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Healing Relationships with Soul Connection

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Blake and I are hosting an intimate couples retreat in Oakbrook, Illinois (July 25–27, 2025), where we’ll share the exact tools that saved our marriage! Nestled at a serene golf resort, this weekend includes:

Practical Workshops: Master the FANO Method, Gottman’s anti-criticism tools, and ADHD-friendly communication.
Soulful Exercises: Guided meditations to deepen your emotional and spiritual connection.
Personal Coaching: Direct support from us to address your unique struggles.

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Contact Julie: Text “RETREAT” to 630-336-9515 or email julie@theangelmedium.com.

Retreat Details & Pricing: theangelmedium.com/couples-retreat (Use code ANGEL722 for $200 off!).

Investment includes lodging, meals, and a personalized toolbox workbook. Let’s turn your partnership into a sacred journey!

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Join me and my husband Blake for an intimate conversation about our 17-year journey from near-divorce to divine partnership! In this raw episode, we reveal how spiritual tools, counseling breakthroughs (like the FANO Method), and angelic guidance saved our marriage. Blake shares his transformation from skepticism to soulful partnership, and we unpack Gottman’s relationship principles, ADHD dynamics, and why criticism kills connection. Plus, learn about our exclusive Couples Retreat in Oakbrook, IL (July 2025)—where we’ll teach you the exact toolbox that healed us. If you crave a love that’s spiritually aligned yet authentically human, this episode is your roadmap. Text me at 630-336-9515 to join the retreat!

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

00:00 Introduction to Julie and Blake’s Couples Journey
00:06 Julie’s Vision for the Couples Podcast
02:03 Blake’s Humor and Personal Growth Philosophy
04:48 Their Meeting Story and Shared Values
07:17 Financial Independence Lessons from Divorce
09:55 Blake on Men’s Common Relationship Hesitations
14:12 Julie’s Spiritual Perspective on Growth
17:23 ADHD, Neurodiversity, and Relationship Dynamics
20:42 Criticism vs. Contempt: Gottman Principles
25:25 FANO Method (Feelings, Affirmations, Needs, Ownership)
28:30 Stonewalling and Emotional Connection Tools
32:18 Couples Retreat Announcement & Logistics
36:50 Blake’s Personal Breakthrough with Counseling
41:10 Closing: Progress, Gratitude, and Invitation

TRANSCRIPT:

Angels and Awakening – EP 722

[00:00:00] Julie: Hello, beautiful souls. I’m your host and author, Julie Janis, and you’re listening to the Angels and Awakening podcast. Today [00:00:09] I’m interviewing my husband, Blake Janis. Blake and I have really felt this calling within our heart. To [00:00:18] start a couple’s podcast. Friends, I always believe that when you are going through life, God, universe, source always puts you through [00:00:27] things in order for you to not suffer from them your entire life.

[00:00:31] But to learn how to heal. Because when you learn how to [00:00:36] heal an aspect of your life, you’re able to turn back and help. Pull other people forward. And Blake and I have done [00:00:45] so much work on ourselves. We’re just the type of people who believe in constantly growing and learning and becoming better people ourselves.

[00:00:53] And [00:00:54] we just always have felt that individually and on a level as a couple, we’ve done a ton of work on it. The other thing is, [00:01:03] in running this podcast, the Angels and Awakening Podcast, I constantly get this question from the audience of what does Blake [00:01:12] think about what you do and how you work with clients and the podcast.

[00:01:17] And so we’ll get to that in a second, but, one of the [00:01:21] things in running this podcast and interviewing other people. That really irked me was there’s a person that [00:01:30] I had on the podcast who’s very big in the spiritual teaching world, has been on Oprah, is just really big audience.

[00:01:38] [00:01:39] And when this person came on the podcast, they did a lot of research into the books that they have out there, the information that they have out there. And [00:01:48] basically, this person was beginning to tell people that if they’re not in a relationship with a person who is [00:01:57] spiritually on the same wavelength that they are, that the relationship was bad or doomed or wrong.

[00:02:03] And you’ve probably heard me say this on the [00:02:06] podcast before, but I don’t believe that at. All you are on your soul’s path, which means that all the time, your angels, [00:02:15] your guides, your loved ones on the other side are working with you on your soul’s journey. But that does not always look like what your [00:02:24] partner’s spiritual journey is gonna look like or what their soul’s path is like.

[00:02:29] And just because you’re two different individuals on two [00:02:33] different journeys. Is not bad, it’s the way it’s supposed to be and that you love coming together and getting to [00:02:42] enjoy one another. So I really wanted to also create this space in a couple’s I. Working with couples, [00:02:51] we are going to, at the end of the summer of 2025, launch a couples podcast.

[00:02:56] We’ve also got a couples retreat that’s coming up the [00:03:00] last weekend in July, 2025, here in Oakbrook, Illinois. But Blake, why, like, [00:03:09] why do you, are you excited to start like this couple’s piece and.

[00:03:16] Blake: See, you can tell I’m smirking right now. [00:03:18] Yeah I’ve been thinking about this for over two minutes.

[00:03:20] Did you notice what I just did there, gentlemen or ladies? I’m looking at the timer and it’s three minutes and [00:03:27] 47 seconds and I haven’t said a word. Yeah, he’s gotta listen sometimes. A lot of times that’s the key is listening. [00:03:36] But no it, I’m just trying, obviously I use a lot of humor. I want to be funny.

[00:03:39] I like being funny. I want to make her laugh. I like cracking myself up too.

[00:03:44] Julie: All day [00:03:45] long. I’m

[00:03:45] Blake: always thinking, my mind’s always going. So I was just trying to start off with something funny. But, I love trying to make myself better. I’ve always been that [00:03:54] way. Probably even as a kid.

[00:03:56] And I’ve always tried to, I got my notes here, but one of the things I was thinking about when I was student teaching [00:04:03] over 25 years ago I remember at the end of taking over this long term sub, I went up to the principal and I said, what is a 4 0 3 B? [00:04:12] What are these things mean? What should I be looking for as I start my career?

[00:04:15] And one of my student teacher or my cooperating teacher, I was a student teacher. He’d say, [00:04:21] gotta get your master’s, do this, do that, and do that. And before

[00:04:24] Julie: you have a family, before

[00:04:24] Blake: you have a family and all that stuff. And I remember again, long story short we would take grad [00:04:30] courses together and we got to Master’s plus 45 at the same time, yet he’s 20.

[00:04:36] Two years older than I am. So I [00:04:39] was always, how do I make something better for my long-term future? Whether it’s, a lot of times it’s financial, especially it’s early on in your career and you don’t have [00:04:48] somebody in your life ’cause you are focused on your career. I, and I’m, right now, I’m even hearing my little sister in my head saying, you can’t make somebody love you or [00:04:57] whatever, until you make yourself, until you love yourself.

[00:04:59] So I hear all these little voices and all these different things. ’cause how can you make somebody care about you if you’re not [00:05:06] in a good, healthy position? Yeah, and we’ve all had our ups and downs in our lives. You find somebody, you think it’s the one, and then it doesn’t work out. Then you think, [00:05:15] oh my gosh, it’s never gonna work out.

