeve and kind of spilling your guts with every guy that you meet. Yeah, you're doing that.

39:46 - Speaker 2
That's one way not to make friends.

39:47 - Speaker 1
Not to make friends. I putting yourself in proximity to other men that actually want to grow right, yeah, well, there you go there's.

39:57 - Speaker 2
That's a huge one. It's something that actually my wife and I were talking about, uh, about having had, in the past, removed ourselves from some relationships so we're toxic or negative, or hanging around with somebody that's always got some kind of crap going on, yeah, that's that they put themselves in the middle of, or that they're just negative about stuff you know what, and so, uh, but I find that perhaps the first step for me towards friendship is not me telling them something, but asking them about what's going on in their lives.

40:34 - Speaker 1
Yep, all right, showing genuine interest, that willingness to, to lean in now. That's a two-way street. I think it can start either way. Part of what invites vulnerability is vulnerability. Vulnerability invites vulnerability. The guy with the biggest cojones should be the guy who gets vulnerable first. I've got some hard stuff on my face, you know, hard stuff, yeah, which invites vulnerability from the other. Yeah, it's like okay, yeah, he risked and put himself out there, that I'm willing maybe to go with him a step.

41:25 - Speaker 2
Well, because Proverbs teaches us, the man who wants friends has to first be himself friendly. Right, you know. So you're willing to engage. So you and cassie have been married how many years?

41:37 - Speaker 1
we've been married that's a good question 17 years now, so you know, you should know this stuff, this is what you do.

41:45 - Speaker 2
You can't look around.

41:47 - Speaker 1
I don't know. Here's what throws me, my wife got off a year, a few years ago, on our 13th, you know it was. It was our 12th anniversary, but she kept telling everybody it was our 13th. And then one day I was like I don't think that's right. And we look back.

42:02 - Speaker 2
You guys have been a year off every day, Dude, that's funny man. And so it's something to do. And you've got four children. We have nine children altogether.

42:20 - Speaker 1
Nine altogether. So we did foster care for 10 years and we adopted five daughters out of Missouri's foster care system. And then we have four biological kiddos. Our older ones are out of the home and I've got eight grandbabies between them and we've still got four biological kiddos still at home. That's awesome, man.

42:44 - Speaker 2
So, yeah, so nine children, a bunch of grandchildren, that's fantastic. Well, good for you guys, man. I mean I think the whole foster system and we can rail on it, we can talk about that, we can look at the bad things that happen, but I do know that if more churches and followers of Christ would be involved, we could make a huge difference in the future of any country we're a part of where we're listening right now.

43:11 - Speaker 1
All of these things are now with each other, paul right that when a man begins to lean into his own growth and building friendships and relationships. He begins to metabolize the stress and pain in his life differently. The things that he turned to before that were stumbling blocks from him all the way His marriage improves, his relationship with his kids improves, and now there's this context that has the ability to pour into community and to be a safe haven for at-risk kids and bring an at-risk kiddo into a setting where you haven't gotten your, you haven't done your own work and your marriage isn't in a good condition.

43:52 - Speaker 2
Oh no, well, those are the stories we hear. Yeah, those are the stories we hear. So, you guys. And then when, when you said you didn't grow up and did you mean that there was no affirmation at home for you growing up as a young man, or what was that? What did that look like, josh?

44:13 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so we grew up plugged into church and one of the good things that I got from my upbringing was my mother's faithfulness and having us in church and as huge in my life and there's been a significant buffer against many other things that were not good in our experience, you know, particularly just having a largely absent dad. You know that he was gone before we got up in the morning at work and we were in bed before he got home and when he was around he was angry and at times violent and was not. You know we didn't want him around. The engagement because it was not good. So there was no modeling for what healthy masculinity looked like. There was no modeling.

45:15
Mom and dad's relationship was terrible, as you might imagine. Then there was no modeling for what a healthy, intimate, mature relationship with a woman looked like. There was no modeling for what being a dad was like. So I had all these holes in my upbringing that were either just empty in terms of my brain development and internal working models for knowing how to navigate those things, or they were formed in ways that were dysfunctional and and just my operating system as I came into those stages of life was, you know, operating off of really dysfunctional programming that I received, and so I just was a hot mess man.

46:03 - Speaker 2
So, so going to church. So your mom took you to church, yep, right, so you, you had that. Yeah what?

