Living the Real

How the depth of engaging life becomes the limit to the depth of our relationships

• Matt Boettger • Episode 22

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In this episode, Matt takes a look at how our outlook on life directly impacts the quality of our relationships, and how to pivot to a better outlook on life for sake of better relationships!

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Just about a week ago, my wife decided not only to make homemade vegetable chili, which was amazing, but also. Homemade bread while taking care of three wild and crazy boys. And I had to work late. So I came upstairs to grasp and chili fray ran back downstairs in my dungeon to continue working. And I saw the homemade bread and it was delicious. And I wanted some, he said, don't do it yet because the bread in the bottom on the bottom is really, really hard. And she wants to throw it away because it's just too. Chewy and I mean, they said, no, no, no, don't throw it away because I could use it for croutons, for my chili or whatever, but we can use it for something else because you just don't throw bread away. For my wife, she was thinking about her boys and us and about having good soft bread. That was the expectation. But the experience was no, it wasn't fully soft. The bottom was hard. So why am I mentioned this with today's episode? I think it was a learning lesson for me now, first and foremost, God bless my wife because that was what she was seeing. That's what she was expecting. That's what she wanted. And it took an outsider like me, who has maybe he just totally hungry and would eat anything to realize that what she thinks is bad is actually really good in this situation. And it could be used for other things, the experience of the hard part of the bread. Did not align with her expectations for the bread, not seeing that the failed expectation of one thing can very likely be an opportunity for another curtains for Chile. This is the goal of life people about seeing the reality that life is profoundly connected. And that one failure is an open door to something else. If only we have the eyes to see the ears to hear. And this is what the episode is about. It's about the pains of not seeing the connectedness of life for our wellbeing and how we can pursue life more deeply and more connectedly for the purpose of deeper and more connected relationships. Because I believe there is a connection even here, the deeper we probe and pursue the meaning of life before us. The deeper our relationships can be with other people as well. I believe that is proportionate and I'm feeling all the more in the past weeks because coming out of Boulder with a shooting just a few weeks ago, I'm still reeling from this searching for the meaning, mourning, understanding why on earth would this ever happen and still trying to remain open and understanding that somehow something great is going to come from this. And this is not a time to despair. So welcome to living a real, and I hope for you, this is your most real week yet. Let's get going. Are you living the most real life possible? I asked myself this question all the time. Most of the time, the answer is, I just don't know. But sometimes the answer is definitely not. This is why I have this podcast. I'm Matt Buckner. And welcome to the show. Two small things. If you get a chance, please leave a review like on Apple podcasts and also check out my website, live in the real.com where I offer lots of resources in how to live the most real life possible. Now on with the show. So it's been a whirlwind tour for me in my own mind, after the difficult Boulder shooting. And take me back even back to 9/11 and so many other shootings in Colorado, and just dealing with this hard and difficult question is where is the meaning in this? Because I know for many people around me, the typical responses, maybe not despair, but just, I don't want to go outside. I want to keep my family safe. And that is a real and authentic feeling. And at the other side of this, I remember back in 9/11 when I was living in DC and after the tragic event of the Pentagon and the twin towers, I saw so many people coming together as strangers and just saw utter kindness from everyone, a deep sense of solidarity because we were in this together for something greater. And it was profound. Now, granted in DC, that probably lasted on the eight or nine months, which probably is a record before it was no longer easy to get into lanes. And I was given the bird often in my car, but for those eight or nine months, it was a really profound and beautiful experience. And I saw that similarly with Boulder and continuing to this day have seen such a great sense of solidarity and coming together to be bigger than the tragedy that fell before us. So this episode is how do we deal? With experiences that dramatically do not align with our expectations because there is a big temptation when this happens to just become afraid and fearful, not even ask the question, what does this make possible for me? Where is the gift in this? If you've listened to my previous episodes, this is the biggest tenant of loving the real moving your life from a life of determination, where it's all about self-control and the self-made person to discovery, looking to discover the gift in life. That there is someone something out there bigger than yourself. That is your advocate who wants nothing more than your well-being and to see experience around you as signs and symbols, to move you in a way that provides