[00:05:17] And I just know that in 2007, but it’s, it, yeah, it was 2007. [00:05:24] One week before I turned 30. I know I was in a really good place. And that’s why I walked into this room and that’s where I met this beautiful woman that you’ve been [00:05:33] listening to for maybe months or weeks or maybe for somebody for years and stuff.

[00:05:36] And like I said, my goal is always to try to make myself better.

[00:05:40] And we’ve had struggles in [00:05:42] our relationship.

[00:05:44] Julie: Nobody’s perfect.

[00:05:45] Blake: I’m gonna still make mistakes, but I have a toolbox now. You’re gonna hear me refer to that a lot [00:05:51] through counseling through laughter, through tears to just make myself better, to make ourselves better.

[00:05:57] And again, through counseling, I know I’m a [00:06:00] better. Person. I’m a better husband. I’m a better father. I’m a better teacher. I’m a better a better everything.

[00:06:07] Julie: Both of us [00:06:09] went through divorces at similar times in our lives, our eighth grade year, even though Blake’s four and a half years older than I am.

[00:06:17] And [00:06:18] I watched my mom my entire life. Move around the country for my dad and really [00:06:27] take a back seat with her career because she was trying to help my father with his and when they got [00:06:36] divorced just I saw how much. That one choice really impacted her entire [00:06:45] future because there was this one day in their court case where I.

[00:06:50] They were deciding on my dad’s [00:06:54] retirement, his pension, and even though they had been together for about 20 years, my mom didn’t get a single dime of [00:07:03] that retirement fund that they had really, truly both saved together. And you with your mom too, you saw the same thing too [00:07:12] about just how divorce financially can just wreak havoc.

[00:07:17] On couples. And one of the things that we’ve both wanted [00:07:21] for our daughter, Al, is to see us strong is to see what a healthy relationship looks like. We didn’t grow up with a [00:07:30] healthy relationship, so we had to figure out how to create that ourselves, but we wanted her to see certain things like how to be [00:07:39] financially independent herself.

[00:07:41] You can speak more to that. I’m gonna turn on the fan ’cause it is, yeah, it is hot.

[00:07:45] Blake: All right, as she’s doing that oh, I just already [00:07:48] lost my train of thought.

[00:07:48] Julie: It’s not easy, is it?

[00:07:49] Blake: Oh, this is tricky because

[00:07:52] Julie: It’s just like you want, you were saying earlier as we preparing, [00:07:57] I don’t think that I came into our relationship taking a backseat. In fact, I don’t think that this is something that I’ve ever told you, but I really [00:08:06] came into our relationship. I. And I think it was the first true relationship that I came in not wanting to appease you [00:08:15] or make you happy, but I just really was tired of the whole dating game and I just wanted somebody that I could be myself with.

[00:08:23] And so [00:08:24] for the very first time with you, I wasn’t gonna let you. Slide on anything. I was gonna call you on what I needed to call you on and I was gonna [00:08:33] create a real true partnership between us because come hell or high water, I was determined that I wasn’t gonna go [00:08:42] through what my mom went through.

[00:08:43] Blake: Absolutely. And that’s fair. And just to kinda keep this in mind and I don’t know what our age demographics is. We met and I was one week before I [00:08:51] turned 30, and so I wasn’t this kid. I already, had a career had a townhouse, had a lot of things going for me, [00:09:00] and as Julie was saying, like with our daughter, we want her not to rely on a man.

[00:09:06] I have three sisters. I have a mother. I look at Julie’s [00:09:09] mother and all these things that, just kinda got stuck. I absolutely, I wanna support that and I’m glad that she did that. And you’re gonna hear later on in this interview I’ll say I’m glad [00:09:18] that she did those things.

[00:09:19] ’cause really, even though she’s fighting for her, she’s really fighting for us. And two people, especially when you’re raising a [00:09:27] child is always gonna be better than than a split. Family if it can be your un healthy. Circumstances or terms. Obviously, if there’s a lot of [00:09:36] dysfunction in a family, then maybe a divorce is needed or abuse.

[00:09:38] Yeah. But our goal we didn’t do anything dumb when we went through our marital things. We just lost connection. We’ll get into that [00:09:45] in a little bit, but I know, Julius, we need to do this podcast and I really want you to appeal to the men. What would a man want to hear as we’re doing this type [00:09:54] of stuff.

[00:09:54] And so I, my first thing was. What do you think the typical man will say to his wife right now? And I think the normal guy if [00:10:03] that’s a thing, would say, fine, I’ll listen to this guy. I’ll give you, I’ll make you happy. You’re wearing me down. He won’t say that part, you’re wearing me down.

[00:10:11] I’ll [00:10:12] listen to this guy, but I want you to know I’m not, I’m a good guy. And we’re good, or and I’m a good provider, [00:10:21] I’m a great provider. Financially we’re fine. I think a lot of men will have to say we don’t have problems like our friends or our [00:10:30] neighbors. We are not our parents.

[00:10:31] I think a lot of parent people say that we’re not our parents. We’re not gonna go through those problems. But for those younger prop people that are [00:10:39] getting together younger in their marriage, hey, it’s not when you’re gonna have problems. It’s Juan, did I say that right?

[00:10:44] Julie: It’s not when you’re gonna have problems is if or it’s not.

[00:10:46] If it’s when,

[00:10:47] Blake: it’s [00:10:48] not. If it’s when you are gonna have problems, but how? But if you could do it together and have that toolbox to say it in a healthy way to avoid [00:10:57] fights and friction and resentment and. Making somebody feel less than is so helpful. And then, or the, and the last thing I wrote down, [00:11:06] what I think maybe the typical man might say is it’s tough right now, work’s tough and my bosses on my case, or I’m the boss, my employees are [00:11:15] dumb people and or we have kids.

[00:11:17] And it’s all this difference of life’s overwhelming. It will get better later. It gets better if you want to do the work. And we’re gonna get [00:11:24] into getting, doing the work but on, on some level. All this stuff that I think this might hit home is she [00:11:33] doesn’t feel connected and because she doesn’t feel valued, and whether it’s your wife, a girlfriend, a [00:11:42] partner, that’s really what it comes down to.

[00:11:43] It’s all about connection and it’s all about relationship, and you chose this person to be with. You’re listening to this. You with [00:11:51] this person right now, you chose that person for a reason. You connected, you had great times. Just life wears you down at times and life throws things at [00:12:00] you. And it’s sad at times.

[00:12:02] And life’s gonna give you problems. And for the longest time I would be in [00:12:09] this kind of sad, depressed state. I’m trying not to use that word. But I know I, I suffered from depression. But looking back, and [00:12:18] I’ve done a lot of stuff on myself through counseling and it’s not depression, even though I took medication for it and they say, yeah, you’re [00:12:27] depressed.

[00:12:27] It was more just a sadness and, again, there’s all these things in the past, but. I did this Tony Robbins seminar and it [00:12:36] really clicked home on a couple things. That sadness. I saw this great episode, this great clip on YouTube about this Indian man just crying and he’s got all [00:12:45] this money.

