Episode 20: Balance: The Natural State of Life and How to Get There

Feeling a little tipsy? Unsteady on your feet? Like the scales may be tipping the wrong way? Maybe you need to bring a little balance into your life and relationship. Balance is our natural state of being, so when we are unbalanced somewhere, we feel it. Whether it’s in your marriage, relationship, parenting, career, sex life, or with your spouse, finding balance is an important step to being happy, healthy, and fulfilled. In this week’s episode, find out how we, in our busy lives, get out of balance, what it can do in our relationship with our husband, wife, or partner, and how to bring our life back to a state of natural balance.

Episode Transcript

I'm your host, Jessica. And I'm your host, Sean. The no fluff, no BS, just straightforward, [00:01:00] real talk real-world experience and practical solutions. Sean and I talk about what no one else. That's right where the podcast that's got couples talking. Oh, and we're funny too.

We are, we are everything for your family and relationships from the playroom to the bedroom. Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get to our topic as always, please do subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. I still get all excited. When I see the reviews, I love to post them on our social media and share them with other people.

I get all giddy inside. When I see it, we both get excited. So please leave us a review and also visit our website. That's www.theconfidentmarriage.com. You can sign up to our newsletter there to get exclusive content that includes both of our weekly articles and you get a early access to the latest episode a couple days early.

So sign up for the newsletter. Never know what we might put on there. We also put a whole bunch of really cool stuff in there too. It was an information. [00:02:00] I think you said that my sources. You can also find us on all the social media platforms. So we're on Facebook, confident marriage, Twitter, see marriage show and Instagram confident marriage.

And, uh, coming later in the episode, we're going to talk about another cool resource that we discovered this week that will help your marriage. You guys going to love this. We are getting ready to wrap up week one of the workshop and we're already getting amazing feedback. I'm so excited. People are loving it.

I, I was so afraid. Yeah. We were both nervous that it was too intense because I mean, we really dug deep. I mean, we went through we're going into like childhood and how you were raised in your parents and where you got your beliefs and your values. And like, I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm afraid that this is too intense.

And. Just a couple of days after sending out out the first workshop, I'm already getting feedback. Like, Oh my God, I love this already. And I'm like, Whew, thank God because I was afraid I was putting too much on you. No, it's super cool. And uh, we really hope those of you that are doing the workshop are enjoying it [00:03:00] and getting a lot out of it.

We really put our heart and soul into it. Keep the feedback coming. We want to know so we can make it better. We're all about constantly improving ourselves here, which is something we try to pass along to you. So the more we can know about what's good with it and what, you know, God forbid isn't good with it.

We'll make it better next time, because if this is a success and it works out well, we would like to offer it again at some point. Yes. I was just going to say, if you're excited about the workshop and want to take it and you missed out on this time, I think I definitely want to offer this again cause you guys are gonna, but thank you again to all those that are participating in our first workshop and giving us that feedback.

You guys are like our beta testers. So we want this to be, uh, we want it to be tailored to you, the listener. So anything you guys have for us, please let us know. Just don't be like beta fish with your spouse and each other. That's a good point. Those are fighting fish, right? But it's normal to fight in a relationship.

You can go back and listen to our episode on mythical marriages. The very first episode there is healthy, fighting and unhealthy fighting. Right? [00:04:00] We do a lot of both. Yes we do. We're not perfect by any means. So this week, what are we talking about? Shine. I'm so excited about this topic, um, balance in your life.

Not some kind of like hippies and stuff, but like just getting balanced and I mean, let's face it, Jess. We both have really busy lives. Don't we? Not just us. I think that there's people that have busier lives than we do. There's gotta be, yeah. I don't know how it's possible, but there's gotta be. Well, I mean, at this day and age, like it's just, there's all this pressure.

I was listening to something the other day and I can't remember what it was, but they were talking about like how we apply ourselves. Right. And so, you know, we, we have work and our kids have school and then, you know, our neighbor's kids are in like hockey and then we're like, Oh, we gotta put our kid in hockey or, yeah.

But we're not doing it intentionally. We just, we hear all these great ideas that. Um, other people are doing. And then we think that maybe we need that in [00:05:00] our life. And so we add it and we just overwhelm ourselves and we do it because we want to be better people. We want to be better parents. We want our kids to be the best in life that they can be.

Not that we want our kids to be better than other people's kids, but we want to provide so much. Opportunity to our children. And I think that we just all overwhelm ourselves. And so what I was listening to was talking about how, you know, sometimes we get resentful because after work, I mean, maybe not during COVID, but there's gonna come a time that COVID, isn't going to be impacting her life the way it is right now.

