← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 645: The Cost of Ignoring Our Limitations | Justin Whitmel Earley, The Body Teaches the Soul
00:54:44
Loading summary
Transcript150 lines
- [00:01]
Marshall's Advertiser
Marshall's buyers are hustling hard to get amazing new gifts into stores right up to the last minute. Like a designer perfume for that friend who never RSVP'd wishlist topping toys for her kids who came too. Belgian chocolates for the neighbor. A cozy scarf for your boss. And a wool jacket for your husband that you definitely did not. Almost forget. Marshalls, we get the deals, you get the good stuff.
- [00:25]
Jenny Urch
Even at the last minute.
- [00:28]
Marshall's Advertiser
Find a Marshall's near you.
- [00:30]
Jenny Urch
All right, welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And back for time at number four, because he's written an incredible new book is Justin Whitmill early. Welcome.
- [00:42]
Justin Whitmill
Thank you, Jenny. I often say, like, oh, thanks for having me back, but I don't think anyone has had me back for the fourth time. So this is a new record for me that I'm super proud of because of how much everyone in my life loves you. And I'm like, wow, I feel really special to get to come back for our fourth time.
- [00:57]
Jenny Urch
Four times. We talked about all of your different books. One of the books I got was we talked about this, but it was like a large print edition, so I got it in the mail and it was like three feet big. You know, it's like, this is interesting, but. But I've really gotten so much about habits for the household and the way that we structure our daily lives. So you come out with this new book that is so relatable to Christians in particular, but to anyone who, you know, is. Is working on their faith. And it's called the Body Teaches the soul the 10 habits. 10, 10 essential habits from a Healthy and Holy Life. And the whole premise is that we often look at our faith from this head perspective. Like, if I could just force my head to not be anxious. If I could just tell my head, if I could just repeat these verses. And you have this whole breakdown of your body and it changes the course of your life where you're like, wait a minute, there is theology in the way that we treat our body. It's all connected. So can you talk about the breakdown? Because the breakdown was pretty extensive, even though the doctor was like, this is common, but part of it was because you couldn't sleep. You're having all this anxiety, and they give you sleeping pills and your body actually reacts negatively to the sleeping pills.
- [02:06]
Justin Whitmill
Yes. This was a really awful time in my Life. Fortunately, it's 10 years ago now, but I learned so much from it, from it Ginny. And one of the things I learned was that this is actually such a common experience for people. So I do think it's worth sharing about a lot because of that. It was the. So about 10 years ago, I had just become a lawyer. I was a missionary before that. So, you know, I am a stress free, very spiritual person. New family, my wife and two kids. There's nothing in my life that would have signaled for me, this guy's about to collapse mentally. And I found a lot of people are like me in that somewhere in their 30s. Tends to be early 30s, but it could be late too. It's often coincides with, like, job changes and new kids, you know, stuff. They suddenly are struggling with mental health issues that they've never had before. And, like, what happened to the old me? And that was me. It was like literally overnight because I had an insomnia episode and a panic attack one night. And it just started to crescendo from there to the point where I was going to the hospital, asking for medications, getting sleeping pills that were making me absolutely wild. I. I had become almost overnight, a nervous, anxious wreck. I mean, where I was needing to either drink at night or take sleeping pills to just fall asleep. And the alarm bells of that were going off, like, am I gonna be able to keep my job? You know, like, support my family? But. But also it was intellectually very scary because my mind didn't seem to be within my control. I was starting to have suicidal thoughts that I knew I didn't want, you know, and I didn't. It wasn't like, I always like to nuance this for people. It wasn't suicidal, like, ideation, like, I want to do this. But the thought kept occurring to me, this is why people end their life. Maybe you should too, because you're going crazy in your mind. And the thing that was so great, like, hard about it was that I didn't want any. Like, I didn't know why I was anxious. I didn't know why I felt this way at all. So I kept trying to talk my body out of feeling the way it did, and that wasn't working at all. And this began a huge new season in my life that was not solved instantly, but it was the idea that you can't think your way out of a problem that you didn't think your way into. Lots of problems we have practiced our way into through habit. And often this is embodied habit, physical habits. So if we've practiced our way there, we need to practice our way out. And this Was the beginning of a new way of thinking for me.