46:10 - Speaker 1
was the positive, negative of that piece, yeah, so I mean the positive that was experiencing. God, you know, being at 12 years old and being in a really dark place in my life and I remember crying out to god, you know if you're, if you're out there, you know if you're real, you know if you're, if you're out there. You know if you're real.

46:30
You know, help me and I'll, I'll do my life to you and I'll I'll do what you want and and just hearing you know clear as day, him speak in my heart and say I've got you and it's going to be okay, and you know we're going to do this together. And that just being I mean sobbing and having a sense of His presence. They're with me.

46:55
And that happened at 12 years of age 12 years of age, just in the basement our house in New Baden, illinois, and have that encounter with God which shaped the trajectory of the rest of my life, because there was a lot of things I didn't have and there was a lot of pain as a part of my life, but I had that and that was an anchor for me in a way that was significant and some of the bad of that. You know it was very legalistic kind of upbringing, very judgmental, very critical.

47:26 - Speaker 2
Performance-based.

47:27 - Speaker 1
Performance-based, exactly, and so I was a monster when I got out of Bible college, right? Because if you take that kind of framework for understanding kingdom and then you put biblical languages degree on top of it, Then you dump Greek and Hebrew on top of that. That's right. Then you know, I was never smarter than the day I graduated from Bible college. I knew everything there was to know about anything that could tell you exactly what you're doing wrong in the world.

47:54 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so you became an expert on the Torah. Is what you did?

47:59 - Speaker 1
Exactly.

48:00 - Speaker 2
You didn't have any gospel in John.

48:03 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I've only gotten progressive with them ever since then and more free, and more free and more free, thank god.

48:11 - Speaker 2
Yeah, where'd you and cassie meet? Did you guys meet in bible college? We actually met in high school, did you really?

48:18 - Speaker 1
on her 15th birthday? No, really, I like to tell folks that she was a sophomore in high school and I was a janitor and then, uh, you know, when I got out of prison, she waited for me. Right, right, right.

48:35 - Speaker 2
Not really.

48:36 - Speaker 1
I was a junior in high school.

48:39 - Speaker 2
I'm like dude, this is going to be great. I'm going to write these questions down, I know right. How do you get the job as a janitor the next time, everybody's like, oh, next time.

48:55 - Speaker 1
I was a sophomore. Yeah, she was. Uh, yeah, I was a junior. She was a sophomore. Her friend baked her a cake for her birthday, brought it to school and before school she was trying to get rid of it, you know, so she could get to class. And so I'm walking down the hall and here's this beautiful girl holding a big slice of chocolate cake. Would you like a slice of cake? And I said, yes, I would, yes, I would. And there was a lot of history and a lot of story and a lot of bumps from my brokenness in the mix.

49:28 - Speaker 2
All right. So there you go and this is what I'm in the second part of this uh time together and talk with my friend, josh spurlock, my counselor online, and uh, and actually it's kind of a sidebar, okay, we won't get into it that much but uh, you did four years on the road with your family and it just settled down in colorado and uh, but you did what a lot of us have always had always wanted to do. You did it. Uh, you had created a, a way to do that. Yeah, you didn't do it. Uh, asking for gas money at 7-eleven. So I was like, put the four kids on the four corners with little signs, um, and so you and Cassie did that. So it's fantastic, you created this online ecosystem for healing my counselor online.

50:18
But you had to work through these father wounds. Man, I want to hit this stuff because you know I can't look at even my own life or my children's lives and say that there weren't wounds and then, if you will, it was probably less than what some other people had. And then here you are with a guy who was there, but he wasn't there. So we often talk about fatherlessness as somebody, a guy that bailed your dad. You weren't fatherless.

50:54 - Speaker 1
I was a functional orphan in that.

50:56 - Speaker 2
Oh man, that's like, yeah, you were a functional orphan. Wow, how did you work through that? I mean, you go to Bible college. You become a follower of Christ. You have this amazing experience in the basement with God as a 12-year-old, and then you meet your wife in high school. You go to college. You get all this learning information stuff you're stuffed with all this. How do you deal with a father wound?