Right. But we live in the car after work, going from extracurricular activity to tutoring, to this, to, you know, our own things. And we're just. We're so overwhelmed. And I think we get lost in translation. I think life just starts to go by us like a blur, you know, like those movies where they just speed everything up in that.

Person's just standing there looking out on the street and there's just cars and people walking by like a lot, I think we all do. And it's like, uh, that's. [00:06:00] So that's a dangerous road to get in when you start feeling like that, because that leads down the path to complacency in your relationship and your, uh, family life and your parenting.

And when you get into that complacency where you're just going through the motions day to day, and I know, I know both of us have experienced that it caused a lot of turmoil in our relationship. It is, I did it did, and it does nice one. So I think you and I still struggle with that at times, especially with the podcast and we're doing so much more and we're, we're really out there a lot.

And you know, we're S we're starting to get more and more questions and, you know, um, more people wanting to work with us and, and I, this has become a full-time job and I'm getting ready to start another semester and it's going to be a heavy one. And I'm sitting here thinking, how am I going to balance this?

And I mean, To piggyback off that and I'm working full time and I'm working away [00:07:00] from home and for eight, nine, 10 hours. And then I'm sitting in the car for five, six hours a day and then coming home and getting right to work with the podcast or the workshop or helping with the kids or giving you a break.

And you're all day long with the kids. Cause they're home. Because of COVID for school and, and schoolwork. And so we're going to try to talk today about how important balance is in your life, how hard it is to achieve some of the things that can throw your life out of balance. And some stuff you can do to try to get that back to back, bring it back.

So it's a dues. If I back it up as it fat enough. We've been over this. That's my saying, sorry. Okay, here we go. Put on a little COVID weight. If I back it up, is it fat enough? It's definitely bad enough, but we'll get into that on another episode, maybe, maybe. So that's definitely a pal. We're definitely going to talk about sex masturbation and what, yes.

Oh, you want to giggle again? Stay tuned. It was funny. Cause we were in the car [00:08:00] the other day. I mean, we're talking about the podcast and he's like, so exactly. How does this masturbation episode work, sweetheart? Cause you talked about it. And I think everybody knows how to masturbate and I'm like, well, that's not what it's about.

I need a little clarification. Then he asked me to show him and I said, no, Whoa. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I'm a little red right now. Ooh, simmer down. Okay. So let Mila let's bring it back. Cause I'm all worked up now. Okay. So balance. So let me talk to you guys and see if any of this sounds familiar. Work school kids, marriage, date night, Mr.

Chores, masturbation, maybe sex. So much to do so much all the time, grocery shopping, feed the pets. If you're religious church, should I feed the lizard this week? We asked we have a lizard. Our son does. Yeah. Well, [00:09:00] got it. Yeah. Like every pet in the house though. I ended up taking care of it. Yeah. So it's true.

But it's a lot, it's a lot that you're dealing with. Maybe you guys have more to deal with than us. Maybe you don't, maybe we're completely wrong. Maybe it's like, I mean, even if, even if you don't feel like you have a lot going on, there is. Work video games, social media. I don't know. Self care. Yes.

Masturbation. He talking about masturbation again. Now it is how many times we can work that word into this episode. It is a lot. And I think sometimes we just, as I talked about that, That whole vision of you just standing outside your life and it's just passing by you and things are, you're just going with it.

Where do you, how do you stop it and how do you assess it? And how do you know when you don't have knowledge? So. Let me go into first, what I [00:10:00] believe and what I like to look at it as. So I'm a very rational, logical, scientific kind of person. Right. So, and if you don't believe me, just read my article for this week and you'll see, cause I get into physics and astrophysics and all kinds of stuff.

What is the name of your article, honey? Life love and math with an exclamation Mark. And a question Mark. Yeah. So look, I like to look at it as. In nature in the universe, in which we dwell in, in every system, whether it's a human being or a rock or the ocean or gravity or energy or anything, there's, there's a finite limited amount of energy.

And that energy gets put into different things. And you only have so much energy to put into those things. And in nature in the universe, uh, there's a constant battle between energy, you know, energy can't be created or destroyed. It can just be [00:11:00] moved or changed. And nature is constantly trying to achieve a state of balance.

There's a saying nature, abhors, a vacuum, which means if there's less of something somewhere and more of something, somewhere, those two systems are going to interact to try to achieve the natural state of being, which is balanced. Right. So that's how. Pressures in the atmosphere of earth interact at constantly trying to achieve balance.