- [04:40]
Jenny Urch
What a change. I think one of the things that really stuck out to me was that when you went to the hospital, so you say this is a whiplash season in your life. It's not exaggerating to say that one day I'm this bright eyed, aspiring young lawyer, I've got these two sons, and then one month later, all of a sudden you're this panic stricken insomniac with suicidal thoughts who's drinking and medicating just to fall asleep. So this is like this big change. But you go to the doctor, you feel like my body is falling apart, my world is falling apart. And the doctor says this is common.
- [05:14]
Marshall's Advertiser
Yeah.
- [05:15]
Justin Whitmill
And I, I think about this guy a lot because I talk to him and I can't remember like who it was or you know what. In my mind he stands out as a cog in a system that is really, really unfortunate for the people living under it. So I don't like blame him in any way. But the fact that he looks at me and says this is super normal, I think is such an indictment on our cultural moment that it's really normal for people to be normal and have these problems. As in, like lots of people are saying I need medication to fix something that lifestyle has caused.
- [05:54]
And that's where I stood. So he looked at me, he's like, oh, your life stage, I get it, this is very normal. Here are some sleeping pills. And again, I don't blame this guy in particular, but how I wish somebody would have handed me the kind of thoughts that I just tried to write down for everybody. And I honestly told these people, I tell people, genuinely, I have tried to write the book that I wish somebody could have given me 10 years ago to save me from so much pain and chaos.
- [06:26]
Jenny Urch
Yeah. What a remarkable, insightful thing. Because for someone to say this is common, this is normal, because you're living your everyday life, we don't know what everybody else is normal is. But here is his doctor and so he's having patient after patient after patient after patient who's coming in that cannot sleep, that's in their 30s, that's unraveling. And he's like, oh, no big deal. And like, well, no, it's a really big deal. Like this is unraveling me, it's unraveling my family. Like, you know, do I, am I supposed to try and go to work tomorrow? What do I tell my co workers? Like, it is a really big deal.
- [06:58]
Justin Whitmill
It's a really big deal.
- [07:00]
Jenny Urch
And so it's sad. It's sad that the response was that this is so common. It's not that guy's fault, but he knows, like, this is happening to so many people. So that's why the book carries so much weight and can be so helpful for you preventatively. So, you know, if you're in your 20s and you're in that uphill climb of your career, maybe you're starting to get married, your friends are starting to have kids, you're going to have kids. This is a preventative measure for you. Or if you're in the middle of it, it's going to be a way out. And also these are things that we need to start teaching our own kids. You talk about that with your own parenting, that you're starting to teach your kids. So let's kick it off with box breathing, because I loved how you talked about this. This is about the body can teach the soul. And what we do with our physical bodies, they matter. And this is a part of our Christian walk. Biblical Christianity is radically pro body. Everything biological is also theological. Okay, so box breathing, you say. You're like, okay, this is dumb.
- [07:58]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah, Yeah. I was really skeptical of any breathing exercises yet.
- [08:02]
Jenny Urch
Yes, you said it better than that, I admit. I used to think breathing exercises were at best unserious and. And at worst, fake therapeutic nonsense until I dug into the science of breathing and its capacity to control our emotions. So one of our kids. Okay, so, you know, people do the. This is gonna make me sound like an idiot, but people do the. And you might know what it. Cause you know about traditions like the sign of the. It's. I think it's the sign of the cross if they're Catholic.
- [08:30]
Justin Whitmill
Yes, that's right. Yeah. Sign of the cross.
- [08:31]
Jenny Urch
Yeah. And they say Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or whatever, however it goes.
- [08:35]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Okay.
- [08:36]
Jenny Urch
So one of my kids thinks that that's box breathing.
- [08:40]
And it's cute. So she'll always be like, oh, they're box breathing. So I'm not. I haven't corrected her yet because I think it's really cute. But. But to the point of like, you can teach your kids about. And actually in some ways, that's like a little bit of box breathing. It's a little bit of prayer. It's a little bit of coming back to like a little mantra. That's a physical thing.