51:23 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a good question because it's a journey for all of us, Because you don't know what you don't know, and so you know that things are missing and you know that you don't know how to engage and you know that you show up in ways, when you're under stress, that you don't want to and that you're not proud of and that you don't like, but you don't know what to do about that and just kind of stop it or don't do. It doesn't get the job done and the more religious training you have just kind of piles on shame because I know what I shouldn't do but I keep doing it and I don't measure up measure up, and so there's being buried in the shame around that and the fear that, if you know, others see my brokenness I'll be found out

52:09
found out that and who will want to engage me or be. You know, particularly in ministry context, right, a lot of pastors kind of navigate these things of having to put on the facade out there, you know, hide the woundedness for all the reasons that exist around that. And so really, the beginning pathways for those that healing began in relationship and we're getting some older men that I began to engage with who saw me and just began to love on me in ways that made it safe for me to be broken and to be vulnerable my own therapeutic work and having professionals that understood God's design of the nervous system and could lead me in experiences that enabled me to heal and find healing, and that healing then enabled me to engage relationships outside of therapy in more meaningful and deep ways. That led to more healing than that and it became a positive cycle.

53:34 - Speaker 2
It wasn't a magic moment, it wasn't a like a God. You know, heal my brain Right. This thing happened, which we would all love.

53:46 - Speaker 1
I would have loved.

53:47 - Speaker 2
Right yeah.

53:48
Yeah, when you say some men and uh nearly as often as I would like well, I think there's the, the revelatory moments, if you will, where the, if you, in an old way of saying the penny drops. But it's that moment, the aha moment, you go oh, oh, okay, I get it. Okay, boom, got it, bam. And why? You know, I've been working on this for three years and now it's it. So there's those Tipping point when you say some men came around you and loved you, mm-hmm, what does that mean? Did guys walk up to you and have a prophetic word? Did guys? You know what? When you say that, what does that mean? Because it's part of how we're supposed to be for others, totally totally.

54:40 - Speaker 1
So early experiences of it.

54:43
Early experiences of it happened within a scouting program that was through the church, scouting program that was through the church, and so as a young man kind of initial experiences.

54:58
I was part of the scouting program and there were other men that volunteered and were part of that scouting program and they just were glad that I was there, they smiled at me, they guided in me, they found joy in me, not based on my performance and things, but just because I was there, the delight and the the um joy of these other men began to. You know, just I didn't even as a adolescent, you know, I didn't have language for it, didn't know what it was. It just felt so good to be around these guys, like, and so I leaned hard into that program, um, because it put me around, in proximity, men my dad's age and my grandparents age that could see me and love on me and so that that would be like the first early experiences that it gave me a taste of something that I didn't have at home that you know was like, okay, I kind of need more of that. And then, as I got into kind of my professional world and professional work, you know, I found mentors in that space.

56:25 - Speaker 2
Okay, so now that's coming out of, now we're coming out of college. Did you get married during college?

56:30 - Speaker 1
I got married between finishing my undergrad and starting grad school coming out of, now we're coming out of college. Did you get married during college? Uh, I, I got married between finishing my undergrad and starting grad school graduate, so after your undergrad.

56:38 - Speaker 2
So then you get married, and so cassie had to have been part of this healing process yes, for sure how did, how did you guys work through that?

56:51 - Speaker 1
yeah, well, I mean a lot of working through it. You know she's a godsend uh to me and her. Uh, you know just who god made her to be and the experience of, you know, love from her and her seeing me and all of my brokenness and all my woundedness and loving me in the midst of the mess of that Very powerful, very powerful part of kind of healing and that belief of being kind of uh, lovable in that space and taught about grace, self and for others, and challenged in all of the Lord used her to challenge me in so many of my distortions and how I saw the world and saw a relationship like another powerful tool that the Lord used.

57:53 - Speaker 2
How did you work through your anger?

57:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's good. It's lots of anger, right, lots of anger that would come up in that space. I think part of working through the anger was understanding the anger, because anger is, generally speaking, that can be two things right. Anger can either be a cover for something else that I'm feeling underneath, that I don't know what it is or how to deal with it, or it can be a genuine response to injustice that we've experienced in life Brokenness, things that we should be angry about because they're not right and they're wrong yeah elements of my anger.

58:39
You know that fall in both categories. But understanding the anger that comes with our woundedness and where there's a legitimate anger about things that that happened, shouldn't have happened, that were wrong, things that didn't happen, that should have happened, that was wrong, and it's right for us to be angry about those things. If we don't know how to recognize that and work through that anger in a healthy way, it just comes out in all sorts of sideways, not helpful ways.

