Season 1 Ep.19 // 5 ways to work through stress together

Bryan: 0:03

Welcome to, to episode 19 of amplified marriage. Today, we are talking about hashtag instastress

Natalie: 0:28

Welcome to another episode of amplified marriage. I'm not only grab a coffee, grab a snack, sit down. We're excited. I did have a chat with you today. Hey, if you miss last week, we talked about how to survive Jekyll and Hyde, where Bryan and I kind of. Sort of humorously go into a little bit of our history in the earlier years of our marriage. So if you missed it, be sure to check that out today, we are talking about COVID instastress that's right. What exactly does that mean?

Bryan: 0:56

And are we coping right? You know what it really means a lot to us that you guys have been listening from all over the world, that we've had a tremendous amount of support. If this is something that you value, we need you to do something for us, share it with your friends and your family. Let people know what amplified marriage we'd love for people just to get involved and hear what we're talking about. We want to make sure that people's marriages thrive in relationships, thrive and move forward

Natalie: 1:20

that's right. And they know that they're not doing this alone. There are other people around the world. Who struggled in the same ways. And if not, then at least there's some tools to help prepare you. Should you ever struggle that way.

Bryan: 1:32

Absolutely. And so today's topic COVID insstastress. What does that mean?

Natalie: 1:37

Right. Well, I feel like it's sort of been the topic at the never ending topic right of life where we all thought, or at least we did. That this wasn't going to be as drawn out or as, as it's been. Right. So when we were really talking about what sort of stressors this has produced, right, we came up with a fairly substantial list and I'm pretty sure we're missing some too. So fill in the blanks. If what we say, isn't something that you've thought about or is something that you've thought about.

Bryan: 2:12

Yeah. Or maybe you haven't experienced and now are experiencing for the very first time. And so we're talking about things like job loss, budget cuts at your job, a church in a box, instead of, instead of going to church, you have to watch it online. Yeah. Gloves face masks, face shields, universal precautions for absolutely everything that's going on. Pressures at home. Maybe there's extra drinking or someone's started drinking, maybe there's drugs or addictions pornography.

Natalie: 2:43

Your kids are home.

Bryan: 2:44

All these types of pressure and things are happening. Maybe there's financial strain.

Natalie: 2:48

A spiritual and emotional, physical, mental, all the strains.

Bryan: 2:54

There's no connection you are missing out on your family and your friends. There's a lack of community, a lack of being able to connect one-on-one with people. And the thing about that, the lack of community, it's funny because my wife is an introvert. I am very much an extrovert. And at the beginning of this, she's like, this is fantastic. I just get to be at home all day and not have to converse with people about three or four months in. We both really realized, and especially my wife, how much that connection means and how much community is important. And for us, a big part of our community has been church. and we built, like friends out of that, like long lifelong friends, support systems and prayer. And if someone's struggling, there's food and there's things that all happened because of that. And Natalie was realizing that she missed it. I was immediately squirrly within two weeks of being at home. I was like, this is dumbest thing ever.

Natalie: 3:51

I think for me, I like to set the boundary. So when everything's available, You know, shopping or, or just going out in general is available. I want to be the one to determine when that's not working for me. Right. I don't like. To be told I can't do something. I want the choice to be able to say, actually, I'm going to, I'm going to opt out of this. Yes, I can totally do it, but I'm going to just choose not to.

Bryan: 4:19

And this was decided for you.

Natalie: 4:20

This was decided for me, which really like the rebellious side of me was like, right. It's

Bryan: 4:24

much like me and my beard that I can't grow. I want to be able to grow a beard and shave it off to say that I don't want one. Right,

Natalie: 4:31

right,

Bryan: 4:32

exactly. There has been this really

Natalie: 4:34

there's been a real void,

Bryan: 4:35

a real void in community. And, and even those that are introverts are starting to feel that.

Natalie: 4:40

Can we just say, like we did a lot of zoom things

Bryan: 4:43

and that's not the same.

Natalie: 4:45

It's not the same at all. It's great. It serves a purpose, but that I think was a real short lived, actually seeing people

Bryan: 4:54

physically and being in the same place on

Natalie: 4:56

a more serious note. all of the people that have passed away either from COVID or. Health related issues. There was a definite stress on people not being able to be with her.