- [09:01]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [09:01]
Jenny Urch
You know, any these churches that. I'm going on tangent, but some churches have, like, you sit down, you stand up, you kneel, these tradition things that you kind of are like, well, that's antiquated. But then when you really read a book like yours, you're like, no, the. The way that we move and the kneeling and the positions that we take in these motions that we do.
- [09:20]
Justin Whitmill
Right.
- [09:20]
Jenny Urch
Actually really help us. So box breathing I learned about from Sissy Goff and David Thomas.
- [09:24]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [09:24]
Jenny Urch
And I was like, oh, come on. But they said, like, if you do four of them, four box breathings or something like that, it will, like, completely reset your whole heart rate. David Thomas will have the kids in his office, like, put on a heart rate monitor and.
- [09:38]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [09:39]
Jenny Urch
Like, yes. You know, so it actually makes a huge difference. We breathe 20,000 breaths a day, processing four gallons of air. That's one of the places that you. Someone could start, give us some information about your story and. And really being won over to the breathing part.
- [09:55]
Justin Whitmill
Well, thinking back, the reason I woke up the first night with my first episode of insomnia was because of short breath. I didn't really think about that at the time.
- [10:04]
Jenny Urch
I.
- [10:04]
Justin Whitmill
You know, it's the kind of thing you snap awake from sleep and you're. You know. And looking back, I realized that how I was breathing was a lot of the reason that I was feeling so panicked. But I didn't know that at the time. Okay. And so I heard people talk about breathing exercises, and like I said, it sounded unserious to me because I was like, my problem is way deeper than that. And it turns out I just did not understand how deep breathing is physiologically and theologically. So physiologically speaking, it is fascinating. You process a vast amount of air a day and so many particles that there is this wild statistic out there, Ginny, that the amount. It's like something like 25 sextillion, I think.
- [10:48]
Which is a number no one can comprehend. Right. It's so many that statistically, it's likely that one of the particles in every single one of your breath has been used in some breath by every single other person in history before you, which is kind of weird and nasty. Like, if I tell this to people, they're like, ew. And I'm. Yeah. There's a reason almost anyone who's spiritual thinks about breathing spiritually, because it connects us so intimately to each other and the environment. Like, we actually process the world through breathing. And so scientifically, it's fascinating. And then the second thing I found out was that it's the only vital life function that remains of the subconscious until we suddenly bring it to the conscious. Like, you can't bring your digestion immediately conscious. You can't even bring your heart rate immediately conscious. You know how you can control it is through breathing, which is why box breathing is so significant. So box breathing is the place where your upper brain, you know, your top down thinking can actually exert some significant influence on your bottom up feeling. Which is why it's the intersection of so much of spirituality and so much of therapy. So when I, when I learned all of this, I was like, oh, this makes so much sense why people take breathing seriously when they want to take emotional therapy seriously, when they want to take a mental illness seriously, and when they want to take spirituality seriously. Because I then looked at Genesis 2:7, and in the Christian. In the Judeo Christian tradition, to put it accurately, breathing is the moment that God brings Adam to life. He says Genesis 2:7 says that God takes the dust of the ground, that's organic matter, like our physical bodies, and breathes the spirit of life into his nostrils. So that's the breath of air symbolizing the spiritual part of us. And then Genesis says a living soul was born. So that idea of a soul you can think about as your body and the spiritual reality, that's. That is literally breathed into it. Which is why breath throughout the Bible and throughout many spiritual traditions is the sign of your spirituality. So there's like, we could go into a lot more. But suffice it to say, I started realizing, oh, it's me who has it. I'm the weird one. Like, all of history has understood breathing. Super important to your health. All of history is understood. It's very spiritual. So why don't I get on board and actually practice it daily. And I'm telling you, box breathing daily and then intertwining that with breath prayers has changed my life by changing my, like, typical car ride. I mean, I do it like in the car all the time. I do it in the morning all the time. And when I say that, I mean, like, it's usually once or twice a day for like one or two minutes. If you think about it, it's actually very little. But it regulates my emotions in a way I never knew I was able to. And I decided to put it in chapter one for that reason because I was like, if anybody with a mental health struggle just reads one chapter of this book, I want them to know right off the bat that they have something miraculous in their lungs. The power to regulate their health and their. And their feeling, their spirituality right there by breathing and praying.