[00:12:45] He’s I just feel sad, and I love that Tony Robbins said, what if that’s just overwhelming grace and not, I’m not this religious person, but somehow that [00:12:54] really connected with me that. There’s this grace that you’re here, there’s this grace. You went through these problems, but you’re still here.

[00:13:02] There’s this [00:13:03] grace that you came out stronger and it just was really touching and really moving and I said, instead of, it’s not depression, it’s [00:13:12] just I care so much about things. I want to make myself better. I want Julie to be happy. I want our daughter to be happy. I want to do a good job at work.

[00:13:20] But it all starts [00:13:21] with me first. I can’t make Julie happy if I’m not happy, if I’m slouching around and moping. First I, do I ever slouch [00:13:30] around and mope around the house?

[00:13:33] Julie: Not really. Not really anymore.

[00:13:34] Blake: Yeah. Okay. All right. And yeah, but I’m always, I guess I’m always doing work. Oh, [00:13:39]

[00:13:39] Julie: always doing work.

[00:13:40] I’m a

[00:13:40] Blake: busy body. I can’t, I just, I’m always cleaning, I’m always doing something. I always have to make myself preoccupied. [00:13:48] Anyways, we’ll get onto that. Again, what is the typical guy thinking, oh, I don’t need this and stuff, but why not invest a little bit of time right now with your partner?[00:13:57]

[00:13:57] And if you can have a conversation that goes to the next level and every day you’re gonna hear me say this again over and over again. [00:14:06] Progress equals happiness. Even the smallest little thing when you make that little bit of progress. You’re just gonna feel better and it gets easier [00:14:15] as you keep on going.

[00:14:16] I’m, I’ll let you kinda jump in here with your notes. I have more stuff, but I’ll let you kinda jump in and run the show, Julie.

[00:14:22] Julie: I think that what you’re talking about a couple [00:14:24] different things. I just wanna say for my spiritual folks here who are listening, I used to pray when I was a younger girl and we lived with my grandparents, [00:14:33] God please.

[00:14:34] Send me a man just like my grandfather. And I know that might be a weird thing to hear, but my [00:14:42] grandfather loved my grandmother so much. The way that he looked at her, I feel like the way that he put her on a pedestal. And he was [00:14:51] always doing something like with his energy. He was just really fun.

[00:14:55] And I really do feel like my God sent me, and I

[00:14:59] Blake: met him. [00:15:00] At least twice, maybe three times before he passed. And, he was really sick, especially that last time. He was sick the first time I met him. And I only got to know him for [00:15:09] over what, a two year period. Yeah. He I could cry thinking about this ’cause he wasn’t at our wedding.

[00:15:14] And I just know how close he were with him. But he [00:15:18] was always had something, I would look in his garage and he’s cleaning up. I, let me help you. I gotta do something, and I would I would trim a palm tree for him. So that’s one of my [00:15:27] goals. Oh, he, our goals is I want to be able to trim palm trees one day in my house.

[00:15:31] I know he, maybe it’s Florida. Hopefully it’s not underwater. I [00:15:36] would love to be California and San Diego ’cause that sounds awesome, but that’s pretty pricey. But. We’ll see. We’ll just, we’ll go from there. Yes. You gotta have aspirations. You gotta have some dreams. [00:15:45]

[00:15:45] Julie: Have I taught you how to dream?

[00:15:47] Blake: Absolutely. My dad would say, Julie, are you’re you talk to Julie and [00:15:54] say, oh, my son says he’s never had this much fun. I, yeah. I had to bring in my dad one day to talk. I don’t, he wouldn’t even quite get this type of concept. He could tell [00:16:03] stories though. But just Julie. There’s so many things, but I think the.

[00:16:09] Best gift that Julie besides our [00:16:12] daughter and besides our relationship that gave me is the, I’m here to live for the now. I’m so focused on the future and I [00:16:21] kind of joke, I was designed to live during the depressions ’cause.

[00:16:25] Julie: Man saves everything. I save a lot

[00:16:28] Blake: of stuff. I [00:16:30] don’t piss away a lot of money and now, I want, this is nice when we go on these trips.

[00:16:35] This is nice having that, and I always had nice things, but [00:16:39] Julie gave me. That lit freedom in myself to say, you deserve to buy something for yourself.

[00:16:46] Julie: Aw. Yay. And going back [00:16:48] to what you were saying kind about like why, what would men, what would you say to men who are listening who are skeptical about listening to something like [00:16:57] this?

[00:16:57] I think that I think you said to me the other day. I don’t know if all people realize that they’re here to [00:17:06] grow, but from a spiritual perspective, I believe that the soul is just consciousness expanding [00:17:15] into more love. And the only way that you can do that is to grow here. So I loved what you had to say about men.

[00:17:23] Are you looking up [00:17:24] something that wanna say, I’m looking up

[00:17:24] Blake: something You keep on talking. Yeah.

[00:17:27] Julie: But. Really what I was saying before is so true. There’s wisdom with [00:17:33] everything that you go through, and I think so many of us, like I’ve been talking about on the podcast, be like who am I to help other people forward in this?

[00:17:41] And what the [00:17:42] angels say all the time is, who are you not to? Because other people need that help and that wisdom. We’ve been together for [00:17:51] 17.

[00:17:52] Blake: 17 years. Yeah.

[00:17:53] Julie: Yeah. Now, and we’ve just learned all the tools that really work and it’s not easy. A lot of times we would go [00:18:00] to the counselor at the beginning, I’m A DHD, and the counselor would look at me and be like, Julie, if you weren’t a DHD and if you could just keep a [00:18:09] calendar and if you were just organized, you wouldn’t have any of these problems.

[00:18:13] Blake: You mean our current counselor? Or no old counselor? Yeah. Yeah. Again we’ve gone to multiple [00:18:18] counselors.

[00:18:19] Julie: To find the right one.

[00:18:20] Blake: Yeah, and I’m looking at all these things and part of the reason why I’m looking at these things and again I, by Tony Robbins book I’ve always been the [00:18:27] type of person where I cite my sources.

[00:18:28] That’s important to me. I just came from teachers that would talk about these other. Band directors and all this stuff and giving [00:18:36] credit to the past and who they were inspired by. But when she talks about the spiritual thing, Tony Robbins, and this isn’t his thing, but it’s one of his things that he [00:18:45] talks about there’s six human needs and the final two is that growth and contribution and that’s that spiritual element of things [00:18:54] for the things that influence you, our creativity.

[00:18:57] Yeah. Certain, or I’m sorry. Certainty. I’m not doing this right. I’m sorry. I’m

[00:19:02] Julie: you’re bringing in [00:19:03] other parts that we wanna teach. Yeah.

[00:19:04] Blake: So my point is she started going into a spiritual thing and that’s that, that next evolution of how can you make yourself better? Is that [00:19:12] growing and giving and that spiritual aspect.

[00:19:14] Yeah I’m, I apologize for messing up for those

[00:19:16] Julie: of the audience who are like, what does your husband think about what you do? [00:19:21] What do you think about it? Because there’s other people listening who wanna do what? I do wanna go through the Angel Reiki school. You’re not

[00:19:27] Blake: gonna hit me, are you?