Bryan: 5:10

Me and my pastor just had to do a funeral with a small team of someone that was important in our church and had been with us for a long time. And instead of being able to have a funeral of. 200 or 300 of people that would have come from all over Canada to see this man's funeral. We ended up having to do like 45. She had to send out invitations for those family members to be the ones that came to the service. We live streamed it, but it just wasn't the same. We can't have that. So that's, that's a real thing that's going on, where people just can't meet to, to grieve and to mourn and to celebrate the stories, the things that you do at a bigger funeral. And a big Memorial,

Natalie: 5:52

or even if the people in your life are ill. Right. And there's just, there's so many stresses that come with. Just not all, all of these people that are suffering that are. Practically alone. Right. which is so difficult,

Bryan: 6:09

you're struggling, because you're our frontline support staff. We appreciate all that you've done for the last six, seven months, but maybe you're one of those support stuff that we've heard stories and read articles and seen videos of families that haven't seen their husband or their kids or their, their wife or their children for the last six months, or even, maybe even half that time, because they had to. Constantly be in quarantine because everything they're doing and they couldn't be around different people. And maybe that's where you are, or maybe you're you're in Canada or United States or wherever you're listening from. And there's huge political strain in our world right now that the sides are divided on almost every issue. No one can agree on anything. Maybe you have someone in your family that's super political and it's just, it's a real tough time to be in that family. The world right now just seems like there's no order. Everything is just in a, in a state of disarray.

Natalie: 7:01

Right. We understand too, that some have felt this pressure and all of the things that have gone on there has, I'm sure there's so many more

Bryan: 7:13

things that stresses that, that we

Natalie: 7:14

haven't thought of, that you can fill the blanks in for. Right. And it's not, we didn't list all of these things off to overwhelm you, but these are real valid stresses. That are happening that are happening right now. And then how can you be in that situation or be around that environment and still have a healthy relationship with those that are closest to

Bryan: 7:42

now? One thing we do want to say is that in some of these issues you may have been facing before COVID. Yeah. Maybe, maybe some of these things you just were like, man, that was the thing that we struggled with even before all of this, having to stay at home. And my kids are at home with me now, and I didn't struggle with drinking before I had a drinking problem 15 years ago. And this just brought up some old feelings or I didn't struggle with pornography. And now it's just like, I can't seem to get away from it, whatever your struggle is. Right now, we just want to say encourage you, man. There's a way out. There's people that love you. There's victory. There's going to be success. Relationships can be mended and taken care of and rebuilt know that there's people out there that supports, you know, that we are out there. And if you ever want prayer or anything, please just let us know. But just there's people out there in your community. That would love to have the opportunity to pray for you and just even see you over zoom.

Natalie: 8:36

That's right. And I know that, you know, I mean the whole list of, of stresses, some of those aren't fixed in a moment. Right. Right. And being able to be present in the moment and we've, we've had our fair share of stresses financially and, I mean, we haven't experienced some of these and we've experienced it. Yeah. And they're not fixed in a moment. Right. Right. Relationships, aren't fixed in a moment. Right. Healthy ways and developing healthy patterns. Aren't done overnight either.

Bryan: 9:15

and the thing is, is that what we we've realized too, when you're faced with a major thing, like a pandemic that the world hasn't really experienced, we're on what I'm hoping is a tail end, but we're at a different stage. We're in phase three or phase two, depending on what part of the country you're in. We, it forces you to kind of take a look at an, a stock of the things that happened in your life. The things that are valuable to you, the things that are, are not valuable to you, the time that you have the time that may you haven't had the things that you, you have felt. The thing that we're realizing in all of this is that. sometimes you're looking back and you see some decisions that you made that were just poor and you wish you would've made different ones. This is an opportunity. I think that we can change our perspective and look at this this time as a time to reset our relationship. And, we've heard in some of these things, we know couples, Natalie and I are actually one of the couples, but for some marriages, the pandemic has created a closeness and a bond like, people haven't experienced in their relationship before. But on the flip side of that, There's it's, it's also pushed people and exasperated some relationships to a point of breaking apart, and pushing them to the limit and pushing people to, to where they may not be able to, they feel like they can't recover.

