WEBVTT
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Welcome to part two of the work life balance amplified marriage podcast.
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We had a really great conversation last week, just about some struggles that we've had with work life balance over the years, and today we just want to finish this off with moving into from the imbalance that happens when you actually just choose a work over family.
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And then we want to go into some solutions and offer you up some ways that can, you can apply it to your own relationship.
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Welcome to Amplified Marriage.
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I'm Natalie.
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And I'm Brian.
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As you hear us say every podcast, grab a tea, grab a coffee and a snack.
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We're so glad you joined us for our chat today.
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Absolutely.
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Wow.
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I was having, I was thinking about the last week and just the, the ways that we've struggled over the years with work life balance.
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Like we've not done it very well.
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We've done it really poorly.
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And I know we had a conversation earlier just about.
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What does it mean when you, you come from nothing and you have something?
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Why do people struggle with work life balance and choose to have work over life?
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And the like, even in our own study, the reasons are like a myriad.
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There's so many different ways, reasons why people struggle.
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Or would choose work over family, right?
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And some of it is because like even in our own relationship, you didn't want to be around me.
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I didn't want to be around you.
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So I would rather work and then be at home.
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And then when the marriage was healthy, I felt this pressure to always provide more.
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So I would work more hours cause I'm like, we need to be able to pay rent.
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We need to be able to have food.
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You're pregnant now and now what?
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And I even thinking if, if the relation was relationship was healthy, it would, these things would be a struggle.
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They would or they wouldn't, they would be like if, if I, we had a healthy relationship, but I was choosing to work all the time and we would watch the relationship deteriorate.
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Right.
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Right.
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Like how, how can these things be good?
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Like you could be listening to this podcast from wherever you are around the world.
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And be like, man, I got a really tight relationship with my wife.
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But if you choose or your husband, but you choose to now dis to, to work more and be absent, your relationship will never be will, will you'll begin to see a deterioration over time?
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Yes.
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And for us in our own personal thing, like we came from nothing, we had like a real.
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poverty mindset and a real struggle with finances most of our married life.
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And the, the disillusion I think that we felt was coming from nothing and then all of a sudden having some, the tendency was, well, we never want to be without again.
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And so we will just work.
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And before we had kids, like I was working too.
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So, and.
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Remember, like opposite shifts to you.
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So we were already disconnected there and then, then working crazy hours to make.
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So that we would never have to be in that situation of wanting or lack again.
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And then we had kids and then I was home.
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And I think that with the added stresses of, you know, our communication issues and things, you really push the envelope of, well, now we have a child, so we're almost like the pendulum swinging the other way.
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Yeah, we're never like I have to work all of the time now because it's expensive.
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Yeah, which is fair, right?
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And that's a valid Concern and the thing with our situation was that it wasn't so obvious right the slip into the disconnect and the financial strain and the Like, yes, it was secure because you had a job and consistent wages coming in, but the security of like, you just not being there wasn't so obvious at the beginning.
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And quite frankly, like it was exciting at first with all of these extra hours and the money coming in and things like that.
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And it wasn't until, you know, there was a big issue that it kind of.
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And, and I would say that we're probably lucky that we were able to come out of that hole that we had dug ourself in not being present.
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A
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hundred percent, like I'm just contemplating and thinking back to it, even as we're talking about this.
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Like.
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At that point even we didn't realize, and, and like, this is something we still battle with today is the work life balance and, you know, is more enough or too much or are we at what sacrifice?
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I think now that we have, even if we had no kids, we're still a family, you and I.
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And so at what cost?
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To our relationship.
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Is it worth it?
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Right.
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And I think that has to be the number one question.
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Yes.
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We need money to live and you know, we live in a very expensive city, much like probably everyone else here.
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So yeah, you need finances in order to survive.
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Yeah, that's right.
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But there has to be a balance.
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I mean, I cannot work seven days a week nonstop, right?
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It's not possible.
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We all need a time of recharge.
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I've
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tried that.
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It doesn't work very well.
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It doesn't work.
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Well, and I think like even what we're saying here is that the financial stress or the security or the stability of you working and bringing in money while that's good, there's a massive trade off between you and your family.
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A hundred percent.