- [14:01]
Jenny Urch
And there's that verse that says, be still and know that I am God. And I think the, you know, I mean, this is my opinion is we're so screen heavy.
- [14:10]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [14:10]
Jenny Urch
And we're so in our heads, we're so left brain. There's not much going on in the right brain that people are not doing hobbies, they're not spending time with people, they're not slowing down, they're not sitting around a campfire. And it's un, it's unraveling us as people. And so to start with a breath and to be reminded to go back to the breath and in fact, honestly, I'd not heard of the box breathing until I learned it from Sissy Goff and David Thomas. And when they talked about it, they're like, navy Seals use this.
- [14:39]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [14:39]
Jenny Urch
So it's an interesting thing. First of all, it's just good for life. But it's not really being talked about. I'm sure in some places, but in faith based circles it's. I mean, I've not heard any pastor talk about box breathing. And yet you're tying this to spirituality. And there's so much science behind it and God made the science. So can you just talk about that? Actually in particular one, because there's kids that listen in with their parents. There's parents that listen in. So you say breathing exercises have become central to my parenting. You help your children by inviting them to breathe with you, which you do during labor. That's the only other time people talk about it is breathe. We got the midwife in your face and they're like, whatever the thing is, you know, but. And you talk about breath prayers. You say, my primary response to stress has become a prayer. That's not a small thing for me. In your daily life and especially in dealing with your kids, what is box breathing? How do you do a breath prayer? What's the nitty gritty there?
- [15:36]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah, let me get nitty gritty about it. So box breathing, it's. If you're watching, you know, like you can see the, the box I'm tracing with my hand. But you breathe in for an amount of seconds. I like to bring my hand up as I do and then hold for that same amount of seconds. Four seconds is like a great way to start. So like in deep breath, you can do it right now while I'm talking, hold.
- [15:57]
Then you breathe out for that full four seconds. So it's a long exhale and you're trying to get all the breath out of your lungs if you can, and then you're going to hold again. And that part's going to be a little harder because all the breath is out of your lungs. And then you're repeating that box for a couple minutes. Well, I like to start with four seconds, and then after about two or three cycles, work up to eight seconds and then 12 seconds. And what's interesting, if you're box breathing for 15 seconds on each side, which is possible to work up to in pretty short order, I've done it. Often you're taking one breath a minute, which is interesting, right? You're taking one inhale a minute. And the way that this slows your heart rate down, it actually increases carbon dioxide in your body, which is necessary to, like, transfer oxygen in. So it often oxygenates you more as a process, but it'll feel like you're out of breath while you're doing it. It'll feel hard because it's an exercise. It'll reset so much emotionally. Funny anecdote, Ginny. Three nights ago, I got a terrible hiccup fit. This doesn't happen to me, like, for about, for 45 minutes watching a football game with my sons, I was like, having these hiccups and I was so annoyed. And then I was like, I'm going to try box breathing. I kid you not. There was one hiccup during the first box breath and then it stopped. Because there's, you know, there's so much more about our bodies that we don't understand and don't know. And I'm not prescribing, like, hey, this will definitely work. But there is so much about your lower brain and lower body, your vagus nerve, all this stuff that is reset when you start box breathing, which is why it's so helpful to, you know, keep off a panic attack or help you cope with pain. So I use this with my children. If two nights ago someone was in pain, I just said, hey, breathe with me for a second. Like, you know, he got a cut on his finger. I was like, this is just going to help you, you know, get through the little pain. In moments of discipline, I might say, hey, you need to calm down, breathe with me. But then we're going to talk because. And I just throw this out like free advice from a parent that's not been doing it for 13 years, which isn't a ton, but it's a lot. When your children are in crisis, having a temper tantrum or throwing a fit or in physical pain, they. They are not processing, like, upper brain what you're saying. You need to get them to a lower brain soothed place. So that you can actually communicate with them. And a huge theme throughout this book, the body teaches the soul, is that idea that our body and our spiritual life are combined. They affect each other. Most people know that the soul teaches the body, but most people don't think about the other direction, the body teaching the soul. Most people know that, you know, the top brain influences the lower body, but a lot of people don't think about, hey, the lower body influences your ability to actually think. So I get them to breathe with me, just to talk. And then last one here is, I now insert prayers into that box. Breathing often as a meditation technique. And I often do this while I'm driving or in the morning while I'm sitting on the couch, sometimes mid afternoon at my desk, when I just need to calm down. But I'll take a verse. Psalm 23 is my favorite. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And I'm saying that to myself as I breathe in. And then the Lord is my shepherd, I'm holding. And then I shall not want. And so, for if you pray, and I recommend that you do, this is one of the most beautiful ways to do it, because you're not just reciting a truth that you already know. You're taking a truth that you want to know and say, I want to know it so much that I feel it. So you're inviting your body to experience the kind of calm that a truth like the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want is supposed to bring. And you're sinking it. You're, like, literally pushing it down into your parasympathetic nervous system so that you become somebody who doesn't just know the truth, you become somebody who feels the truth. And that, I think, is the coolest part of this sort of physical formation through prayer that we, God made all of us. Okay? So it's our problem, not his, that we're like, I'll give you half back. I'll give you my brain back. I mean, it's in the New Testament. Honor God in your body. There's so many physical commands, because the baseline presumption of the Bible is that your physicality matters spiritually. Like your biology is theology. God doesn't separate these things, so bring it to him. You know, pray with your body as well as with your mind. That was actually from C.S. lewis, not me. He said we need to get our bodies more involved in prayer.
- [20:22]
Jenny Urch
And that's the whole thing about kneeling and the lifting of the hands, that all of these things affect our posture toward God. Our posture toward the world. Yes. So you have in this book you actually have some breath prayers to try.
- [20:37]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
When I think back on my own childhood, I remember the freedom of the neighborhood, hours spent riding bikes with friends until the street lights came on. That's what childhood should feel like. Movement, laughter and connection. And that's exactly what our friends at Womb Bikes are helping families rediscover. Womb makes the lightest, smartest and safest bikes on the market. Perfectly designed for kids, not just shrunken down adult bikes. Every detail matters. The balance, the brakes, the handlebars, the way the frame fits their growing bodies. You don't just learn to ride with Womb, you learn to love the ride. In our own family, we've seen that magic firsthand. Our daughter received a Womb Explore six in that stunning magnetic blue, and from the moment we opened the box, we could feel the difference. The packaging was intuitive, the setup was simple, and within a short period of time, she was riding down the driveway with the biggest smile on her face. When kids have a Womb bike, they want to be outside. And that's the heartbeat of what we do. Helping families reclaim time, connection and joy through real world play.
- [21:33]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
So this holiday season, don't just give a gift.
- [21:35]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Give them adventure. Give them confidence. Give them outside. Check out all the holiday deals now@womb.com.
- [21:41]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
That'S w o o m.com if you're like me, sometimes you look back and think, why didn't I learn that earlier? Like, why was I conjugating German verbs instead of learning how to balance a checkbook? Why did I scrape my way through college wishing I'd bought Bitcoin at less than a cent? Or honestly, why didn't someone teach me the pure joy of baking homemade bread sooner? We might just be the FOMO generation, but here's one thing you don't want to miss out on. Protecting your future. And the good news? For around the same price per month as one of your streaming services, you can break that generational cycle and actually secure your family's future with with life insurance from selectquote.com here's why I love them. Select Quote takes the guesswork out of everything. You don't have to compare dozens of confusing policies. One of their licensed agents will do it for you for free, matching you with a policy that fits your health, your lifestyle and your budget. And you can get covered faster than you'd think. Some providers even offer same day coverage up to $2 million with no medical exam required. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com 1000 hours save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com 1000 hours today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com 1000 hours when it comes to holiday gifting, I want to give things people genuinely love. Beautiful, timeless pieces they'll wear for years. And that's why I'm going with Quint. From Mongolian cashmere sweaters to Italian wool coats, everything is premium quality at a price that actually makes sense. Quint truly has something for everyone. Their soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50 and they look and feel like the designer pieces you see for $200 or more. They've got gorgeous silk tops and skirts for dressing up, perfectly cut denim for everyday life, and outerwear that actually keeps you warm without feeling bulky. And their Italian wool coats, oh my goodness, these are standout pieces. Beautifully tailored, soft to the touch and made to last for season after season. What I love most is that Quint works only with ethical trusted factories and uses truly premium materials. Yet their prices stay far below what you'd pay at other luxury brands. Personally, I've been reaching for my Quince cashmere non stop as the holidays get closer. The cashmere feels incredible. Soft, structured and it doesn't pill. It is the kind of quality I normally expect from a 200 sweater, not $50. Fine gifts so good you'll want to keep them with quince. Go to quince.com outside for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com c/outside to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com outside.