Natalie: 10:30

Exactly. And I, for myself in dealing with stress, I feel as though if I'm in a place where I'm at a healthy place, it doesn't matter. The circumstance, that can happen. I mean, that's out of my control more often than not a circumstance or situation that happens. Right. But I can be responsible and in control of how I choose to react or how I choose to respond. Yeah. I was just thinking about, to like our minivan. We don't have a minivan now, but we did. And when we lived up North. where it was very cold. Our head gasket had gone in the van

Bryan: 11:13

and like, minus I think it was minus 25 or 30

Natalie: 11:16

with a windshield or something. It was brutal. Ridiculous. And we had one vehicle. and so the vehicle would only act up. When I was driving, it was, for anyone who has not experienced this kind of a situation, the thermostat reading goes all over the place. And so you tend to overheat your motor and you don't know, like that was a telltale sign. That that was imminent. So in that particular situation, I lost my. I was so angry and so frustrated because we didn't have the money. And I knew because in our other car, the head gaskets went, it was several thousand dollars to fix. Right. We certainly didn't have several thousand dollars. We had little, we had three kids. Our daughter was a baby at that time. And our son was in kindergarten, who was waiting for me to pick him up from school when this all happened. So I was already stressed out about being late yeah. And stressed out. Cause we didn't have any money and, and the list it went on and on and on and on. And I just lost my mind. I was freaking out and panic and fear set in and took hold. Attempted to take while it did take hold.

Bryan: 12:24

Okay. Yeah. I would quite agree with you that you're inconsolable. Like I had to bring a friend of mine and in that time we also, weren't doing very well as a married couple, but I had to bring a friend of ours in to help just kind of reason with like, this is not the end of the world. We can fix this

Natalie: 12:41

and, and, and it did get fixed

Bryan: 12:44

quickly too. Like it

Natalie: 12:45

wasn't, it wasn't, but the. The response that I chose moment, I think, well, one, I know it was a very, it was not healthy, right? It didn't. Help, the atmosphere in the home, it didn't help sort of how I was communicating with you. Like it was your fault. Do you know what I mean? Like

Bryan: 13:05

I was nowhere near it. We didn't know it was going to happen. It was super cold. The car would, the van was at that time was actually running really good too. Like we had met. Yes.

Natalie: 13:14

But you were the enemy because that was the only thing that I could project my feelings on.

Bryan: 13:20

Absolutely. And you may want to look at them like the enemy, but they are not.

Natalie: 13:24

And so. Those of you who know us might go, well, why didn't you pray? Or did you pray? No,

Bryan: 13:33

not at all.

Natalie: 13:33

We did. I did not. I went to God only after the fact when I'm like, why aren't you fixing this? So it wasn't like, Hey Lord, I need help. I need wisdom. You need to, to bring us the right people to help us in this situation. It was just, what can I do? In my own strength in the physical to fix my own situation. God was an afterthought in that moment, right? Fast forward, several years, the same minivan, different circumstance. So it wasn't the head gaskets this time. It was the

Bryan: 14:04

fuel pump,

Natalie: 14:06

right in the middle of a super busy intersection in the highway. The fuel pump decides it's going to go guess who's driving me.

Bryan: 14:13

Definitely wasn't

Natalie: 14:14

me. It wasn't never Brian, which is so irritating. I'm driving. I'm like, please don't stall in the middle of this busy intersection when I've got all my children with me. So I managed to make it to a parking lot. The fuel pump on that bad boy was $900. Now we have adjustment. Yeah. Yeah. Started Bryan started a new job. So we didn't have

Bryan: 14:40

sort of used, we used all of our money moving from North to South,

Natalie: 14:44

so our savings was gone and then we had to, you know, we were renting. So you had to pay a damage deposit and it was thousands of dollars later that this happened. Right. And so similar circumstance, as far as it being a van issue, but a different response for me this time, this time I just threw my hands in the air. It was like, I don't even have the energy. My dad had just. Recent like several or a few months before that passed away. So I was grieving. Yeah. I didn't have the emotional, physical, mental ability to lose my mind over this. Then I'm like, I am worn out from all the fields of just that situation that I took the hands of my kids. And I went to God first and I just said, this is our horrible situation. And I laid out all the woes that I had in regards to, we don't have the money in that. And the very next day, the prayer was answered. The previous non prayer yell match that I had with God was not as quick a response. And I don't know if it was just because of the timing of it all, or it was my own attitude or however that I don't know what the difference was, but I felt. Like I was in a different place emotionally. I felt like I was in different places spiritually and physically. Yeah. I just handled the situation. Yeah. So similar circumstance, different approach, very different attitude and peace. In the situation, it was like, I'm not even gonna stress about this because I don't have the energy to stress about this.

Bryan: 16:20

It is a very interesting conversation that we had and we were, there's a difference between stress and pressure. There's a big difference between stress and pressure. I think, how did I put this? This is stress, isn't it? An internal pressure that comes from the inability to deal with the external pressures of life.