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And I will take it even a step further because like you're a pastor and yes, I work part time.
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There was a time though when I wasn't working, we were in ministry, but you were the sole provider.
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Yeah.
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This can still have a detrimental impact to your family of like, I need to be at every single function.
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I need to be available for everyone else 24 seven because that seems to come with a job at the expense of your children.
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Yeah, that is so wrong on so many levels and we'll, we'll get to a solution for that later on.
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Right.
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And, and I would say that that.
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At that point it wasn't about finances.
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No that's like the, the, the family security of just having mom and or dad present.
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That way he had not, that had nothing to do with the finances, everything to do with the fact that I'm a pastor and I was just learning how to, to choose my battles and choose this, which things I fight for and which things I need my time immediately and which things Hey, I can, I can actually put off till next week.
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And there's been times where.
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I was with my family and someone has said, Hey, I really want to, I need to talk to you about something, not telling me urgency, not giving me a, Hey, this is what's going on.
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And then you're getting blasted with it.
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Lee.
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Well, you, you didn't, you didn't connect with me and I've, I felt like you didn't love me or a band.
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And so they're bringing up their baggage and their issues, but you didn't, all you said was, Hey, I want to have a chat with you about this item X.
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Yeah.
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But then me saying, well.
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Well, it's Friday and I'm, I'm actually right now when you're texting me, I'm with my family.
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And so I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be available until Monday cause we have a weekend plan with my kids.
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And so my wife and I are unavailable and that's, and now that's healthy.
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I probably wouldn't have said that two, three, four years
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ago.
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Like segues into it.
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There's a possibility of neglecting.
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Yeah.
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Your, your spouse, your children, your family, the needs that they're needing emotionally of you being present and not just in the room, but your focus is elsewhere, but in the room and your focus is on your, your family.
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Right.
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And, and how, how can I provide emotional or manly behavior, modeling manly behavior to my sons and to my daughter?
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This is what a good husband looks like, or a good father looks like.
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How can I model that to my kids if I'm never present?
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Right.
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That's very
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true.
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Like,
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like even what did, what did we say in the last episode is that the, your, there's no one in your job that's going to be like, that's going to up celebrate you working longer hours.
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That's right.
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Right.
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But your kids will remember you were absent.
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Exactly.
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Oh yeah.
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You were talking about, they won't necessarily remember what you purchased for them, but they will remember
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if I was present, right.
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And, and, but all of those things are at a cost.
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It's like, how can mean you.
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Like, even on a, on the kind of marriage sexual level, even have foreplay or even want to do that with each other or have sex or be intimate with each other.
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If I'm never present to even have that, like, and there's like foreplay on text is only good at foreplay is coming because we've been at home for a while.
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Like I've been with you and I've been able to emotionally connect with you face to face, eyeball to
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eyeball.
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Exactly.
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Right.
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I'm not married to my phone.
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Right.
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Right.
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You shouldn't be married to your phone.
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You should be married to, you know, your partner.
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Right.
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It makes it very challenging because there's a disconnect.
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Yeah.
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And yeah.
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And you end up there, can you, you get to the place where you neglect or sorry, where you resent.
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Like 100 percent because you're like, well, you're never here.
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So I'm just, might as well be single mom, which you've said numerous times.
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Yes.
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And
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you know, when one is filled with resentment, one resorts to childish antics and you know, it was like, well, you withheld, you withheld your presence of even wanting to be home.
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Then I'm withholding intimacy from you.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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That's unfair.
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But it's also on both on both counts.
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Yeah, I was gonna say it's unfair that I'm, I'm not home to provide for my wife, but I'm also, it's also unfair that she would do that.
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And then
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what happens when we're dissatisfied?
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Yeah.
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Right.
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That just opens the door for emotional affairs.
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It opens the door for physical affairs.
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Right.
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We've actually, we've met with some couples, some older couples that actually had earlier in their marriage had struggled with similar things that we had, and they've been married for 10, 10 or 14 years longer than we have.
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Something like that.
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But they said, and we asked, well, how they had, she had had an emotional affair.
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And I asked her, I said, how did you get to that place?
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And so how did you go there?
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Because the person that it was with was unlikely shouldn't have happened.