And that's what creates our weather, you know, hot and cold are constantly trying to balance out to a medium temperature. And so it's the same in our life. We have hobbies, we have relationships, we have kids, we have careers and we're constantly putting our limited amount of energy into these things. More here, less here, some more hair, maybe less here than should be in there, more here than should be in the hair.

So. In nature when something gains too much energy, say. A star it's going to grow and it's going to become bloated and it's going to start destroying everything around it until eventually it destroys itself. Right? Well, [00:12:00] after the supernova that destroys everything around it, but it starts sucking everything in and it will become all consuming.

Right. Where until it eventually consumes itself. Gosh, I know what that's like. Oh, you do. That's what being married to me is like, so I just meant that I get all consumed with so much and I felt like I'm going to implode. And the country verse of that is if something's not receiving enough energy, say a plant in your front yard.

If it's not receiving enough energy in the form of sun and water, it's going to wither and it's going to die. And eventually the little bit of energy that that plant had is going to be dispersed back into the system. Right? So it's the same with it's the same with your life. If you have a hobby that starts to become obsessive.

And you're putting all this energy into it. Eventually it's going to start consuming the energy from all the other things in your life and your relationship's going to suffer and your kids are going to suffer and your career is going to suffer and eventually your life's going to implode. So let me put this on Jessie terms to make sure I understand.

Okay. Because that was very scientific. Very good [00:13:00] work. Thanks, scholar, Sean PhD. So just the doctor, basically how I apply this to myself is that when I wake up every morning, I have so much energy and I ha work. I have to suck my energy in from the systems around me, like coffee, and I have to utilize that energy carefully.

Otherwise let's say I wake up and I have 70% energy available to myself that day. Of course, we don't know how much it is, but let's use percentages here and I get ready and that uses 5% of my energy. And then I get the kids off to school and not use this 10% of my energy. I've now used 15% of my energy.

And then I go to work and I use that 60% of my energy. I've now not just used up all my energy, but I'm now in a negative. And so when I come home, I have nothing left. Right. And so I'm not able to give to my spouse and to my children and to [00:14:00] myself. What it is, I need to give, to keep that in a positive balance.

And so then I start taking from my family in ways to kind of, the energy has got to come from somewhere, right. I take by maybe snapping at my children and getting upset with my spouse. And so I'm not able to be productive in my home instead. I'm like, You've done next bunch where I'm sucking from my family.

So you've gone to negative forms of energy to fuel the fire. Right. So I am on the right track then. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, what you said is something that gives a little different, uh, I mean, it adds to what I was thinking. Cause I didn't really consider it that way. I'm looking at more of the balancing act of it and taking from one to fuel the other in either a healthy or an unhealthy way.

I, I didn't really consider that there's. You know, you could be taking from a negative to try to fuel that. And that's where some problems can [00:15:00] come in. So, no, I really, really like what you said. Right? And so that can go for like work too. It could, all, it could be flip-flopped you could be, you know, putting too much at home and not enough in yourself for your work or it could, it could manifest in all these different ways.

Right. And, uh, As I said, you're constantly trying to achieve balance in your life, whether you know it or not, it's the nature of the universe. You can't really get around it, whether you're religious or scientific or don't believe in any of it at all, it it's, it's out there it's fact. We can see it.

Everything is always trying to achieve balance. And so you're doing it in your life, whether you realize it or not. But what we do is we get so caught up in some things that they start pulling energy away from the things that may really matter. So, I guess let's talk about some things that can throw your life out of balance.

So we've established that one of the ways that we do that is by putting too much energy into one thing and not focusing on the other areas of our life that can throw us out of it. Right. So I know we've all experienced this just to [00:16:00] put it on a personal level, like. There were times in my life when I got really, really into like healthy eating and exercise.

And it started off as a really healthy habit. And I was trying to get myself healthier and live a little more clean, but what ended up happening in the course of months was that I was spending more, you know, I started off riding my bike, maybe five miles a day. Ladies and gentlemen, by the end, I was riding my bike 35 miles a day and it was taking four and a half hours out of my day, you know?

And on top of that, I was lifting weights and I, it was so like, I got so much into what I was eating. You know, again, being a little too on the scientific logical thing, it was like, how many calories was I putting in? How many grams of protein, how many grams of fat? How much was I putting out? And it, it started to consume my life and it was taken away from.

College, which at the time I was attending, it was taken away from my interpersonal relationships. It was taken away from all kinds of stuff. So I needed to reassess at that point. So there's any [00:17:00] kind of addictions are terrible at doing this in your life. And I speak from personal experience in that, whether it's an addictive behavior like compulsive eating, or it's a, it's a addictive.