Natalie: 16:40

That's right. And it's that out of control.

Bryan: 16:42

So the end, the thing about pressure and stress being so different is that stress is because the pressures in life. Can be good. They can be healthy. There's there's healthy conflict. There's healthy stress at work or healthy pressure at work because you're growing and your capacity is shifting. You've got

Natalie: 16:58

deadlines. Like let's

Bryan: 16:59

be realistic then in your marriage, things are an oppression in a good way. Cause you're becoming a better husband or you're being a better dad and things are changing at church and it's a pressure can be. Yes, but

Natalie: 17:10

I mean, diamonds are built.

Bryan: 17:12

Under pressure. Right. And so what happens when it turns from pressure to stress is because you're not dealing with the pressure. Well, and a lot of times that has to do with the internal part of us that just. Is not coping, not handling the things, right. Not dealing with the conflict, not and, or pushing it aside. And it internalizes and compounds on top of each other and gets bigger and bigger. You're an internal processor. I am a very much external. I'm not external as in my, brother-in-law always jokes around that. I have no feelings. I have a couple, they're not,

Natalie: 17:48

you have some feelings about some things, but, but I think you're. More directional with your feelings.

Bryan: 17:55

I don't

Natalie: 17:56

have feelings about everything, big feelings about everything.

Bryan: 17:58

Well, and the reason that is, is because when I was growing up, I was modeled what big feelings or having strong opinions about everything brought and oftentimes it was destruction. And so what I've learned over the years is that I'm not in control of every situation. I don't need to be in control of every situation. I don't even need to have an opinion on every single thing. And so now, my energy, my anger, or my happiness, or my frustration is reserved for the things that are the clothes. Right. Right. And so my family gets it. My extended family gets it, my really close friends. my, my team that I worked with, they get those good parts, not the angry, frustrated part,

Natalie: 18:39

but I think too, in your younger years, that side of you, the more angrier side showed its ugly face

Bryan: 18:46

because I didn't handle with any pressure.

Natalie: 18:49

I couldn't. With pressure. Like if it's pressure in your, in your job where you're on a deadline or whatever, you're in control of your task list or you're in control of, you know, organizing your schedule and things like that, where you, the sense of calmness. Yeah, yeah. Right. That comes with pressure. You might be sort of like under the time gun where, you know, stuff's got to get done and you have a schedule, but there's a calmness that comes because you've set that all up. We're stress. Tends to like, because you

Bryan: 19:19

procrastinated

Natalie: 19:20

or right. I mean, if you procrastinate then yeah. It's going to turn from pressure to stress right quick, but it's just not being able to, you're not calm. Yeah. I think of all the times that I'm stressed out and I am not calm at all. I'm not common. My words. I'm not common. My actions, I'm not common. My, in the atmosphere of the home, I'm, I'm just like a whirlwind. Yeah.

Bryan: 19:44

And so even as we were talking about these things, it's really interesting. We were like, how can we practically drop some stuff that we've learned in the last five years? And so here's just a few or less five years last, almost 20 years here is this is

Natalie: 19:58

what we've done,

Bryan: 19:59

what we've done. Yeah. And five different things that we found are super helpful. And something I want to start with this is that fear will cripple you into not taking any action. Yes,

Natalie: 20:10

I am living proof of that.

Bryan: 20:11

Absolutely like

Natalie: 20:13

you too, because for a long time you had a fear of failure

Bryan: 20:18

and here's the difference now is I still, fear failure, but it no longer controls me.

Natalie: 20:24

There you go.

Bryan: 20:25

My fear controlled. So many of our are my decisions when we were young, I didn't want to try for new job. I didn't want to try for corrections. I tried over, I was going to try for the RCMP and all these things I did. And I don't know. and I didn't want to do things. I was going to look at being a helicopter pilot, but that was just too much news to secure. I didn't want to do like all these different things I had. Career or aspirations for, I didn't do or even try for, because I was afraid of it. And eventually I just turned and said, no, I'm just going to face my fear with your help. Like that. Wasn't just a one day. I'm like I decided, but you supported the croquet. Let's do this together. Yeah.