fulfillment, even in the dark crap and difficulty. And I want to talk about the pain of these situations when life doesn't go the way we wanted to go. When we experienced something. And how do we actually mind meaning from it? And how does attempt to mind meaning from difficult experiences, not only lifts our soul and makes us able to deal with life. But exponentially increase our capacity to have deep and connected relationships. Now, I want you to go back into episode 21, which is just last episode, where I talk about this pyramid that had developed even more. Even today, I'm spending a lot time. I'm getting ready to relaunch living the real Academy. I'm excited to share this with you and really honing in on this pyramid of how we actually behave in life. And that our experiences, our first kind of interaction with the world, obviously. And then from those experiences, we form emotions. And then from that thoughts and then beliefs and then actions, and then we have our results, our life before us. And hopefully the results that we have from life are generally ones that we're proud of. And if not, then we need to reflect and figure out where down this chains pyramid. Have I twisted some things about myself or about the world that's prevented me to live the way I want to live, to find meaning in life, because I know that when I find meaning in life, the first thing I want to do is share it with someone. This is the connection between the depths of which we engage life. And the depths of our relationships, because if we can't and I know it's so difficult, sometimes defined or at least ask the question about the meaning of particular circumstances of our life. Then we then move from discovery to a moment of fear. And we know this, I know personally that when I am fearful, I'm not going out and wanting to connect with anyone. I want to hide in my basement. I want to hide under my covers and sleep for days on end. I don't want to connect. And when I do connect, I've got really nothing to share because I really don't want to drum up all my anxiety and fear. It's when those things happen in my life that I find meaning and purpose that I just want to shout from the rooftops. So I have friends about how important it is to me. This is the biggest stepping stone. And if anyone's listening right now and suffering from their ability to find meaning in their life right now, then hold on because I have four ways by which we can slowly begin to transition the way we think and live our life to find meaning, and then have deeper connections because it's a double-edged sword. Is it not? If you are fearful and afraid and then you don't want to connect, or if you do connect on a shallow basis, and then you leave that relationship that encounter with someone and you feel a little disgruntled. Where you don't feel really happy because you don't feel like it connected well, and then it's a double-edged sword now. Not only are you afraid you're disconnected and now you feel lonely and now you're depressed. So it can spiral out of control suite or lean into discovery for the sake of finding meaning in life, which allows you to see the opportunities for you in life. And remain deeply connected, which gives you the fuel to do great things in your life. Because like I said, when there is no meaning, we don't want to share, if we do share where we substitute with sharing our fear and anxiety, which we don't feel happy about, we don't feel excited about now. It's okay. Does he know once in a while when you're in a rush to find a friend to talk about, but when it's the only thing you have to offer to a friendship, it just becomes difficult for the person who is suffering in that because they're not connecting and they feel bad for only sharing the fear. That's hard. And then we go into this passive and active reality of life. The passive one is that we don't see the opportunity in the difficult circumstances. We become enclosed and puddle up. And we don't even ask the question. We just become passive recipients of life and we allow life to happen to us. That's the passive part when we, when there's no meaning in our life. And then the active part is that we actually go out looking in our experiences. But what we're looking for is we look for the bad things. We have a negativity bias. We become critical to people. We become judgmental. Things would become fearful, even angry. That's hard. I know this because I have suffered from this in a very particular way, and I haven't really fully mined a depth of this. I've always thought, Oh, I'm this optimistic kind of chill guy and a large part of my life I am, but there are some parts of my life that I'm deeply critical. I'm deeply judgmental and that's me actively like a radar pursuing the bad things in life, or then upholding the good things in life and elevating the, because we know when we're supported, when we're supported by someone who sees the best in us, then we are, we not only rise to the occasion, we surpass it. Man. I was in my elementary school days and there was my social study teacher, Mr. Hawkinson. And I don't remember the full context. I was young. I think I was in junior high at the time. And I remember suffering in class tremendously. I don't know what my grade was. Maybe it was a D whatever it was, he pulled me aside. He could have just said, Matt, you're screwing up. You need to do better. Spend more time on your homework. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he didn't. You know what he did? I don't remember the full context. This is my memory, which I'm sure it's shady. But I remember he sat with me for a moment on the, on his desk and just told me, words of encouragement and told me he believed in me. He didn't even mention my bad grade. He just mentioned that he believed in me. And that he knew that I had the capacity. Guess what? When he did that, my grade went up at least one full letter, if not two. I forgot exactly, but I know it increased dramatically in just a few weeks because he believed in me. Now I wish I would've learned that lesson and be able to share with other people in my own experience of life, not just teaching you. And I'm still learning this lesson that realizing that when we get that negative, that criticism, it doesn't make us motivated. It just brings us down and how we need to flip that and see the good in someone, because it only makes them better. It only makes you better. And if you're in those situations, we're going to talk about that. You've got to get out. And if you can't get out, I have ways by which we can slowly work around it. And most of those you can get out. If not all of them in one way or another, it's the consequence of having a life that doesn't have money it's disconnected. It's inauthentic. What do we resort to people pleasing? So afraid of losing more of a life. We dare not speak our voice into our relationships less. We lose another relationship and have this confirmation put into our own head that see, I told you I'm the result of everything bad. And so when we are inauthentic, we are people pleasing to lack of meaning. Plus a lack of connection equals despair. And I don't want you to be in that. I don't want me to be that I don't want anyone to be that I want really everyone living the most real life possible. This is far from real far from real. That lack of me destroys the personality, destroys our personnel. If we can't see or even strive to look for the meaning, we lack the ability to engage experience through the meaning. And these consequences are like slippery slopes. It has continued to be, get one, not so great thing after another. That just sucks. It just destroys our personality within a lack, the ability to engage experience through meaning. And then from this, we become reactive to the present moments because we realize where we feel the deepest part of our heart, that life is our adversary and so reactive or defensive. And what does that happen? We end up living out of this defensive instead of life, we play it safe with life. We become reactive and then it just builds a life of regret, which is just heaps on more. Difficulty. And then of course, as we begin to build these moments one after another, we look back at our past and then it looks dark, right? It looks meaningless. There's a sense of aloneness in our past that an image, it feel like an image of a person untethered in outer space. And it all started with just one small thing. And that is not even beginning to ask the question and billing the habit. Of asking, where's the gift in this? What does this make possible for me? What is the opportunity in this event or this broken relationship or this hardship? I'm reminded like a snowball coming down the mountain. When it comes down the mountain it's small and it can easily be stopped with a finger, but then after a while, if we don't stop it right away, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it becomes unbearable and nothing can stop it. And it all for us, when it comes to. Happiness fulfillment. It begins with a small little snowball. What is discovery looking for the meaning in life. If we can't train ourselves or retrain ourselves to see that and look for it, then we begin this kind of slow, slippery slope, adding onto snowball to where life then feels utterly out of control, where we need really strong and additional resources to get us back into control of life. There's never a moment when we need to despair. Cause we can't always shift. Sometimes it takes more resources than, and it takes less resources, but we can get that moment where we really are living in that real. We see life for what it is proportionately, and we respond to it proportionately. So we don't want the consequences of life happening to us. Feeling like a victim. The virtue of connection is reduced to commiseration becoming incredibly private. Or, or the other end self exploiting because of the pain within our own hearts. And then one of the often consequences that we have this extreme focus on helping others. Now it's great to help others amazing. But sometimes we do it as a crutch rather than as a gift of self. And when we really lack meaner life, we've got to find it somewhere. So we're desperate to latch on to other people and help them. In their life so that we can latch onto their meaning as a poor substitute in the lack of my own. Meaning, have you done that? I know. I sure have. I got to check myself to realize, why am I doing this? Am I doing it because I really want to help? Or is it priority because I'm seeing something out of control in my life and I'm trying to find meaning. And so I'm trying to find it through someone else. It's relatively innocuous in some levels, but when it comes to parenting, that's a whole difficult and not so good place to put your own life into somebody else's and find meaning in it. And then socially. Man we have tribalism versus community. When we're afraid, we don't find meaning. We've gathered people around us like minded, unfortunately who both maybe see life in a darker sense. And we have an artificial sense of community. As we