59:12 - Speaker 2
So what's the first couple things I could? I could help a man with, or, or you know, to start dealing with anger, because I feel like we live in a world that's full of rage right now. You know, post-co a lot of anger, a lot of road rage, a lot of anonymous crap on Facebook or whatever or X or somewhere bad. How fast people can tip over just in a grocery store or something, matt, or a parking lot. How do we start dealing with that anger? How does a man start dealing with that stuff?

59:55 - Speaker 1
you know how it really, in the same way that we start dealing with all of our emotions right, like if this emotional intelligence and emotional maturity piece we're going to start growing and developing in these things, um which, I heard a great definition for spiritual maturity here recently that I love. That says emotional maturity plus seeing the world through the lens of Jesus and that equals spiritual maturity. That's good. Recognizing that we can have all sorts of knowledge and see the world through the lens of Jesus. Without emotional maturity we don't show up very much like Jesus and that that's another piece that we could go down. But developing that emotional awareness which is part of how.

01:00:42
anger is an emotion, right, so if we're going to learn how to deal with it, we have to understand our anger better begins with curiosity. The curiosity is the entry point. That the opposite of that is shame, where, instead of being curious about our experience and beginning to gain understanding about it and thus learn how to heal, how to navigate it, how to express differently, how to address maybe what it is we're really angry about, instead of coming out sideways over here, we feel shame that I just shouldn't feel this, and instead of being curious, we try to shut it down and make it just go away, which doesn't work and keeps us stuck. So curiosity, that's the starting place.

01:01:33
And as a man to another man in relationship. I think about friendship skills when I create safety for curiosity, when I invite you to be curious about what's going on with your experience, like I'm laying the foundation for that. I wonder what that's about. I wonder what's happening for you in that moment.

01:02:01 - Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:02:02 - Speaker 1
About how you blew up or how you showed up in a way that you don't feel good about now and you have regrets around and you're kind of relaying it to me and I'm your friend, I'm hearing it around and you're kind of relaying it to me and I'm your friend. I'm hearing it with you in it. I can invite you to be curious comes back to, comes back to community.

01:02:21 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I, I hear this thing, I I love this thing. It almost sounds like a denial of life in one sense. Uh, of the or of pain is live life without regrets. I hear that one a lot. Ah, come on, you know, do life, let's crush it. Live life without regrets is that possible?

01:02:43 - Speaker 1
no, I mean it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. We should regret things that we do in that. But I think the message that I get underneath, that which I think is valuable, is be courageous. There's another way that.

01:02:59
I would say that Don't let fear prevent you from seeking out and leaning into the things that you feel you're supposed to. Don't have the pain of regret of. I was afraid, and so I didn't get vulnerable with that guy when I felt inside, my spirit was prompting me that I needed to share what I was going through, and fear got in the way.

01:03:25 - Speaker 2
Yeah, in other words, don't be defined by your past right.

01:03:28 - Speaker 1
Don't be defined by your past.

01:03:29 - Speaker 2
Don't be defined by your past Be part of it. Yeah, yeah, live without regrets. Notice, don't. Don't let your past mistakes define your, your future vision or dreams. Yes, yeah, wow, that's really good. What is it that? What is it? What would be a key thing? You know, because my Counselor Online. You onboard people, you've got an entertainment or something. People fill out something, or here's where I'm coming from. It's pretty easy.

01:04:02 - Speaker 1
We do it face-to-face because we think just relationship matters, and so when a person comes to our website my Counselor Online they click a button that says Get Matched, and it schedules a meeting with what we call matching specialists. So they meet with a person who just asks them some questions about their story and what it is they're looking for help with and how they get connected with the help that they have need for.

01:04:28 - Speaker 2
And what's the predominant thing that? What's like the first entry thing that would be dominating right now. Well, like if you, if you were talking with all your I'm sure you have meetings with all your different team uh, what's the predominant thing right now?

01:04:43 - Speaker 1
it seems to be coming up with everybody you know it's, it's not, it's not really anything new. You know it's all the symptoms that we talked about earlier. What are the symptoms of this? Emotional disconnection and loneliness in all the different places that it shows up, whether that's pornography addiction, whether that's disconnection within the sexual relationship between couples, where we're married but we're lonely and emotionally disconnected from each other and thus sexually disconnected from each other in ways that aren't helpful. Or we're dealing with anxiety or depression, where chronic disconnection and that chronic buildup of toxicity because we can't metabolize life's pain relationally kind of leads to anxiety and depression in our life. So all the different symptoms that pop up, things that are common to me.