Natalie: 20:59

And I think too, like, I can encourage you, like, you can encourage your spouse and I can encourage you to. Mo or to feel confident in taking that step. It's like that saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right. I could encourage you all of the best ways that I could, but I still couldn't make you

Bryan: 21:20

take this sale, the right things. But I'm the one that has to make the decision. And so the very first thing is

Natalie: 21:27

take a deep breath I have with my children when they were younger and they were like, the anxiety would rise. I would tell them. Stop take a deep breath. And there's a reason for that when we breathe deeply, it triggers the body's response to stop releasing stress hormones. So there's a physiological response when we're, when we're anxious, we have rapid breathing, which it can lead to like hyperventilation. And I, you know, as I was thinking about myself in anger, Anxiety ridden situations where you feel your chest tight, like you can't catch a breath. I've had to slow myself down and just take a few deep, slow breaths just to calm me.

Bryan: 22:13

Right. Number two, you've heard us talk about it already is pray and pray together.

Natalie: 22:19

We have tried so many times to fix things in our own strength. And it's just, what was that? The phrase that you did when we were talking about like our finances and, you tried to like juggle them, but you had just had a different,

Bryan: 22:33

I Rob Peter to pay Paul.

Natalie: 22:35

Well, I guess that is one, but that's not the one that I would say I was thinking of like, yeah, that'll work.

Bryan: 22:39

Yeah.

Natalie: 22:40

we just tried to like move.

Bryan: 22:42

Money around money around and sell. We sold things to try and pay for bills because of our own poor decision.

Natalie: 22:47

Oh man. In those years it was, that was stressful,

Bryan: 22:52

very stressful.

Natalie: 22:53

And did we come together and pray? No, that wasn't our default setting. Not at all at all. We tried everything else. And then

Bryan: 23:02

we were Christians and we grew up learning. That's what you're supposed to do and being in church. And this is what we put on the face that we were, this is what we were doing. That was not a thing you

Natalie: 23:11

said, like it's easy to. To come to and be stress-free. I would say when your bank accounts full of the fridges full the gas tank's full, your bills are paid, the credit cards paid. It's easy to be stress-free in. And then what happens when that's not the thing you panic? And then when you panic, then you're afraid, you know, like I was like, Oh, we're going to get kicked out of our house if we default on our payments and things like that. And so then you don't make really great decisions. Right in the midst of stress

Bryan: 23:43

because you're stressed and it's getting to you since you're not thinking clearly seeing clearly moving clearly. Right.

Natalie: 23:48

The last thing that we wanted to do was pray. Right. But it's absolutely the most necessary first thing to do.

Bryan: 23:56

Yeah. And the next one is practice thankfulness, being grateful and practicing, being thankful. it's right. It's not the easiest of things to do. And again, it comes down to, it's really easy to be thankful when your bank is full, you have a full pantry, full of food. The kids have clothes and shoes and all the things that you need super easy to be there thankful. But are you thankful when you have none of them, those things and you're struggling and your marriage is struggling and you've just, maybe you're suffering going through a divorce or maybe your had to have an abortion, or maybe, yeah. Maybe all of these things that are going on feeling that stress. And you're like, how can I possibly be thankful?

Natalie: 24:33

That's right. And to just bring it into a perspective, being thankful doesn't mean that we'll use my van again, as this, as the, you know, the header. When all of that was happening, there was no way that I was thankful we were going through to that situation. A

Bryan: 24:50

hundred percent not

Natalie: 24:50

thankfulness doesn't mean that I am just like, thank you, Jesus. My van has died and we have no money. That's not at all. What being thankful in the situation was, but so you're not thankful for the situation, but there's always something to be thankful in the situation. Yeah. Again with me, I had all my children with me. So thank you, God, that I did not stall in the middle of the intersection. Thank God that I was able to make it to a parking lot. That was safe. Thank God that I was able to call you because I had a cell phone. Thank God that you're able to leave work and to come be with me. Cause I was free, you know, thank God. Right? Like in that. Awful situation. There was how many things did I list four things in just that one moment that I was thankful for. and then thankful that the situation remedied itself. Right? Right. So I wasn't thankful for that happening, but in it, there was still something to be thankful for. We didn't cause an accident.

Bryan: 25:51

Yeah. They're

Natalie: 25:51

like, hallelujah, praise the Lord.

Bryan: 25:55

And number four is

Natalie: 25:56

surround yourself with encouraging people that is so important.