[00:19:28] No, I’m just joking. I, [00:19:30] how often do I hit you?

[00:19:31] Julie: Never. I just

[00:19:32] Blake: I crack jokes and I and now you can’t see this if you’re not watching us, but I kind of duck and I pretend like I don’t want to get hit and stuff, but

[00:19:38] Julie: [00:19:39] never hit him in his life.

[00:19:40] Blake: No. I just, it’s just me trying to be funny.

[00:19:43] I don’t quite get it all. I think when I think of religion and I [00:19:48] think of all the abuse and sexual abuse out there, and I, and then the concept of God as a man, ’cause you always hear, he they [00:19:57] give, that was at the pronoun. He,

[00:19:58] Julie: yeah.

[00:19:59] Blake: And that always rubbed me the wrong way. And

[00:20:02] Julie: because you don’t see God as a man.

[00:20:04] Blake: I don’t. Why would they be a man? And

[00:20:05] Julie: [00:20:06] I don’t either.

[00:20:06] Blake: Why? So I don’t mean to get into this and to turn people off, but I always, I kinda look at it as she’s here providing [00:20:15] comfort for people, a service for people. And people don’t have to listen to her if they don’t agree they’re not gonna listen to her.

[00:20:21] But she is helping a lot [00:20:24] of people. And so I think that’s truly wonderful. So some people call it God. Some people call it grace, some people call it [00:20:33] Yeah. I don’t, yeah. A divine something. I, again, I don’t quite have that vocabulary to explain the [00:20:42] how I, the, I don’t know. I don’t have that vamp.

[00:20:45] It’s so funny because,

[00:20:45] Julie: I think that some people are just naturally spiritual people. Like I don’t think that you [00:20:51] would define yourself as a spiritual person, but you’re the most, like the man that I’ve met in this life that is the most deeply connected to [00:21:00] your soul that I’ve ever met.

[00:21:01] You can’t. Hurt another person. You can’t even hurt another spider. It was like last week that you found one and you scooped it up and you’re like headed out [00:21:09] back to find a home for this guy, out in the backyard. And oh, spider’s

[00:21:12] Blake: a i’ll crush, but if there’s something,

[00:21:15] Julie: oh yeah, it was a mouse.

[00:21:16] Blake: It was a mouse. And I felt really [00:21:18] sad and, I’m like, I’m sorry buddy. I always apologize, but I do apologize when I kill a spider. I’m sorry, I don’t wanna do this. This is your fault that you’re here.

[00:21:25] Julie: But he’s [00:21:27] just like the most in touch with himself and you wanting to find a way to make us work [00:21:36] really is.

[00:21:37] The reason that we did, because there was a time when you brought this up earlier. I didn’t remember this until you said it, [00:21:45] but I told you, I can’t have you at the house. Like you gotta go spend some nights over at your dad’s. ’cause I just need some space. And I think that really scared you.

[00:21:53] Blake: Absolutely. [00:21:54] You don’t change until there’s pain. And I, I didn’t really understand that. And oh, you’ll know it when the pain’s real you’ll know when that is and so that, that [00:22:03] hits you. Like that hits you hard if you’re just doing good. There’s not that, and I’m not trying to say there’s competition like in the dating world, [00:22:12] but I’m, and I’m glad about this if you’re just a good provider, a good husband, and you’re [00:22:21] just good.

[00:22:22] And you care about your kids. I don’t want to paint pictures and put people off. But if you’re not growing that relationship, you’re [00:22:30] missing something and your partner’s not gonna feel good about it. And that partner may want to choose to be fulfilled in different ways. And it may leave ’cause you [00:22:39] don’t want to grow.

[00:22:39] And that’s not, and really, that’s not fair to your partner if you don’t want to grow and they want to grow. Boy that’s a recipe for a disaster. That, that’s the way, one of [00:22:48] the things that I was writing my little notes down.

[00:22:50] Julie: Yeah.

[00:22:50] Blake: And all this kind of comes down to is I want our daughter to understand what a healthy relationship looks [00:22:57] like.

[00:22:57] Is me demonstrating that and modeling that for her, how I treat her mother. ’cause I don’t want some guy, it scares me. It, it’s just [00:23:06] sad. And it’s sad that women go through this. Typically it’s women go through this, just a man is so much stronger. I could just, I know I’m jumping all over the place.

[00:23:14] My daughter [00:23:15] would be I’ll just, if they ever, somebody ever tried to hurt me, I just punch them and hit me there. And she says

[00:23:19] Julie: that all the time, especially

[00:23:20] Blake: When she was really little. And now that she’s older, and and I know I said [00:23:24] this during her eighth grade year, I go, you don’t understand how I’m just maybe two inches taller than you.

[00:23:30] But I,

[00:23:32] Julie: let’s [00:23:33] take, we’re digressing in a different direction. I’m sorry. I really wanna go into criticisms. Oh yeah. Because criticisms were one of the hardest parts. And I think that there’s a [00:23:42] lot of subtle, quiet, invisible things that can really kill a marriage, especially when you don’t understand like what [00:23:51] they are.

[00:23:51] And my mom will always say. I married directors, people who go in and they direct the show within their [00:24:00] work. And when you’re directing the show, they’re always calling the shots. They’re telling people exactly what to do. And so they’d come back to the [00:24:09] house and they’d be very critical.

[00:24:10] Like they’re trying to direct the shots and, when. You were talking about criticisms kill a marriage. [00:24:18] Criticism is really contempt and cynicism. Explain that to people. Because when we went through marriage counseling, the counselor was like, [00:24:27] Julie you’re not really calling him on it in the moment.

[00:24:30] You’re like letting it fester and you have to call him on it, even if it’s [00:24:36] three times a day, or like one time I counted it, it was a weekend and it was like 30 times in one day. It was like criticism after criticism and I had [00:24:45] to keep calling him on it. It was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do.

[00:24:49] But it made you see just how much you were [00:24:54] verbalizing your

[00:24:55] Blake: opinions. Yeah. Okay. And that’s fair. And I’m glad that she did. ’cause again, I’m a better person ’cause of it. Because,

[00:25:02] Julie: but what are [00:25:03] criticisms like, explain it in contempt. And so

[00:25:05] Blake: my, there’s four major issues. Probably one of my biggest issues was I was too critical.

[00:25:10] Or that criticism. [00:25:12] Again, there’s a difference between a complaint and being critical or having that criticism. A complaint would be and again I got this from the [00:25:21] John Gottman book, the Seven Principles of Making a Marriage Work. This example of. You’re, let’s just say Julie takes the car and she drives it [00:25:30] and it’s outta gas or just about outta gas.

[00:25:32] And she said I know it’s running low. I’m gonna go get it. And then the next day I get in the car and, Hey, you said you’re gonna get [00:25:39] gas. I’m outta gas. I’m on I don’t have time for this. And that’s not fair to me, that’s a complaint. And that’s actually justifiable to say it now when you’re being.[00:25:48]

[00:25:48] Critic, cynical or being overly critical is saying you never felt the car. What is wrong with you? [00:25:57] And that gets into the shame tank and I. Again we watch TV shows, we watch all these movies, all this dysfunction. It’s [00:26:06] never corrected. And I hate it when we watch a show and they, it’s, oh, it’s okay. And it goes back to the how it resolved, and I just, I wish they would point that out [00:26:15] that it wasn’t healthy behavior. That it wasn’t healthy behavior.