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And she's like, it just was one of those things is that they were present and the husband wasn't.
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The husband was not, it wasn't even working out of town and that's a whole different conversation.
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I've seen way too many marriages fail.
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Way too many because I'm going to be a mill right up.
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In the boonies and gone for three months out of the earth, nine, 10 months out of the year and never home.
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Yeah.
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And God knows what happens when you're gone and then those two anyway, that's a whole different thing.
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But this person wasn't even away, was just gone 10 or 12 hours a day, six, seven days a week and wasn't providing an emotional, a physical, a mental, a spiritual connection to her at all.
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And she's like, it just
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happened.
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That's right.
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And so if you think that you're exempt, no one is right.
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Like this is something that we ourselves need to be so aware of and, and fight against, you know, idle thoughts and your mind wanders and whatever else happens there.
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You need, you need to be super focused.
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You need to be aware of hate.
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You know, when, when we talk about like scripture saying, capture your thoughts, this is exactly what it's referring to, well, not probably the entirety of it, but that's a portion of what it's referring to of be careful that you are not.
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Get disengaged and, and then run with that, right?
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If you feel a disengagement, then you need to communicate, Hey, this isn't working.
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This is how I'm feeling.
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We need to come up with a solution so that we guard our marriage.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And like.
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I think the understanding very clearly that no one is exempt from this is the moment that you get comfortable to go.
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That'll never happen to me is when the enemy will come in and swoop in with something where a man or a woman will be present that just provides you something a little bit different than the other.
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Right.
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Then so you just have to be really care.
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That's a whole different.
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Podcast to talk about that kind of stuff.
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And this one, this one's interesting.
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There's actually health impacts.
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You can have your health impacted because of overworking.
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Now I want to say this, it's one thing to.
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Develop a chronic issue because maybe there's a genetic thing or something happened to you got a bad batch of blood or when you did the transfer.
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It's one thing to end up with a chronic problem just based on like bad diet or or genetic or something like that.
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It's another thing to actually.
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End up with chronic problems in your body because you chose to work so much that your body was stressed out and you developed problems.
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That is all that is, that is to me is one of those crazy things that we've actually heard of happening that developed back problems, neck problems, stomach problems, stomach problems is common because remember the stress episodes we did, this is what happens.
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Pick your poison.
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This is what happens when you allow stress.
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To live in your body because your choose, you choose this.
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And I actually think now that I look back to this, I actually think there's a I wouldn't have said this before, but there's a greater stress in you or a greater responsibility when you choose the work over the family.
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That means there's an extra layer that you have that you've added, that you've added to yourself and you know it.
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You know it there's no way that you're like one day.
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Oh, I didn't know this was happening They didn't know you chose this you knew what might happen.
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It's not only do you have a physical issue There was a mental strain on there that you chose.
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I
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don't know that But you would necessarily know that this would happen.
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And I don't know that you would even recognize it was caused or potentially cause some of your issues.
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I think it, I think everyone thinks they're, that's a, that person,
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that I definitely get.
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But do you think, and this is just the question, do you think that in the modern time, if you have access to the internet.
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Instagram, Facebook, any kind of social media where influencers all over the place are talking about a work life balance and this, that, and the other thing.
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Do you think that anytime that someone's like, Oh, I didn't know that this would happen if I worked 90 to a hundred hours a week?
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So
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I propose the same thing back to you.
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If they're working so much, do they even have time to be?
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And I propose back to you.
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No, I get it.
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I understand it, but there's, there's no way that in modern, modern time with HR departments in these big corporations and like my boss pays attention to my time, just like I pay attention to his boss.
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You got to take time off.
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Pastor Brody, you got to go take time off.
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Like he's talking about it and then because he's such a responsible guy, he's like, I don't want to do it.
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I said, you need to go.
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It's just like he says to me, Brian, I will collude with your wife and I will make you go on holidays.
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Wrong word.
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Collude.
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Collude.
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Collude.
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Bye.
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It's a right word.
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It means when two people work together, what
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did you think?
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You are right.
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It is the right word.
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I'm thinking the other word you have an inappropriate, no, no, no, it wasn't inappropriate.
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It was just like, that is probably not the right word.
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Yeah.
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When two people are working together to get someone else to do something.