Bryan: 26:00

Yeah. And I can, I can almost hear what some of you are thinking or census of what you're thinking, Brian, we're in the middle of COVID. How can I reach out to people if I'm supposed to stay at home and be locked down or quarantine, I'm not allowed to be around those people. I'm going to tell you a story. Recently about a week ago, someone connected with, with us, actually, this has happened multiple times over the last six months with our church, through our Instagram and through our Facebook or over the chat during the service, we've prayed with people. But in this particular case, a man, I'm not going to tell you his name, but he's an awesome young guy, but he is recently last year in October, he was diagnosed with a brain cancer and he beat it. He went through chemo, did all that stuff. January hits, the threats of COVID are happening. and he had had an experience with God. He said, and he's like, I just want to go to church. I want to be around people. So he was in March. He was like, I'm going to go to church and then COVID hit and we all got shut down. So in March, from March to April and may he realized he got tested again, brain cancer has come back. It's traveled to his lungs. They're not sure if it's moved anywhere else into his body's his lost his girlfriend. He has two kids. He lost his job. He has nowhere to go. And what does this young man dues? He reaches out over Facebook and says, Hey, I am near my end. I don't know what to do. I need a community. Can I meet? And so, I met with him at six feet, both wearing masks, sitting in my office, and I had a chance to sit with him. pray with him, gave him a Bible, but what it was all he knew I needed with someone to hear him and encourage him. And so there is churches out there. There is groups. It's not even just churches. There's like groups, the Legion, the salvation army, all kinds of different groups out there that would love to hear from you and have a community. Even if you're connecting with them over Instagram or Facebook or a phone call, it's better than doing.

Natalie: 27:54

And even if like in this man's situation, there's nothing that you could physically do to fix his ailments, but an encouraging word and just listen.

Bryan: 28:05

Absolutely

Natalie: 28:07

where he felt validated and he felt heard and he felt.

Bryan: 28:12

And someone's there, someone's out there. That cares about me enough to just way further. Right. And so you can find a circle and maybe challenging. again, we're going to say this. If you are in this situation and you are struggling, reach out to us, reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook or through the amplified marriage Gmail account. We'd love to hear from you, but if this is you. We want to be part of that community. We want to be part of your tribe. That's gonna raise you up and pray for you and supports you and do how we can.

Natalie: 28:43

And also like if you're living in places where there's help available, like government aid or, or whatever within, Take that if you're

Bryan: 28:55

and what's the next one?

Natalie: 28:57

Exercise. Oh boy, I know exercise releases, endorphins. I hate exercising, like making the decision to exercise and then the exercising itself, but I sure am thankful. After it's done.

Bryan: 29:12

Yeah. Not during. And then you get to the place where eventually you feel like, Oh, I liked, I liked doing this.

Natalie: 29:17

I don't know that I ever do, but

Bryan: 29:19

maybe it's just me. I love going to the gym. I haven't been in a while, but I love going to the gym,

Natalie: 29:24

but exercise really does help to clear your mind when I'm stressed out. I run. Yeah. I'm okay.

Bryan: 29:31

I've tried running with her. It's been very unsuccessful. I'm a short distance.

Natalie: 29:34

Yeah. And I'm not a, I'm not a group sport. A participant

Bryan: 29:41

in it knows tasks. For sure.

Natalie: 29:42

I don't like it. One of the gym with other people because I'm there to exercise and it's my time to focus on myself. And so to sit and talk while that's happening, just seems counterproductive to me if that works for you. Great. But exercise in general does re release endorphins. and we've in situations I've, this is an in, anything we talked about, but we have found the humor. In our life over the last 19 years of being married, where, when a situation has a raw, like Rose up where it was so ridiculously out of our control, the only thing that we could do was laugh about it. Right. And I mean, laughing in itself has health benefits. So, if the stress is too much, Find some humor be comical, be silly.

Bryan: 30:38

Absolutely.

Natalie: 30:39

It really does go a long way. Yeah.

Bryan: 30:42

And so just, we really appreciate you listening. And so there's these five things. Well, six now, because we added another one, but take a breath, take a breath, and just think about your situations. Pray together, practice thankfulness, be grateful. Surround yourself by encouraging people, exercise as much as you can, as much as you're able, it gets easier. And laugh as much as you can. And if you love our podcast and you've been enjoying it, it means it does mean a lot to us when you share it. So just let people know about it. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. If there is a topic or question or anything that you would like us to discuss, or even pray for you for, or even have a zoom chat with you, we'd love the opportunity. You can reach out to us@amplifiedmarriageatgmail.com. And as you hear us say, at the end of every episode, we believe that marriage can be reset, refresh the charge. Thank you so much for this day.

Natalie: 31:31

Talk to you soon.