- [24:10]
Jenny Urch
So the body teaches the soul and then there's a verse that says pray continuously. So you know with like you're like well what? Yeah, yeah I reverse like that And I'm like what? But if you are in the habit of connecting your prayers to your breath then you, you could be the type of person that is praying continually or when you have a response to stress and you're going to start to do this box breathing and you have these little prayers mantras that you say. So you said your favorite one is the lor, my shepherd, that's the inhale. I shall not want is the exhale. And you have other ones in here. Like I think this is a really good one. I am God's beloved with me.
- [24:47]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
He is well pleased.
- [24:48]
Jenny Urch
Or, or I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Or you have God deliver me from evil. The Lord is my light, whom shall I fear? So there. That's a great resource. And you could do that with your kids.
- [25:01]
Justin Whitmill
Yes, you can. And by the way, on that one, I've had people in addiction recovery programs, whether alcohol or pornography. It's actually common advice now to say when you feel tempted to go to that thing that you know is ruining your life, box breathe and breath prayer. Because you. You're resetting some of your. Your desire and the dopamine rush that happens when you think about that thing. So the Lord is like, deliver me from evil. I think about that one a lot for people who are experiencing temptation. But there's so much here, Jenny. I would just. I would just love and commend people to. To know that breathing is as important to their health as it is to their soul. And just don't divide the two. Just enjoy the gift of it that God gives you by just being able to breathe.
- [25:49]
Jenny Urch
You wrote, honestly, my old self would have thought this exercise was a bit gimmicky or maybe even dangerously Eastern, but that's because I didn't have a thoroughly Christian understanding of my body. A few minutes of box breathing now often helps me avoid the panic attacks that would have emotionally derailed me for a few weeks. Which is to say that breathing deeply is now one of the ways I try to follow Jesus's command. Do not be anxious about your life. And, and you know, there's the one that says, do not worry. These are commands, don't be anxious. Don't worry. And it's like, well, that's not very simple, you know, like, you can't. You can't think your way into that. You have these spirits, spiritual things that you do that help you to release anxiety and help you to release the worry, and then you teach them to your kids. Okay, here's my box breathing story. So we did a trip last year in the summer. We took a trip, like a 1000 hours outside trip to northern Michigan. So, like, Michigan has got two peninsulas. So we're like in the up one, you have to go over this, the Mackinac Bridge to get to the Upper Peninsula.
- [26:44]
Justin Whitmill
Right, right, right, right.
- [26:45]
Jenny Urch
And so there's this place in the Upper Peninsula where. And along the top, like the northern part of the Upper Peninsula is Lake Superior. And so you can jump, like, there's so many spots where you, like, jump off of rocks pretty high up into the water. There's one place in. It's called Black Rocks. It's in Marquette, Michigan. And so we take this group. It's like a really cool place. Like, there's these tall black rocks. There's like this huge expansive area of them. People are jumping off the water. There's all these spots you can jump, and the water's, like, crystal clear, and it's blue and turquoise. Then you swing swim back up and do it again. Well, I'm, like, great at cheering people on, but I'm like, I'm not doing that.
- [27:21]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah.
- [27:21]
Jenny Urch
So I take this whole group and I'm, like, leading the group, and we get. It's all these families, all these kids are going. Our kids have done it a ton of times. Then they were like, well, your turn.
- [27:30]
Justin Whitmill
And I was like, no, not my turn.