Well, like sex or porn can be like that. And, uh, definitely with substances, you end up out, well, it's a substance, right? Right. So you end up putting so much energy into it. Like they have a saying in the program, you know, the w w w ways and means of getting more, you know, you're putting all your energy, it becomes all consuming into finding a way to get more of that substance to get that next high.

That everything in your life starts to suffer until all you're doing is putting all of your energy into that addiction. Well, here's a really good example. I, I get really wrapped up in the podcast and everything that we're doing, and though it's for a good cause and I'm doing it because I so desperately want help people.

I still have to be mindful that I have school and I have [00:18:00] children and a family, and I have my own. Health needs that I need to attend to. So I have to find balance too. And I think whether it's an addiction or it's just. Overzealous in some things we need to be aware of where we're putting that energy.

Right. And so that that's when you get into honest self-reflection and prioritizing, right, you got to take a look at your life and you've got to honestly assess what things are deserving of your energy and what things maybe need to go on the back burner. So, you know, as I prioritize my life, there's. The marriage, the kids self care, my career, you know, any kind of hobbies or anything like that, kind of go on the back burner because I need to put my energy into us.

I need to put my energy into our children. I need to put my energy into my career. I need to put my energy into the home. You know, and then if there's time for my [00:19:00] stupid little coin collecting hobby at the end of all that, then I put a little bit of energy into that. And sometimes I get out of balance and I'm on my phone searching for.

The next coin I want to buy and all that. And Jess usually asked to point out, dude, what are you doing? We're supposed to be spending time together, or you need to go read our son a book or something like that. Oh, but I got to look on, I just got to look on the mint website. No, I need to pull off and I need to reprioritize well, and everybody's priorities are different.

So we're not saying that the way that you've prioritized things is the only way. So for me, my priority would be my marriage, my kids, and then my school. And then the podcast and everything I'm doing. So, and for other people, maybe their kids aren't home. So theirs would be their marriage and their career.

So it depends on where you need to be putting that energy. What if. You're having a difficult time at work and you feel like maybe you're on the verge of getting fired. That might need to go up higher on the priority list for a little while, until that comes back into [00:20:00] balance and then reassess. And if you and your spouse have a healthy marriage and you're doing things the way they should be doing, when one of you has to.

Put more energy into somewhere for the good of the family on the whole, your partner should be stepping in and picking up for you there as long as they're not having to do that every day. All the time. Yeah. And it's, it's starting to, you know, to have an impact and negative impact collateral damage. Just to clarify too, we don't want you to think we're terrible parents when we say the marriage and then we say the children, it's where we are of the personal belief that the marriage has to be healthy.

For the kids to be healthy too, because that's where it all starts and it all flows down from there. Right. So that's just our personal belief. We're not saying the kids go on the back burner or anything like that. It's not like, Oh, the kids need to eat, but we're going to go in the room and, and have a little fun.

No, it's not like that. We can do that though. Right? No, we cannot. Maybe once the kids are done eating and they're distracted with like a movie we can sneak away. Yeah. [00:21:00] So finding that balance in what it is you need to be putting your priorities into is, is really important. And they're not going to stay the same seasons, ebb and flow in our life, just like they do on earth.

There's sometimes that things are different and they're changing. And so you need to reassess and change where it is you're you're balancing yourself and what your first priority is in second and third. And so. We're not going to tell you where you need to be balancing because when we, you know that, right, we're just telling you that you need to be balancing and it's up to you with, like I said, it's, it's that constant and consistent and persistent.

Self-reflection practicing the self honesty. We talked about last week and finding out what priorities really truly are the priorities in your life and going from there, you don't need to be like us. And so we're going to talk about some ways to try to find out where you're out of balance in your life and then some practical.

Ways that you can get your life back into balance, but just [00:22:00] understand getting into all this and trying to understand it, achieving that true balance in your life is probably never going to happen. No, and it's not so important that you get to an end point. Like most everything in life, it's the journey and that constant striving to improve and get there.

That's, that's going to matter and is gonna make the difference. It's I like to say, and I've said it before consistent and persistent, when you can be consistent and do it every day. And when you can persist through the hard times, that's, what's going to make you a stronger person. That's what's going to give you that.

Right. And don't allow trying to find balance. Becomes something that throws you out of balance, right? As, as awkward and contradictory as that sounds, you could throw yourself off balance by trying to find balance too much. Right. The self-inventory and the self-reflection should be a constant thing, but as you practice it more and more, it becomes like a background process.