01:05:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you know so really. So we are all dealing with many of the same things. I'm not unusual, not at all.

01:05:48 - Speaker 1
Because I'm dealing with something I mean, we know you're unusual, Paul, but you know not anymore than the rest of us.

01:05:57 - Speaker 2
Speaking in a pejorative fashion, we as men, but we're the same all over the world. It's the same stuff, man, we're dealing with the same thing, and that's why, when the Word of God speaks to us, it really does speak to every man in every place. I'm trying to remember. I think it was like the designer.

01:06:22 - Speaker 1
I think it was Augustine. Yeah, same stuff. The author's scripture is the same and the experiences that we have as humans is common to one another.

01:06:34 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, boy, now that right, there would be a freeing thing, josh, to say, okay, I'm not the only guy that's dealing with this kind of thing, for sure, or this stuff, or whatever. That may be Probably another time I want to get into some more marriage, couple things, but it seems to me just okay. Here I am, I'm just a dude doing this ministry to men, but it seems to me that if a man is kind of to me, I liken it like this it's the airplane thing when they tell you that when the mask comes down, put yours on first before you try to help somebody else.

01:07:18 - Speaker 1
Yes.

01:07:19 - Speaker 2
It seems to me that if there's a marriage issue, a lot of times a lot of ministry to men will put it always on the guy. I've ever had a friend of mine pat. He threw a pen across the table. We're meeting as a men's group. A number of years ago he threw a pen across the table. He goes it's always the man's fault. I go I'm like dude, I probably not, but we are the ones in charge of us. Yeah, okay. So now I need, as you guys I love this phrase I need to do my work right work. So I'm me.

01:08:00
I need to start with me and too many of us, I think, as men, josh, we live our spirituality off our wives yeah you know, like she's the one who knows how to, she's the one who knows how to pray, she's the one who knows how to, you know, bring healing and we just don't do that. But if we'll do that, probably it's solved. Like we'll see, a symptom might be that a guy wants to have sexual relations more often. You know, you hear that, I'm sure a lot. But you know there's a couple basic things hey, take a shower would be one good thing. But you know, doing your own, creating your own life of building up your empathy right, your your understanding of what she's going through on the other side. You know, changing the lens, rather than I'm not getting my needs met, I mean, I wonder if she's getting her needs met. Probably not, probably, yeah.

01:09:10
And and I'll tell you one thing, uh, judy and I did and it's funny, uh, it's funny I say judy and I did. I did that, if you will. Uh, expanded and enhancing our relationship was, uh, I was really. I got real proud of myself because I went. We had a dishwasher in our house not everybody does, but we had a automatic electric dishwasher and, dude, I went and got the dishes and I loaded that man come on somebody.

01:09:44
But it went to another level. One time I heard a guy in fact. The guy told me he said I've've been unloading the dishwasher and I go, really, he goes. Yeah, I go, huh. So I went and did that, okay, and I did it a few times. Of course, a lot of this stuff ends up on the counter because I don't know where the heck it goes. I didn't even know we had something.

01:10:07
Look like this I don't know what it does, it's all squiggly got a handle on it, I don't know. And uh, and so then, uh, then she remarked to a friend we're out with some friends and she turned and she said well, my husband has been unloading the dishwasher. I didn't even know she noticed whoa, and she was like it was like a big deal. I go, oh okay yeah, yeah.

01:10:37 - Speaker 1
Things that we don't understand, I don't know, are a big deal, right I?

01:10:55
I think it cracks me up sometimes, but this is just the way we're wired in, the way we do things yeah we're trying to like, trying to figure out our lives and what's the formula and what's the thing to do and what's if we, if we turn this knob, flip this switch, say, say this the right way, you know, then you know everything will be good between us, it'll work out and she'll be horny and want to connect sexually and everything will be great. If we could just find that magic combination, the little yeah, combinations of pieces, and the interesting thing about that is we're reading articles or talking to people or kind of all this out there, and God has wired into her everything we need to know about how to make that happen.

01:11:40
And it actually happens in vulnerable dialogue with our spouse. Wow, wow. The answer is right there in front of us. We just don't know how to engage in a way that brings it out. Wow.