[00:26:17] So that’s the critical part. Yeah. Of, of things. And

[00:26:22] Julie: what’s the antidote?

[00:26:22] Blake: Let me go through the [00:26:24] other one that’s, that really destroys marriages is being contempt and that’s using sarcasm and cynicism.

[00:26:30] So that’s where the eye rolling or the [00:26:33] mockery or being hostile or having hostile humor. And it’s just so that, what is the antidote for that is to, talk to your partner and [00:26:42] find that fondness and admiration towards them, giving them affirmations. ’cause when they hear Hey, thanks for putting the dishes away, even though I tend to [00:26:51] do the dishes, that made it really nice that I don’t have to worry about that.

[00:26:54] Thank you. What did that? That took seven seconds [00:27:00] and it didn’t cost you any money. And it makes the other person feel a little bit valued and odds are they might do it again. [00:27:09] And then you could spend more time with your partner. And I used to say, I need the kitchen, clean this and that, this and that.

[00:27:15] And now I remember [00:27:18] saying, I wanna start the best part of my day, ladies, to my girls. My girls I always say my girls I wanna watch a show with my girls, but I just, can they help me in the [00:27:27] kitchen if we all just spend 12 minutes, we can start the best part of my day and we’ll watch a family show.

[00:27:32] Yeah. And that feels a lot better than. Child [00:27:36] do this, Julie wife do that, and you’re barked at it. And boy, that just doesn’t feel good. And. It’s a lose loose for [00:27:45] everybody.

[00:27:45] Julie: One of the things that we’ll explain too, like when we dive into the podcast is that our counselor says that most [00:27:54] people marry their brains opposite.

[00:27:56] So your brains are actually one person is. Normally neurotypical in the [00:28:03] relationship and one person is normally neurodivergent and actually together, what he’ll he’d say is you have a whole brain you [00:28:12] function well together because of that, but it’s also where the frustrations come from because, I would say that when I have my piles put [00:28:21] away, which is not often, everything in the house has a home that I am thinking of. If I put something away, it knows where it’s supposed to go, but I do [00:28:30] have piles all over and he is very clean. Where unless like the floor doesn’t have any crumbs. And is really [00:28:39] clean and the island in the kitchen is completely clean.

[00:28:43] The way that the counselor described it to me is that Blake’s brain is [00:28:48] messy and he doesn’t feel ease. He doesn’t feel relaxed until everything is cleaned up in the kitchen. The dishes are out of the sink and they’re in the [00:28:57] dishwasher. The dishwasher is even unloaded. And then he can sit down.

[00:29:01] ’cause I remember at the beginning of our relationship, like I would [00:29:06] sit down to watch a show and I’d be so frustrated, like I’ve been sitting on the couch for 30 minutes. 45 minutes waiting for you to [00:29:15] come over when you really just needed me to get up and help you with what you needed help with. We probably could have knocked that out in 15 minutes and then [00:29:24] you can sit down and feel peace.

[00:29:26] I’m exhausted from using my brain all day with my A DHD. Most A DHD people are just [00:29:33] totally, completely depleted at the end of the day and we can sit down and watch a show together.

[00:29:39] Blake: And I may not even known like she was [00:29:42] sitting and waiting for me. It just, that’s my go-to is just to clean. And so it’s, you’re gonna hear me say this, man, dumb.

[00:29:49] Be direct. You gotta tell me what you [00:29:51] need. Yeah. And it goes both ways. But going back to our counselor again, this is probably our fourth counselor. We didn’t do anything dumb where we had an affair. [00:30:00] It just we lost that connection. And there’s a different podcast you could probably catch where we talk about things and I don’t wanna go into it too much, but our [00:30:09] child had a lot of medical issues and it was really scary.

[00:30:12] I could cry right now just thinking about it. But long story short, she didn’t eat by mouth [00:30:18] until she was H three and lots of operations, lots of being in the hospital. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. I had a job where my [00:30:27] principal said you be with your family. That’s why you have sick days.

[00:30:30] And I had great colleagues that did the best they could to keep my program going for those, for that [00:30:36] last quarter of the school year at that time. But I kinda lost my train of thought there, but. Oh [00:30:45] so we didn’t do anything dumb. We just lost connection and what happens is.

[00:30:51] I, I know that it was me that I felt [00:30:54] resentment and then she had, Julie had to feel resentment too, and we just weren’t turning towards each other. And I remember sitting down, with our, the current counts that we have, [00:31:03] and I think we focus on the good counselors instead of the counselors that said, just make it a laundry list.

[00:31:07] And you guys just create a list of when you’re gonna do chores? No. And our [00:31:12] counselor, mark. It just, what a blessing to have. Yeah. And Julie’s gonna like this. She’s gonna love this. I wanted to make our marriage [00:31:21] better. ’cause I didn’t want to go through what my parents went through.

[00:31:23] I never envisioned that I. And I really thought I was right.

[00:31:28] Julie: Oh yeah. What he’s talking about [00:31:30] is, I’ll ask the question, why did you agree to go to another counselor when I asked you the last time when we found work?

[00:31:37] Blake: I just, ’cause every time all these other [00:31:39] counselors, it was like, just make a list.

[00:31:40] And I’m like, that sounds awesome, but. It wasn’t the right person. And when we worked with Mark, I really [00:31:48] thought, this stuff seems logical to me.

[00:31:50] Julie: You said you thought we were gonna go to Mark and he was gonna say like the other counselors, Blake, you’re the right.

[00:31:55] Yeah, you’re wrong.

[00:31:56] Blake: [00:31:57] Absolutely. I really thought that, because I don’t, but I don’t think I would have.

[00:32:00] Julie: Yeah.

[00:32:01] But that’s the reason that we got better Yeah. Is because we ended up finding Mark and we both worked [00:32:06] on our pieces.

[00:32:07] Blake: Yeah. And. What I love doing, why I’m doing this and taking on this concept of helping others and couples is ’cause I love [00:32:15] helping people that want to get help.

[00:32:16] I love teaching the students that want to be better each and every day. Even the second to last day of school I’m focused and I’m driven. [00:32:24] Even though, oh, other teachers, they’re doing whatever, that’s not me or I am, and I can’t stand the students that are just [00:32:33] rude and they aren’t trying to make.

[00:32:35] Make themselves better but worse. They’re bringing other people down and I love that. And what, you know in [00:32:42] this position, you’re coming to us for help. That means you want the help. You’re looking for help. You’re looking for a tool to make yourself better If [00:32:51] you want to call help. Great. If you want to call it some sort of assistance, great.