- [27:34]
Jenny Urch
Not my dirt. And I just froze. Like, you know, you're in this spot. You're like, my legs are not going. You know, like, it's just not happening. And so I did the box breathing. And just then my body went and I did it. And I only did it once, but it was amazing how it, like, it. It got me out of that fight or flight frozen spot immediately. I think I did, like, three row, you know, three rotations of it.
- [27:56]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
And then I just went.
- [27:57]
Justin Whitmill
That's. That's awesome that I read some experts who call it the brain's emergency escape hatch because your body offers you this upper brain ability to control the lower body, which we, you know, we so often feel at the mercy of our lower body. Like, oh, I'm scared, I can't. Or, oh, I'm anxious, I can't. Or, oh, I'm sad, I can't. And breathing is part of the way that we do this glorious thing that humans can do and say, no, no, I can. I actually can garden my lower body into a beautiful place. And so many of us feel out of control in moments like that. And gardening, as you know, Jenny, is a theme throughout the book. It's this idea that it's not always super fast. It's not always immediately effective, but you can garden yourself to a better place. And it sounds like you did that one pretty quickly.
- [28:43]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, I mean, the box breathing turns things around really quick because I definitely felt that I can't. I was like, my legs are not going. It's just not happening. My legs are stuck and they're not moving me. And so I tried that. I, like, had learned it from. And I was like, I'm just going.
- [28:55]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
To give it a go.
- [28:56]
Jenny Urch
And it worked. And there was another lady that was with me, and she. She never went. And I think she was pretty disappointed. Not that it matters that much, but, like, I was like, that box breathing really helped me to. To do that.
- [29:07]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
So.
- [29:07]
Jenny Urch
What an incredible thing to teach to our kids. It's something I didn't learn about till my 40s. And I mean, I. I learned about it recently from those books and have been able to start to try it now. You know, enough to teach it to the kids there. Obviously, my youngest one's kind of confused about what it actually is, but that's kind of like a kids.
- [29:27]
Justin Whitmill
In the course of this book, I began taking up the sign of the Cross as a regular practice because writing this book made me realize that what I used to think was either outdated or performative. People lifting their hands or kneeling or signing themselves, there were reasons that they do them and just to keep it really simple. It's often just encouraging your body to come to the place of worship that you're saying in your head or praying in your prayers. And so I've become much more embodied in the way that. That I pray. Kneeling, hands, signing, myself included. And so, you know, your daughter's on the right track, in my opinion.
- [30:08]
Jenny Urch
Well, in some ways it is. It's that four seconds, like, in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Right, that's your four seconds. I mean, it. It is. It has similarities to it, so just interesting. Anyways, it's real cute. Every time she sees it. Oh, they're doing box breathing. Okay. All right. So talking about gardening, one of the things that you talked in here about is trellises, and I hate trellises. Honestly, it's. I've thought a lot about how we're. Well, we're really awful gardeners. And sometimes I'm like, why can't it just grow along the ground? Like, why do I have to do this trellis? And they don't work very well. Like, we buy these metal ones, and then I go to places, like, there's a place by us called Greenfield Village, where they do things that are, like, in the historical way they would do them. So the garden has no metal trellis or no plastic poles. It's all, like, twines and sticks, and it's actually a lot pret. Oh, gosh. That is actually a really pretty trellis. And it's kind of gorgeous.
- [31:04]
Justin Whitmill
Right.
- [31:05]
Jenny Urch
I thought in the past, like, you know, why would God make it that way? It's just more work. And yet. Yet you then can Grow more in a smaller space. Things grow vertically. They come off of the ground. And so there is a lot to be said about the spiritual lessons that we could learn from that gardening practice of trellising. Can you talk about how when it comes to these topics, that you can start to just kind of scaffold them in and build them in one by one and they.
- [31:32]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Of each other?