01:11:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, as men, we want to be so prescriptive. Hey, you should feel this way rather than being loving Curious, we go back to that curious thing. It's a big thing, loving curious, we go back, that curious thing, it's a big thing. Hey, man, egypt never I mean israel never would have come out of egypt if moses hadn't been curious about a burning bush for sure 100. So I that that is really good, josh, that's a really great tool. I need to be curious about my wife's day, about when I wasn't with her, or how she's feeling about a certain subject or just those kinds of yeah, what's up.

01:12:41 - Speaker 1
Why is that?

01:12:43 - Speaker 2
Rather than just getting pissed off about.

01:12:46 - Speaker 1
Just kind of go, I'm going to go gosh or go go or whatever, and then be surprised when she doesn't want to have sex later.

01:12:58 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm going to go to the driving range. And then we come home at 930 and the kids are already in bed and she's giving them showers, totally ticked off about something else. And now we get in bed and we go, hey up, what's up, hey. And she's like, don't even, even, don't even. And you're like, and then you get mad because like, oh yeah, you said that last night. You go yeah, well, last night you were driving range again. I don't know. Yeah, it's anything that blows up. Oh, you don't want me to have my own space, right?

01:13:31 - Speaker 1
And then it turns into something that it's not about when curiosity on the front end of what's up here what's going on. Yeah. And not in a sarcastic way, not in a what's wrong with you again and then, but with a genuine care and curiosity. It says you matter to me. Your experience of life matters to me. I care enough that I'm noticing that something's not right. I don't know if it involves me or not. It could. Sometimes it does, Maybe most of the time, but maybe it does, Maybe it doesn't.

01:14:10 - Speaker 2
Either way, I want to understand it could just be something that happened to her at work and she hasn't been able to express how the thing happened, or because there's stuff that happens. It could have been a client of their business, yeah, and then she didn't have time to tell us because we're busy with the stuff we got to do in terms of getting the kids ready for bed. But whatever the thing is, and we're all off in our deal. And curiosity, loving curiosity would say I love you enough to lay down my stuff in other, sacrificing my life. The Bible says for a man to love his wife sacrificially, as Christ loved the church, he gave his life. So how do we give our lives? Because a lot of times we go dude, I would jump in front of a bullet, right. Well, here's your bullet. Your bullet is to actually say are okay, is everything all right? Because I'm really concerned. You and I'm sorry.

01:15:21
I kind of bailed on putting the kids to bed and, um, my bad, I I won't do that. It's kind of in my own world, you okay. What's going on, man?

01:15:35 - Speaker 1
I mean for a lot of us man that would be taking a bullet right there Super uncomfortable because, again, a lot of us I would venture to say most of us have not had that modeled very well for us. There you go. We don't have that internal working model for it. Yeah.

01:15:52
It'd be pretty natural for us if we had witnessed it a thousand, a million times growing up for us. And there are lucky guys out there that have their own challenges. But this isn't a challenge because they had dads that they just witnessed it again and again and again, both with them and with their mom, and so they are equipped to engage that. But if you weren't lucky enough to have that experience, it's really difficult. It's like stepping out in front of that boat.

01:16:22 - Speaker 2
But I watched my parents discuss things without getting mad. I saw discussions. I saw we had family counsel. Family counsel would all sit and dad would say, okay, here's the decision we're trying to make, and all that kind of stuff. Well, I still got uh, anger things with my wife and I still had stuff that I was like and I, you know, didn't listen and I I think part of it is.

01:16:47
I think this curious thing is really good because it's think part of it is. I think this curious thing is really good because it's I have to be loving and curious enough to actually go online to my counselor or to pick up, uh, his needs, her needs, books. Uh, what was a doctor that wrote that his needs, her needs? Huh, yeah, dr harley, and what was cool about that? I actually interviewed him once and I said, hey, I just want to thank you before we get into it. I want to thank you for putting his needs first. Dude, he lost it. He started laughing, he goes. Nobody's ever said that to me. Yeah, thanks, thanks for doing that.

01:17:29
But I think the loving curiosity would be I'm going to ask my buddy, who seems to have some stuff going on. Well, you know, how do you guys deal with this? How do you deal with this thing? And I might be pretty surprised at how much work that guy tells me it's taking. Them to be what. I look at and go, ah, they got it together Right. Or maybe I just uncover something and he goes, no, no, no man, it's all screwed up, but we just make it look good. And now, all of a sudden, I'm on a journey with that guy and my curiosity is helping him and me heal.