It becomes like breathing, you're doing it. And you're not even aware that you're doing it. You just, you, you, you get it and it [00:23:00] becomes habit. And then you're doing it in the back of your mind in a healthy way. So let's talk about some of those ways that we can identify we're out of balance and place in our life.

How would we know that? Well, I mean, The best, the easiest way is just to you'll you'll know if there's a problem. If your wife is constantly telling you that you don't spend enough time with her, if your kids are constantly trying to get your attention somewhere, if you're constantly having problems at work, those are some red flags and warning signs that may be you're out of balance.

And maybe you're, uh, you're needing to put a little more energy into those things. One of the ways that I know is for me, when I go to bed at night, I kind of. Naturally reflect on my day. And when I start feeling guilty, like I should have done more with my son today. I should have sat down and watched that movie with my daughter that she asked me to watch, or I probably should have gotten that Instagram post out sooner.

I, my husband's back, I should have been tired. My husband looks like he's in a lot of pain [00:24:00] and I was too tired and I should have rubbed his, when I start going back thinking about the shifts.  that day feeling guilt or sadness or disappointment that I didn't accomplish something. Right. I know that I'm not putting enough energy in that area.

That's how I know. Okay. And, uh, one of the ways that I talk about in my article this week, because I talk about all this a little more in depth, but one of the ways that I talk about it is if you're feeling anxiety, if you're feeling frustration, If you're feeling scattered or if you're feeling unhappy, it doesn't definitely mean it, but it's a good sign that maybe something is out of balance in your life.

Finding balance is how you proceed on the road to becoming a whole integrated, complete. Happy healthy person. So if you're out of balance, you're going to feel the opposite of those things, right? So if you're feeling scattered and you're feeling all over the place, like the person just described where you're standing there in the middle of times square, and everything's going at four times speed around you and you, you are just lost in it.

You know, that's when it's [00:25:00] time to step back and honestly assess what's going on in your life. Right. Well, and sometimes finding balance means maybe removing some things from your life. Oh, yeah, maybe you're doing too much and it's okay to slow it down. Okay. That's one of our favorite sayings here is DTM doing too much.

You're doing too much slow down, remove some of those, those unneeded things in your life. Again, I was listening to something the other day. And I think it was a parent. I think it's a parenting book I've been listening to that. I'm keep referring to I'm reading too much and doing too much if he can't remember the names, I know the names, but, um, I'm not, I, I'm not done with the book, so I don't want to give it too much credit yet and talk about it.

But, um, and I don't have time to read. So I listened to my books now while I'm getting ready in the mornings, because that's the only time I have to get that. That kind of a self timing, but it was talking about how, how important is it really for you to lose that [00:26:00] 10 pounds mom, when you could be using that time with your child and teaching them and guiding them and learning that losing that 10 pounds is taking so much of your mental and physical energy.

And it's really such a minute amount of weight. It's not impacting. If it's not impacting your health, if it's not something you have to do, maybe stop trying to lose that 10 pounds and just, we focus on your children. You don't have to lose any weight. You're beautiful, sexy. So that really hit me because there's all these little things that I'm constantly doing that I really could.

Removed from my life and open up so much more time and energy and give myself more balance in other areas. And I'm stressing about these other little things. I love what you just said for a lot of reasons. And so, number one, you're talking about, like we said, prioritizing, how, w how important is it really?

And so if you have an order of. How important these things are, it helps you decide how much energy they should be getting. So maybe you do want to [00:27:00] lose the 10 pounds. Is it more important than spending time with your kids? No, but you still want to do it, so you put it on the back burner. You, you do little things here and there, but you don't like.

Throw yourself all into this crash, life consuming, exercise, regimen, and diet to lose 10 pounds. You, you take the energy, you would be putting into that. You put it into your kids and if there's some energy leftover, then you try to do a little more healthy stuff. So the other reason I like it so much is because you're doing the prioritizing and you're doing the balance thing right there.

You don't have enough time to be reading. So instead of taking away from your school or your family to sit down and read to do your self care, you've, you've compromised and you've listened to the book to free up a little more time for yourself. So I liked that a lot. Well, and the other thing too, is I have to be mindful that if I'm going to take something on, there's something that I'm going to have to sacrifice instead of it.

Right. And so that's something that we need to balance. We need to measure. [00:28:00] Do I want to S what am I going to sacrifice to bring this into my life instead of thinking, Oh, I can just take this along because we all feel like we can do all of these things. And while we can, again, we go back to balance and only a finite amount of energy.