[00:32:54] Whatever that stigma is, sometimes there’s a stigma. Help is weakness, and that kind of comes from that [00:33:00] 19, what I would call the 1950s mentality of, my father, he was born in 44, but that fifties mentality of, men don’t show their emotions. And man, when my parents are going [00:33:09] through a divorce and I’m a kid and I’m crying and I felt s I don’t want to use the word, I felt like a wuss and you could figure out the other one, the word that I was [00:33:18] thinking about, but to, but Mark was all about, you gotta talk about your feelings and what did that really mean? But I remember [00:33:27] the first thing we’re talking and he’s just listening to us and he said, I got it.

[00:33:31] You guys just aren’t connecting. And I was always like, alright, you just told us what it [00:33:36] is. We, let’s check the box. I’m gonna connect and we’re done. And I don’t need this. We’re talking, it took me years to understand this and it’s [00:33:45] constant work. And some of these exercises we’re gonna do at this retreat through the courses that we’re gonna develop that we’re gonna talk about is just doing these exercises.

[00:33:53] [00:33:54] The first one was fano talk first, just talk about feelings. What are your feelings? How are you feeling right now?

[00:34:02] Julie: And I gotta [00:34:03] talk about this because I think that this is such a hard part for women who are deeply empathic because women who are deeply [00:34:12] empathic, you’re feeling everybody else.

[00:34:14] Feelings all the time. You’re feeling your partner’s feelings, you’re feeling your child’s feelings. [00:34:21] And a lot of us, men can be very highly empathic too. So a lot of us grew up in households in the sixties, seventies, [00:34:30] eighties, nineties, where there was a lot of chaos. There was a lot happening.

[00:34:34] You could see that your parents. Didn’t need one more problem [00:34:39] in you. So what did you do? You learned how to shut your feelings off and not feel your feelings so that you didn’t add to your parents’ [00:34:48] problems, and we stuffed it down. So I find that with a lot of empathic women, one of the very first.

[00:34:55] Things that we have to do [00:34:57] is actually look at a very basic sheet of what are core feelings? What could you be feeling so that you look at the list each time [00:35:06] and you go, you know what, I’m really feeling sad, or, you know what I’m really feeling? What are other core feelings?

[00:35:13] Blake: You feel hurt?

[00:35:14] Julie: [00:35:15] Yeah.

[00:35:15] Blake: On the ne negative, but on the maybe not so positive side.

[00:35:18] I feel hurt, I feel lonely, I feel inadequate, I feel anxious. Those are the [00:35:24] negative if you wanna say negative ones. And the more the positive ones are, I feel happy, I feel glad I feel content. And just break it down. ’cause you could say [00:35:33] you’re angry, but. It’s really, you’re mad and mad anger comes from mad.

[00:35:37] Julie: Yeah. We’ll go into that deeper anyways. When it comes to people who are very highly [00:35:42] empathic, you have to understand what you’re feeling. And there’s a way to get to that. And then once you understand what you’re feeling, you can vocalize [00:35:51] that to your partner. And what I realized in myself and why you’ll hear Blake say, over and over again.

[00:35:57] The new podcast that we start for [00:36:00] couples is like, man, dumb, be direct. He says that to me. When he knows that I’m in my head. He knows that I’m thinking something, but I’m not saying [00:36:09] it out loud. And so I need to realize that he can’t read my mind and I have to verbalize things to him in [00:36:18] order to get my needs met.

[00:36:19] And that’s okay.

[00:36:21] Blake: Absolutely. It’s okay. Yeah. So it’s not the Mel Gibson movie, what Women Want.

[00:36:25] Julie: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:26] Blake: I was gonna [00:36:27] jump in here with something

[00:36:28] Julie: you wanted to talk about. Defensiveness, stonewalling, validating your partner.

[00:36:34] Blake: Okay. So a couple other things [00:36:36] that are huge in what causes dysfunction in a marriage, and again, getting this from the Gottman book.

[00:36:41] And again, I’m holding this up for those that will watch this. You see all these sticky [00:36:45] notes and all these things and you’re

[00:36:46] Julie: very proud of those. I love that.

[00:36:47] Blake: Absolutely. We both bought our own book when we started working with Mark. And again, so one of the first things he said, you’re not connected.

[00:36:53] [00:36:54] And then well, alright, that, that’s easy and stuff. And. But it took a long time and it was practice. And he said, with Fano, going back to the feelings, [00:37:03] you just gotta do a little bit every day. You just gotta, FANO stands for feelings, affirmations, needs and ownership.

[00:37:10] Julie: And you say those to each other [00:37:12] every day.

[00:37:12] It’s the third episode that we’re gonna do on the couple’s podcast. We’re gonna talk all about it.

[00:37:16] Blake: And he talked about it. It might be. I feel a little forced [00:37:21] at first, but little by little it’ll just start to happen and then you start picking up when, mark would say, oh, that’s, you have a really nice smile.

[00:37:28] And those are those little [00:37:30] things that it wasn’t hard for him to say that. And

[00:37:33] Julie: Oh, you were saying that I could say

[00:37:34] Blake: those things too.

[00:37:35] Julie: Yeah. It just that when I would go, we would go in for counseling and Mark, what you’re talking [00:37:39] about is Mark would always say, Julie, you’ve got a really nice smile.

[00:37:42] And it dawned in your head, oh, I could be telling her those things too.

[00:37:46] Blake: Yeah. And just [00:37:48] affirmations are just those little things that, that just build your partner up and when you hear it builds you up. And that’s what it’s all about. ’cause you’re there for each [00:37:57] other. So again, going to the Gottman book and just even now after probably this is, I probably started looking at this 11 years ago, whenever it was, I’m revisiting [00:38:06] some things that are so important and it’s just, it’s a good refresher, not just for the moment when you’re going through a crisis and in your relationship, whether it’s marriage or your [00:38:15] partnership.

[00:38:16] But the last one talked about is stonewalling. And I think a lot of men do this is we just avoid I could tell she’s in a [00:38:24] mood, she’s just not gonna be happy. I’ll just sit there and I’ll just listen and just get, whether it’s being yelled at or talk too strongly [00:38:33] and I’m just gonna avoid it.

[00:38:35] And I might do it still, but I’m avoiding it. But what it really comes down to in the Gottman book, they said, you’re avoiding your marriage. [00:38:42] And why would you wanna live like that when marriage is supposed to be uplifting and to be stronger together? So again we [00:38:51] have a little thing where we laugh at each other, where we turn towards each other and

[00:38:55] Julie: lean in.

[00:38:55] Blake: Yeah. And we’ll do this where we’re leaning in. When we have our counselor, we usually sit in a [00:39:00] triangle. I don’t usually like to sit on the couch where I’m turning my neck like this, ’cause that doesn’t feel good to me. But there are moments when I see she’s tearing up and I look at Mark and he is yeah, you [00:39:09] dummy.

[00:39:09] Go over there and sit next to her. And of course, it’s, again, those are the little things that, that you learn. Yeah. So turning towards each other is [00:39:18] just so emotional, it’s just saying you’re there for your partner. Yeah. Let’s see. Stuff that I struggled with. Again, maybe that typical man, why am I listening to this right now?