01:18:15 - Speaker 1
Man that is rude to be in the brother there, right?

01:18:17
because these, these relational skills, and this process does happen in relationship, like it's just going to come with information and there's something incredibly powerful when a man gets vulnerable enough to kind of look around at the men in his circle and his at his church or, yeah, with somewhere and says, you know, this guy seems to have a good relationship with his wife and his kids, you know, but they seem to be that. Maybe it's something different on surface, but seems like there's something there that I could learn from. I'd be willing to take that guy to coffee, ask him out and just say, hey, it seems like you've got a good thing going, why can't you?

01:19:03 - Speaker 2
I will tell you, when I think about some of these things, I can think back to men Not my dad. Okay, my dad was a good dad, but he was also married to his ministry. It was old school how he was taught and it did cause my two sisters and me to have to do some work on this thing, man, and a lot of it after I got got married, because all I got married to do was have sex. I was not trying to have a relationship. I mean, I married an amazing girl and it's just the the. I mean I fell in love with her the minute I saw her, but yeah, and I didn't meet her for another. Uh, I think after the first time I saw her, I I didn't meet her for another 18 months or something, but that's another story you know this whole thing of.

01:19:56
I learned so much, so many things from men that I either asked how did you do that with your son, or how did you resolve these discussions with your wife?

01:20:10
And for older men to tell me I did this and this and allowed it within a church context, in other words, friends from church or guys that I met in business. I was in business most of my life and I'd meet guys in business but I found out they were followers of Christ. I go like, like you know Sam Moore, uh, who owned Thomas Nelson since passed away and I remember sitting in a hotel room at a trade show with Sam Moore, who owned Thomas Nelson since passed away and I remember sitting in a hotel room at a trade show with Sam Moore and he gave me two or three nuggets in an hour-long conversation, which was such a blessing for him to just give me that it's a gift. There's two or three things he shared with me on that conversation that I use today now, which was 30 years ago, and helped me in my marriage, help me in my business and help me with what I do in our ministry. So I think about yeah, you know when I think of that, josh, you're right, it's those things.

01:21:04 - Speaker 1
And to sit and ask God's questions.

01:21:09
The wise person seeks out counsel that the enemy uses shame to try to keep us isolated and it's in that isolation that we're vulnerable and we're weak In that isolated place and it gets the message in our head that weak people seek out counsel, weak people ask for help, weak people kind and of other people, and that's the lie that the enemy uses that keeps us. It is a lie. The wise person does just what you describe. Rather it be an identifying in your circles, in business, at work, in your church, community. Rather it's reaching out for professional help, like my counselor, online or through other mentorship programs connection. The wise person steps out and says you know what? I can't do this alone and there's some things that I can learn and grow in that I need other people for can learn and grow in that.

01:22:11 - Speaker 2
I need other people, for, you know, not one great golfer has won major championships, not one great athlete has won major championships from Gretzky to, you know, brady to Tiger without a good coach Not one, I mean. And we have to take. We do have to take, if you will, a lesson from that for us as men. Yeah, I need a good coach.

01:22:43 - Speaker 1
Right. It's what high performers and highly successful people they seek out no matter what sector they seek out counsel. Oh yeah, coaches, yeah, yeah, they seek out counsel oh, yeah, yeah, no, it's true.

01:22:57 - Speaker 2
Hey, josh spurlock, thanks for being on. Brave men. Um, you know, this is like the the open-ended conversation, because with somebody as learned as you, with your background, uh, with the nicc and and all the things we talked about, we could talk for another couple hours, which is why you work by the 45-minute section or whatever, because otherwise you could go six hours with one of your guest clients. But, man, you are a gift to my life, josh, and to us as men. I thank you for what you're doing with my Counselor Online. Pray over you and Cassie and your nine children and grandchildren, the things that God's led you into. You are really spearheading some stuff that we need to spearhead. So thanks for taking the pain of that, thanks for metabolizing the pain Great new phrase that I have now in my arsenal Thanks for doing the stuff that you do and taking the pain in order to be on the forefront, the cutting edge of helping us, as men, be healed in Christ, know Jesus in authenticity and share Christ with the world around us.

01:24:13
Yeah, you're awesome bro Thanks.

01:24:14 - Speaker 1
Paul Love you man. It's been great hanging out with you. I always enjoy our time.

01:24:24 - Speaker 3
Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Lewis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts or download it. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on brave man.