Right? Right. That energy is extremely valuable. So what you put it into needs to be valuable as well. And so things that there are some things that you're going to get more out of putting that energy in. And that's your marriage, because that's going to have a trickle down effect on your whole life.

There's your kids. That's going to have a trickle down effect for their whole life. Your hobby is going to be your hobby, no matter how much energy you put into it, but it's not going to, it might give you a little fulfillment here and there, but it's not going to alter your life and the way that having a healthy marriages.

So let's talk about how. We bring balance. And so we've done, we've talked about balance. We've talked about identifying when we need balance and we've kind of already started talking about ways to [00:29:00] balance her life and the give and the take. And what are, what are some other things that you were thinking about when we're talking about balancing her life?

Well, I think it goes without saying. One, what we said earlier, you know, try to identify first, try to identify anything that's, that's throwing your life out of balance, like addiction, any negative behaviors, stuff like that, obsessive hobbies, you know, then you've got to get well-practiced at being self honest and doing that constant self-inventory thing.

Look for those negative emotions, or like you said, those worries at the end of the day, the wish I would have wish I could have, I should have. And then, you know, start to start to see. Where you can, if you look at it like I do as a math equation, and you've got a limited amount of energy look at where that energy is going and identify where you can take away from, to put into I'm spending two hours a day.

When I get home from work, thinking about how I can do something at work better the next day. [00:30:00] Well, it's still going to be there the next day. You're still going to be able to think about it. If your marriage is suffering or your kids are lacking in getting attention from you, come home, put that away, put that away.

Spend time with your kids, romance your wife a little bit, help her, help the kids with their homework. Do whatever. When you lay down and go to bed, you can spend 15, 20 minutes thinking about how you can do a better at work. I have been guilty of this so many times I've fallen into this trap. So many times I have come home and obsessed over blueprints and plans and how I can do something different the next day.

And honey, where are you? I'm thinking about how I can build  tomorrow. You know, and, and guess what those same things were still there. When I went to work the next day, I could have taken all that time and all that energy and put it into my beautiful wife or put it into my amazing kids. And what, and well, how many times have you gone to sleep in the next morning?

Had a whole fresh. The thought process, you came up with it the next morning, but [00:31:00] you spent so much time the night before pounding your head over it. There's a reason why they say sleep on it. I know. I keep telling you that you don't like to do it. Your brain will turn over things while you're asleep and your subconscious and you won't even know it.

Okay. The other thing that we, we hear a lot, but how many of us have really done it? Turn the electronics off. Like literally, I got no problem doing that. I know you don't. I do. And I know a lot of other people do and we hear it all the time. Turn off your cell phone. Yeah. Leave it out of the bedroom. And that's w we let our phones charge in the bedroom, but w.

One of the rules that we have, and we try to keep to is no electronics in the bedroom unless, you know, it's okay with one another. We'll watch the news at the end of the night or TV or something. And I, so I put my phone completely on the other side of the room, out of reach. So I don't even have the temptation to pick it up.

And part of that goes back to the accountability thing that I try to live by. But I mean more so I I'm that way. I'm not laying [00:32:00] in bed when we're supposed to be spending time together. And I get the urge to go browse the. U S mint, cataloger look on eBay for what kind of coins are being auctioned off.

For an example, I can spend that time with my wife. Right. Well, and being intentional planning dates with your spouse. I mean, it's so hard right now with COVID because babysitters are almost off the table, right? So, what do you do? I we've gotten used to, um, making it a really busy day with the kids, tiring them out, putting them to bed a little bit early and having an extra hour to being with one another.

We have rediscovered our love for those Saturday and Sunday mornings. Just the two of us. Right. And, you know, your kids are getting something out of that too, because they're having a busy fulfilled day. They're not sitting there in the house on electronics all day. They've done something I've been a little bit physical and they're tired out from healthy for healthy reasons.

Not because they've stared at a screen and that's, you know, I'm glad that you mentioned [00:33:00] the electronics thing because that's something that you need to look at in your life too. It's something. Right along the lines of substance abuse and porn addiction and all that, that can, that can start to consume your energy.

And that's video games and social media. I mean, we know those can become addictions in and of themselves, but you know, if, if your husband or your wife or your partner, or your boyfriend, girlfriend, or your kids are saying, or saying on a regular basis, put down your phone, come spend time with me. You're on your phone again.