[00:39:26] All right, you rambled on, [00:39:27] or come on, gimme some more good stuff. Okay. The stuff that I know that I struggled with and again, this is everybody’s boundaries and I didn’t understand that [00:39:36] boundaries are there to protect you. I think that I learned it wrong. Shame man. I know I was probably not till 43.

[00:39:44] 43 [00:39:45] years old and I truly didn’t see what the big deal, ’cause you see it on TV shows all the time,

[00:39:50] Julie: people shaming one another

[00:39:52] Blake: And that you think it’s not a big deal, but boy, [00:39:54] that just, it just belittles you. Even in teaching, I’m a lot better now.

[00:39:59] Julie: You were shamed a lot Oh, when you were in band.

[00:40:01] Blake: Oh, but that’s growing up.

[00:40:02] I think [00:40:03] that’s any kid growing up in the nineties in this music program of, and again, music is about doing things really well at a high level and the programs I was involved in, [00:40:12] and you just learn from that wasn’t right. Do it again. That wasn’t right. Do it again. Play it again. That’s wrong.

[00:40:16] All right. You’re on the next part. You go down to share and boy, it just didn’t feel good. Now, some people are [00:40:21] motivated by that, but a lot of people are turned off by that. And I, I know I, in my room, I have 23 pictures of all my, or 24 pictures now [00:40:30] of 23 ’cause I’ve only been in Hubbard for 23 years.

[00:40:32] Sorry, I’m so literal. That I would say, look in the upper left, if you look at a book, the upper left is the beginning. At the upper [00:40:39] left, there’s a picture of Mr. Janis, back in 2001. Man, that guy, boy was he tough, boy was he mean, and. Again, I [00:40:48] didn’t have a kid. I’m a young kid.

[00:40:49] I’m trying to prove something to the world. You get into 10, 12 years later on, I’m a lot different. And there are moments where I’m not proud of it that [00:40:57] shameful things come out, but it doesn’t come out right away. It happens after the 17th day of kid doing something instead of the seven, the seventh time somebody does [00:41:06] that, on the first day of the school year.

[00:41:07] So that, that stuff doesn’t happen anymore. And let’s see. Yeah, so again, it’s just, it’s how we were modeled. We just weren’t modeled [00:41:15] very well.

[00:41:16] Julie: We’re having a, we’re having. The couples retreat. So we’re beta testing this and we had so many [00:41:24] couples reach out. I think that we have spaces left for five more couples.

[00:41:30] If you would like to join us, we would [00:41:33] love, love, love to have you. You can reach out to me, Julie Janis at Julie at the. THE angel [00:41:42] medium.com. You can also just text me my cell phone number and yes, I do give my cell phone number ’cause everybody uses it responsibly. Is 6 3 [00:41:51] 0. 3 3, 6 9 5 1 5 6. 3 0 3 3 6 9 5 1 5.

[00:41:59] And [00:42:00] thank you for being respectful with that. Yeah, you can reach out. We would love to have you. Chicago is a really great place. Hub in the US where it’s [00:42:09] easy to just kinda get into. When you fly into Chicago, a lot of people ask me, Julia, am I flying into the city and am I gonna be downtown in Chicago?

[00:42:17] [00:42:18] No, not at all. You’re gonna be in one of the best suburbs of Illinois, very high class suburb. The reason that I use the hotel that we [00:42:27] do in Oakbrook is because in Illinois there aren’t a lot of places where you can be. In a hotel, just like looking at the beauty and [00:42:36] nature. And this is on one of the most beautiful golf courses but it’s also one of the most reasonable resorts and hotels.

[00:42:43] Really great food. So [00:42:45] again, that’s the last weekend in July. We’re really walking you through the toolbox that we have developed and used. And [00:42:54] you try a lot of different tools like Blake’s been saying. You try a lot of different. Things throughout life, finding different counselors. [00:43:03] And I wish there had been something like this for us back in the day to be like, okay, let me save you five, seven [00:43:12] years of going to counselor after counselor and telling your story and getting six months in and being like, oh, crap.

[00:43:18] This is not the counselor for [00:43:21] us.

[00:43:21] Blake: And then you start over again and then,

[00:43:23] Julie: oh and nothing is fixed. And so we want you to come into this. Weekend, and this is for those of you who are looking [00:43:30] to reconnect. You really love one another, but you just don’t know exactly what you need.

[00:43:35] We’re gonna show you exactly what

[00:43:38] Blake: you need. Yeah. You’re good, but you don’t want to be [00:43:39] good. You want to be outstanding. And that’s the goal of this. Yeah. Is it’s to save you time. Again, everything, there’s a cost, [00:43:48] but. One of the biggest costs is your time.

[00:43:51] Julie: Yeah.

[00:43:51] Blake: But it does give you that freedom. Yeah.

[00:43:53] To do other things and to have some travels now Disney and the summer’s [00:43:57] really hot.

[00:43:57] Julie: Yeah. I’m gonna go back to

[00:43:58] Blake: a couple more things. I know we’re gonna try to wrap this up in the next, we gotta wrap it up because we’re four minutes and stuff within the next four minutes. So [00:44:06] one of the things that, this might have been months into it, maybe a year into it and Julie’s talking and Mark says something and.

[00:44:14] I said, [00:44:15] you’re telling me all I have to do is listen, not to solve her problem. And again, this comes from the Gottman book page 88. [00:44:24] You have to offer support. You don’t have to solve the problem. They just want to feel heard. They want to know that you understand what they’re feeling instead of [00:44:33] trying to solve the problem.

[00:44:33] I think the man’s brain, typically, I think, are, this is how you solve it, and that’s not what they’re looking for.

[00:44:41] Julie: Nope.

[00:44:41] Blake: [00:44:42] So again, that’s one of these little tools that I just remember and Mark and again, this is the funny thing, is I just have to listen and Mark kinda gave me a little wink or something like [00:44:51] that.

[00:44:51] And it was just funny. And that’s where you kinda get into your chuckling and you’re sharing your life stories. And you’re gonna hear us tell a lot of stories of ourselves. And Mark did that [00:45:00] too. Our counselor. And at first I was like, why is this guy telling us so much about him? But just like the Gottman book, just like our counselor.

[00:45:08] He’s making [00:45:09] these connections to say, you’re not alone. It’s not just you that’s going through this. I’ve gone through this, [00:45:18] hundreds of people, thousands, millions of people. Everybody goes through these problems in relationships. But we’re gonna give you these toolboxes to make things. For your [00:45:27] relationship stronger.

[00:45:28] And it looks like we’re probably out of time.

[00:45:30] Julie: I have to get going, but I’m gonna leave it to you to wrap up the podcast.

[00:45:33] Blake: Oh boy. It’s, this is dangerous. Yeah. I’m [00:45:36] so grateful for you guys taking the time to be here. And for that, for the man that it’s like, why do I don’t need to, I don’t need this.[00:45:45]

[00:45:45] It can’t hurt to do this. It can’t hurt to try to make yourself better. And when maybe if you’re around your peers. I don’t hang out a [00:45:54] lot with my, my my coworkers as much as, we all have families now and it’s hard to get together, but I know sometimes, oh, why would you do that?