gathered together to fight a common enemy, which is the world, which is not, we want, we want community. One of those see the world for what it is and come together to participate and engage something bigger than the sum of its parts. Provide value to the world that needs it. So incredibly bad. Lee, we have fear a lot more fear that our life is grounded in fear. And that's what makes us tribal it's us against the world. And like I mentioned earlier, right? It's the radar. The radar begins to look for all the bad things and things and people, wherever you look, you'll find it. And now we gotta begin to first this and live a life of discovery, striving and lean into life, through discovery. For the sake of having the relationships you deserve or to have you deserve to have happiness is not a result. It is not like this idea that if I just had this and it had this situation, this much money lived in Maui, did this, did that, that I'd be happy. It is a precondition actually look up and read the happiness advantage and incredible book that shows this idea that happiness is not something that we achieve. And as a precondition, that is a mindset. And I want to help you live that life so that you can truly live and thrive and be happy. And even in your circumstances, you can find a deep sense of joy and happiness in your life. So let's now land this plane. Talk about the four things we can do, and I need this just as much as you do to help me really see the good and everything around me, that every event, every encounter in my life, I truly can ask the question. What does this make possible for me? What is this saying about me that I can grow in? It'd become a better individual to see the good and the people around me and not be so critical and judgmental. So if you're struggling right now and if you are, I don't blame you, we're still in the pandemic. We're coming out of it. It's wonderful. There's still some things to be determined in the future, but it's much better than it was last year. And then we have seen over and over and over a number of series of shootings, but I'm sure has caused a lot more pain and difficulty. So they're suffering. It doesn't have to be that way. I want to help you help myself be able to move out of that framework into a new one so we can live life again, live a bowling cradle and be joyful. The first thing I want to say to you that if you're struggling way and stuck in negativity, stuck in fear, stuffing anxiety, the first small step I want to step. Number one is put a container around it. I've seen this in my life. I know what it's like, where negativity permeates every part of the day and the day becomes overwhelming. I'm not saying to get rid of your negativity, just put a container around it. Do not allow to spread. Give it its time. And then wait until next time it might be every day from noon to 2:00 PM. I have the right to be negative. Say things, talk to people, whatever it is, it's your game. It's your determination. All I want you to do is allow it to stay in that container. And the rest of the day is not about negativity, right? As something else comes into play, there's an emergency. Yes, you handle it. But you're beating this shift and change set the majority of your day. Is it the bare minimum neutral and hopefully a little bit more joyful. So your first step is find one time a day where you have all the lights in the world to be negative for X amount of time, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever it may be. But after that, before that that is not the time. And may it not be just before bed, because that is not the best time you will not sleep well sometime, maybe in the morning and the day, wherever it may be. The other one is number two, balance the equation in life. There've been so much research that for every one negative comment, when critical judgment is given to someone, it takes five positive ones to overcome it. Now, generally, if you live with someone who's toxic, or if you live with someone or have friends or friends with someone as best to get out of that relationship, but if you can't get out that relationship, now I'm saying if there's an abuse situation, you get out of it at all times. But if there is something we're just, people are critical and you can't get out of it, like as your mom or your dad, or maybe your sister or your brother or your spouse or someone who's close. And it's not that agregious where by which you can separate all ties, but it just is really weighing you down heavily. Then here's my thing. You may not be able to teach them to give you five continents for every one criticism, but you can say, okay, I'm not going to abandon my mom. At least not yet, or my dad or whatever it may be. So I need to find five good supporting friends or family that I'm with regularly to overcome that one negative Nancy in my life. You've got to actually pursue this. Find the people in your life who overwhelmingly are supportive or affirming or encouraging and be with them regularly to help skew the negativity that you feel like you have to live with in one way or another advice. Number three, with God to change that behavior. Now we can put a container around it. So it's there. We can begin to put around friends around us who can help give us that example. Cause we are the average of the people we're around. So if we have a large amount of affirming, wonderful, joyful, hopeful people, we're naturally going to inch our way towards that. So a deeper sense of changing our behavior. We've got to engage. You've heard me talk