You know that maybe you need to assess how much time you're spending on social media. You know, what sometimes happens to me is you don't even say anything and you're zoned out on football and I'm zoned out on my phone. And then, you know, I look up and I see the clock, or I see the clock in the corner of my phone and it's been 30 minutes and we haven't said a word to one another and I'm kind of looking around and I'm like coming out of this days from being in my phone for 30 minutes.

And I'm like, we haven't [00:34:00] said. Uh, where do we have each other for the last 30 minutes we could have spent this 30 minutes just really being together in here. I was on my phone and here he was watching football and we've completely just wasted time that we needed with one another. Right. But then there's the balance of self-care because what if you and I needed that time to just kind of be and do whatever we wanted to do and just kind of, well, you know what?

I got an idea about that. Because you can take that self care that your partner may need, and you can use that as a way to even, uh, put a little energy into them and into the relationship. So, one thing I did for Jess is we have our water heater is not the best. And so she likes does. So she likes to take baths.

She likes to take really hot baths because it relaxes her and it's like her moment, her time to recharge herself care. Yeah. So, but she's always complaining. She's got to take the bath, do it quick and get out because it gets cold so fast. So what I [00:35:00] did for her is she said she wanted to take a bath. So I got two huge pots of water and I boiled the two huge pots of water.

And I lit some candles for her and I filled up the bath all the way, not the little like six inch hot water she's used to, but I filled it up all the way and I poured that boiling water in there. I made sure to test it first to make sure I didn't boil it like a lobster. I tested it first, but I got it nice and hot.

And she was able to sit there by herself and recharge and enjoy a hot bath with the candles. I had her phone in there waiting for. The towels all laid out and everything. So I, not only did she get her care, but I was able to fill up her love tank a little bit. And, and she was able to feel that I loved her.

We were able to get connection out of it. Yeah. It was amazing to be able to just sit there and enjoy the nice warm water instead of, Oh my gosh, it's cold. I got to get out. This is horrible Taurus for thinking every time she wants to do a little self care, she doesn't love me. She doesn't want to spend time with me.

So it's a good way to turn that in. You know, [00:36:00] into something special you do for your, your spouse so that you can both feel loved by one another, not rejected. Right? Well, what about intimacy now? That is a hard one to balance, especially if you have a busy life, no tired at the end of the night. And I'm not saying you are so tired.

We all like it. We get the kids into bed and we've had a busy day. And it's the last thing that we want to do is something physical. Even though we might be. Sorting or desiring or spouse, it's just like, Oh, I'm just too tired. It's like, we talk about, I, I want, I want to, I want it so bad, but I'm so broken down and tired and it's really hard to balance balance that.

So that's a case where for you, the children and the podcast and your schoolwork are taking energy and my work and driving that long drive home and the physicality of my work and the mental. Drain of my work is taking my energy and that energy that should be [00:37:00] there to put into our physical intimacy is just not there at the end of the day.

So, and it, it's hard to find even where to start. A lot of people don't even know where to start when they're talking about building up that physical intimacy and even starting a conversation about it. Right. So we are really excited. We did. Discover a new tool this week. We did. Oh my gosh. You guys are gonna love it.

Yeah, it is really cool. And it is right in line with everything we teach and everything we say, we are behind it a hundred percent. So it is a great way to start that intimacy conversation and start to get that spark back and start to try to balance that area of your life. Right. So it's called intimately us and this app is packed with information, but it's so well-organized that it's so easy to find everything.

I mean, we're talking about positions ways to be romantic, um, how to initiate intimacy, even the anatomy of the woman and the man they've got interviews [00:38:00] with sex spurts, but it's done in such a really clean yeah. It's classy and it's not vulgar. And I mean, it's, it's, it's detailed enough. So you get the idea, but it's not like, you know, Like you're looking at movie or something.

No, they did a really good job designing this. They did. Yeah. It's called intimately us. I believe it's available in the app store for Apple and for, and for Android, Google. Okay. I don't know how all that works, but, um, you know, it's going to help you do some really important things. Like feel more connection and love.

It's going to help you have better, more fulfilling sex. It's going to put you in a better mood. You might have fewer arguments. I mean, it's going to get you guys back to where you were when you're dating, holding hands in public. It's just going to increase that intimacy. It gives you that Avenue, that conversation starter, you can get your questions answered there.

It's just really cool. It's a really cool tool that I'm glad we've added to our tool bag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a lot of fun to just kind of go through [00:39:00] it and see all the different articles that they have and the interviews and yeah. I, I was so impressed by it that I reached out to the maker of it and I want to interview him.