[00:46:02] All that [00:46:03] stuff. If they’re saying those things and they’re not being supportive to you, or maybe you’re talking to a brother or to a sister. Man, are they really a good peer and a good friend for [00:46:12] you? You’re trying to make your marriage stronger, your partnership stronger. Why wouldn’t they wanna support you?

[00:46:18] What’s, it doesn’t, it’s nothing to them. So why would [00:46:21] they even say anything on the negative side of things? And I’m sure we’re gonna get into all these things, but since I have the microphone, I’ll talk for a couple more minutes. I, I know like [00:46:30] my father. Again, my parents went through this divorce.

[00:46:33] I’m in middle school. I know it was happening around fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade. I definitely knew about it. I [00:46:39] wasn’t involved in any of the court stuff. And I’m not gonna get into all the nitty gritty stuff. But I had a very bad falling out with my mother and I didn’t talk to her.

[00:46:47] Really [00:46:48] talked to her for over 20 some years and. I reached out to her when Julie and I were starting to have these problems, and I said, I see [00:46:57] why you went through these things, why you had to have had to leave. And that’s fine that they had to get a divorce, but it was just really messy and it was [00:47:06] really hurtful to myself and my younger sister.

[00:47:08] All my older, I have two older sisters, one that’s 10 and one that’s eight years older than me. I’m sure it was still hurtful, but not [00:47:15] on the level of a kid, but. My, my dad and I love my father. He’s the one that raised me. My mother left and I, like I said, I didn’t really have [00:47:24] a healthy conver relationship with her for over 22 years, and he would always say, I can’t believe your mother.[00:47:33]

[00:47:33] I can’t believe you have all this stuff and we had this beautiful home. You have this car, this Cadillac, and you have [00:47:42] this, and you have this and all this material stuff. When, and it’s hard for me to say this right now and I still can’t say this to my dad. I can’t imagine he’s gonna listen to a [00:47:51] podcast.

[00:47:51] He’s 80 years old. But he was missing that connectedness. It wasn’t the material stuff. She was, my mother was missing that emotional [00:48:00] element. And I. So that, that’s one of the stories of why I never wanted to put Julie through this. And I never wanna put my [00:48:09] daughter through, through what I went through or what my younger sister went through.

[00:48:13] And as bad as it was for us, I’m sure there’s a lot of families that have it a lot [00:48:18] worse. There was never abuse in my family. It was just, but I, I don’t want to go there at this point. Lemme see. What else can I talk [00:48:27] about? Like I said, there, there’s no quick fix. Just because you come to this retreat, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically better, but it gives you that tool for every [00:48:36] day to make just a little bit of progress.

[00:48:38] And I’m saying this to you as again, I’m not a counselor and I’m working on being a coach a, a life [00:48:45] coach but. Taking different seminars and really for the last probably four months, all I do in the morning is listen to Tony Robbins stuff on YouTube. [00:48:54] It’s ’cause I need that positively. I need to start my day with.

[00:48:57] Positive stuff in my head. Instead of listening to how bad the bowls are or what the bears are doing wrong, the [00:49:03] Chicago sports teams. Instead of hearing the political elements that are going on whoever’s in office, there’s always something wrong, right? There’s always something [00:49:12] wrong, and those are things that I just can’t control.

[00:49:15] And so why would I want to even have that absorb and start my day that way? How can I [00:49:21] be the best start to my day as I go into my teaching day and start my day off right? With Julie and with our girl. Our child. But so there’s no quick fix, [00:49:30] but progress does equal happiness and doing fan, at first, it feels a little hard to do, and little by little now, it just [00:49:39] happens.

[00:49:39] But again, I’ve been doing this for 11 years now. So more and more, the more you do it, it will help. And again, [00:49:48] for those that feel stuck, for those that feel sad and I felt sad for a long time, and again, I don’t like to empower the D word. The D [00:49:57] word is depression. And for those that need it, obviously get the help and stuff, but.

[00:50:02] If you think about and be grateful and think [00:50:06] about gratitude, what are you grateful for? And it could be I woke up and it’s a sunny day and I woke up and, I have food. I, I [00:50:15] get to go to work again. I am a teacher and I said this at my concert, I, the kids will say, Hey, Mr.

[00:50:21] J, you were so great putting up with this and that, and we’re [00:50:24] a pain in the butt and all that stuff. And I said, I don’t have to teach. I get to teach and you guys get to learn and how wonderful that is in our country. ’cause [00:50:33] some countries they don’t want specifically young girls to learn or women to learn.

[00:50:37] But I don’t mean to get into that political element of things or that type of thinking [00:50:42] of I get to do this. I made these choices and I was listened to something. Nothing is an accident. Nothing is an accident. It [00:50:51] all starts with your choices and I know I talk about that with my teachings. When we do our concerts, we’re pretty polished in how we enter, how we exit.

[00:50:59] [00:51:00] We, we actually practice where we sit. We actually practice how we enter the stage. We actually practice going from one song to the next in between. So it’s this refined product. [00:51:09] Nothing is an accident. Just like in life, all this stuff. And I tell our daughter, this isn’t an accident where you live.

[00:51:15] It’s because I’ve been prepping this throughout my [00:51:18] education. This is what I want to be, this is where I want to be living and career wise, but. Nothing is an accident. Finding your mom might’ve maybe been a [00:51:27] happy accident. But that’s because I was in a good place and then you developed this great life together.

[00:51:32] But it’s because you work together and you’re making [00:51:36] choices together to make your marriage stronger, your relationship stronger. Last thing I’ll say, ’cause I know Julie was talking about this, for thousands of years, priests [00:51:45] would. Console, not console, they would advise, right?

[00:51:50] Advise young couples as they’re getting married to start their life. And Julie said, that just [00:51:54] doesn’t make sense. You’re not married yourself, so how are you gonna know the issues that are gonna happen? And it does make sense to me now, and I always thought I’m never gonna have that problem.

[00:52:02] I’m in [00:52:03] love with this girl. Nothing could go wrong, right? But stuff is gonna happen in your life. F in your career that might frustrate you. You pull [00:52:12] different ways and everybody has different priorities at different times, but you just gotta remember you’re there for your partner and whether it’s your first year together or your [00:52:21] 60th year together, and that’s the goal.

[00:52:22] Hey, let’s get there, is you just want to keep on growing. ’cause when you grow, the magic’s always gonna be there. [00:52:30] It’s not Disney World, but there, there is a lot of magic. ‘Cause what’s the alternative not being together? And then it gets more complicated when there are children [00:52:39] involved. And again, progress equals happiness.

[00:52:42] And if you are stuck or you’re just in an okay spot and you know you’ve been better, [00:52:48] your goal is to get better, hey, why not take a chance? Why not spend some time with us? And that’s our goal, is to try to help you and to be the best that you could [00:52:57] be. So you guys could be stronger together. Thank you for your time.

[00:53:01] I’m Blake Chances, and again, my wife, Julie. Chances I don’t know her, her send off [00:53:06] to, to her podcast. But thank you for the time being with us and I hope I close this out right and not delete anything. All right, take care and [00:53:15] bye-bye.