about, so readiness idea of living the life of discovery. And this framework is so important. If you can get this and this only will change the course of your life forever, but it's not going to change it by just thinking about that idea. You've got to do something about it. You've got to build a habit by which it changes your entire framework, starting a positivity journal. If you have some of your life, who's just, you can't think, but negative things about. Journal daily in journal about them, but only the positive things find the positive things. And at first it's going to feel fake and phony and not real, but over time, if you're consistent enough, all of a sudden you're gonna realize, Oh my gosh, I do believe this. I do see them in this light. It actually is true that they are wonderful people. It doesn't mean that they have crap in their life or they do bad things, but you're able to see. The good things in them as well, and then be able to share it with them as well, which will really benefit the relationship. Now I would encourage you to go back also to episode number 10, where I talk about journaling and you can go to my living the real.com/journal template. If you want to download it where I have a series of questions, you can do one, two times a day, that leads you through my living, the real mess for living a more real life in a context of discovery. Really looking for the things in life that are opportunities and gifts. They're not going to happen on a conveyor belt. You're not gonna see them instinctually yet. You've got to practice this. So you need to begin journaling and broader perspective than just the individual person he might be critical with and incorporate the habits of looking for the gifts in your life and the difficult moments of your life in a habit. So check it out, go to episode 10, listen to it, check out my template. Begin using that template to shape and form your life. To see life as gift, practice meditation. What an awesome thing I've been doing. It's been changing me more and more. The more practice. It, it doesn't rid myself of my emotions, but it allows me not to be controlled by them. That's all. And what a gift that is in of itself and prayer. If you're a person of prayer, praying daily, To get out of yourself and into some one who is beyond yourself. And I mentioned all this stuff about fear and we don't want to live in fear, but I want to make the caveat real. That fear is not some vice in of itself. That fear is an imitation towards vulnerability and connection. This is one thing where I've run away from so many times I've got afraid from one reason or another. I get fearful and I just wanna overcome it because fear is bad. Fear is bad. If you live by fear. The fear is wonderful. If it allows you to move towards ability and connection, that's its purpose. Of course, if you need to if the snowball's gotten so big out of control, then you know, what's tough. It's Sanford counseling. I've been down that road so many times, and then you do it because life is too short to sit in, wonder and wish for a better life. You've got to be active. And journaling can take you a long way to five, to one, getting people around your life, where supportive and assuring is an incredibly big part of your life. Putting a container around your negativity is indispensable, but sometimes counseling is a necessity. And then finally find where this stuff is coming from. This fear this dread, this anxiety, it didn't come out of a vacuum. This is where we, again, go back to episode 21, go back to that pyramid. I talk about is behavioral pyramid and work through that pyramid of experience, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, actions, the tip of the pyramid results, right? Our outcomes, and some suck and some are great. Where do those outcomes come from your actions, where your actions come from, guess what your beliefs about yourself, your capacity, your incapacity, where do your beliefs come from? Where they come from? Your thought processes. Where's your thoughts come from from your emotions and where your emotions come from? Those experiences at the heart of everything is our experiences. Our experiences shape us. We did go back and say, what experiences in my life did I have? That's made me feel, act, behave this way. They need to change. And hold on. If you want to go in, check out my newsletter, go live in the real.com. Scroll to the bottom center fan newsletter so that when living the real Academy opens, you can be one of the first to join the Academy and to really strive to live the most real life. Cause it does not happen by drifting. We've got to take initiative and do it. And this is what I want to help you. To do. I hope you got some tips of what you're gonna do this week to live the most real life possible. Maybe it is just journaling about that one person you just can't think kindly about, and you're going to find the gold and that person is going to change you more than it's going to change them. Because now your heart's going to be lighter. You're going to see brighter days and you're gonna see yourself in a brighter light. Okay, have a wonderful week. I will see you next episode. Take care and bye-bye thank you for listening to this episode of living the real. If you want to check out more information, go to living the real.com and sign up for my newsletter. If you want to support this podcast, you do that at patrion.com/ltr as well as one-time payments at Venmo and PayPal in the show notes. See you all next episode. Take care. Bye-bye.