I would love to have him on this. Right. He's like I said, so the beliefs behind this app are right in line with what we're trying to put out there. So we will definitely have him on an episode and he can talk a little bit about his product and talk about. About his journey and getting to the place where he created something like this, because it's really cool.

He has a good story. Yeah. I, it, it was some great life lessons that even you and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him, he, he was talking, I'm going to let him tell a story. But basically he found himself talking with a buddy about his buddies intimacy and he was so thrown off by it because guys don't normally talk about it.

And then he realized that him and his wife don't have enough conversation and balanced. In their sex life. And so they, they did all this [00:40:00] research and found this way to open up that conversation and find the balance for each other and their intimacy. And that's how the app was born. So I'm going to let him go into detail about it, but you guys have got to check it out.

It's intimately us. It's a beautiful, classy app. We have the link on our website under resources. Yes, go to our website, www.theconfidentmarriage.com. Go to marriage resources, click on the link. Click. Yeah, it's right there. Click on that link. And then right there, you can download it from Apple or Google.

Yeah. No, really cool. Really highly recommended. Yeah. And that, there's one way that you can bring balance into your marriage and your intimacy in your life is sometimes we just don't know where to start or what to do. And I found that this app really helped me. Really organized and figure out ways that I could do it.

And I really loved it. Right. There's a lot of apps out there that promise you all this stuff to help your marriage with, and then you get them. And you're real. I know what's happened to us and we're really disappointed this isn't one of those apps. You'll get something out of it. Something concrete, just like there are a lot of podcasts or [00:41:00] marriage resources out there that promise a lot.

Right. But all they give you is a lot of fluff and BS that doesn't really work. That was really good. And you know, it's like, Ooh, I wish my marriage could be. I I've been there. Like I remember, especially when we weren't our worst and there was all this, you know, stuff out there. And I was like, that sounds so great.

And yes, it should be like that. But then in practicality, I was like, wait, that that's not realistic. Yeah, no. We try to bring, do you do that? We try to bring the prac practical. Real-world stuff to you. And unfortunately I have bad news. Everything takes hard work. There are no quick fixes and fluffy solutions, even though they sound good and look good.

So. But that's balanced guys and don't get caught up trying to find balance that you become unbalanced. Yeah. I guess a couple takeaways balance is the natural state of the universe. And that goes for human beings and their relationships as well. So if, if you're feeling like something isn't right, you know, maybe [00:42:00] something's out of balance.

Get into that honest, self-reflection try to identify the areas that are getting too much energy or not enough and adjust your flow of energy accordingly. Absolutely. So I hope you guys have a fabulous and balanced week. Can we tell a personal story real quick? Yeah, so I worked at a grocery store many, many years ago, and this guy used to come in and he was kind of a odd guy, kind of a, you know, not, not of the norm.

And he was a former, uh, police officer and we don't know his history, although we liked to make up all these stories about them in our heads. And every time he would come through my line or anybody's line, we'd ask. How are you doing today? And he'd say balanced just in a straight voice. Right. And we thought that was so weird and we're like balanced.

And I would say, well, what's going to happen if he comes in one day and he's unbalanced, you know, but in getting into this and researching it and thinking about it now, I think I get what he, I think I get what he was trying to say. Yeah. Because he was cool. He was calm. He was [00:43:00] balanced everything in his life.

The energy was going where it was supposed to be. And maybe that's what seems so odd because I think so many of us are unbalanced. And so when we see someone who is just cool and calm and balanced out of place. Yeah. We wonder, we think that they're out of place. Right? I know what you're talking about. If you're listening to the show,

So we are very excited. As we said, we have a couple of guests, uh, that we're going to be interviewing. So over the next month, you guys are going to be getting some additional guests on the show that you get to hear. And I hope you guys really like them. We've been very picky about who we help all in. So we are very stoked about, yeah, we got some good topics coming up.

I think we're going to dive back into porn. Uh, can we say masturbation one more time? Masturbation creepy intentionality and yeah, yeah. We've got the next series of our, uh, workshop coming up or the first episode of the month. And we're going to talk [00:44:00] about intentionality, one of my favorite topics in all of marriage, because it's really, really important.

So yeah. All right. Well, I am off to my balanced week too. Cause school is also getting ready to start and we have the workshop going. So I hope you guys keep this in mind and find ways that you are able to find balance. And as always, you guys are welcome to reach out to Sean and I, Jessica, at the confident marriage.com.

Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter so you can get our articles and early access to the podcast. And you can find us on all the social media platforms, Twitter, the seamer, and show Facebook, confident marriage and Instagram conference. Have a great wonderful week. [00:45:00]