- [31:33]
Justin Whitmill
Yes. I think when you talk about the body, people get really cagey and afraid for good reason, because it's a very personal topic, and many of us feel so much failure and. And we've had sicknesses or mental health issues or injuries that have really, I think, questioned whether we have autonomy over our body. Like, whether we really can. Like, are we controlling it or is it controlling us? Is one of the questions that we wrestle with. And I. I definitely have, particularly in my anxiety crisis, very much so. And the gardening metaphor was an aha moment for me, Ginny, because when I realized that the Bible talks about us as soil or as fruit or as plants so often. Because the metaphor of gardening is very helpful for understanding your body. And so the reason I think this is so useful is because if you think of yourself that, like, you have no control over your body, then you would be like a gardener who does nothing. And we know that a plot of land, you know, with nothing done to it, becomes either a jungle or a desert. Like, it's not good. It doesn't flourish. But we also know that a gardener doesn't come to a plot assuming automatic control, like weather, you know, blights, drought, soil. Like, that soil is not like this soil. Your body's not like that body. Like, your methods need to be a little different.
- [32:55]
So we don't have complete autonomy, but we do have agency. And when you think about your body as a garden, I think you marry these two concepts together in a way that's not paradox or not opposed, but actually very sensible. Like, do something rather than nothing. Your body is meant to be gardened, but don't assume that. Don't idolize the body. Like, you can do anything that you want. You need to work in conjunction with how you were made and how God made you. And that is where the trellis metaphor is so useful. The ancient people, like 2,000 years ago, are inventing or really using the trellis metaphor to talk about something called a rule of life, which is a term that is slowly gaining popularity, but it's still pretty obscure. It's a monastic idea for a set of rhythms for a community, often habits that are set up Like a trellis, okay? So that the fruitful life can grow on this set of habits. One of the best. Annie Dillard paraphrase this. The best. She says in her book the Writing Life, our days become our lives. How you know, what. What you do now is what you become. And she says that, you know, our schedules or our habits are like scaffolding. They give us something to climb on, to work at time, which is so brilliant because the currency for your life is time, right? It's like, what do you do with the time that you have and the way that you garden your body is by setting up the right kind of habits. That's why this book is called 10 Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and a Holy Life. So the trellis metaphor has been used throughout spiritual communities for millennia to say what you need to do with your body, and I'm talking, you know, literally and soulfully, is the same thing you need to do with a garden. You need to build a good trellis for this thing to go on. And in the garden, it's building a wooden little structure that the tomato plant grows up on, and we know that produces better tomatoes. And in your life, it's building a little trellis of habit that says, I'm going to box breathe once a day. You know, I'm going to get outside and exercise three times a week. I'm going to pray at this time. And, you know, I give lots of examples in the book on how to build this trellis or this rule of life. But once you realize your body is like a garden, then I think you start to realize these little tiny habits are actually huge, impactful ways of living, that if you do one at a time now, you will reap so much fruit later. Because any gardener knows, like, you're not reaping anything tomorrow. It's like, next season, right? Like, you know, if you want to start exercising, great. Start it a season ago, because now you'll be experiencing the benefits of it.
- [35:33]
Jenny Urch
And the trellises really can be so beautiful. That really is what changed my mind was going to Greenfield Village because I've always just been like, and they're kind of falling over. But people use skill. They use skill to make them, and they're beautiful. And then there's way more fruit or whatever it is that you're growing. There's way more. Because there's way more space for it to grow. And then. Then, you know, if they're on the. If your tomatoes are laying on the ground, they just get ruined. So it doesn't work at all.
- [35:58]
Justin Whitmill
And, you know, some plants, because I asked my mom this when I was exploring the trellis metaphor. I remember she had this trellis of jasmine when I was growing up, and I was like, why did you use the trellis? And she's like, oh, well, jasmine is actually like a twining vine plant, and it will not only wrap around other plants and kill them, sometimes it'll wrap around itself and kill itself, so you need to give it direction. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is such a human metaphor. Because when we don't have a trellis of habit guiding our days, it's a mistake to think we're in neutral. Now. What we are is we're always becoming something, and often that thing that we're becoming is harmful to ourselves and others. So to do nothing is to do something really significant. It's to. To do nothing is just to go along with the cultural current of habits, which can be very dangerous to you and others. We know this in health, and we know this in mental health. Like, do nothing, and you'll become an unhealthy American who struggles with death because of early disease and probably a lot of mental health issues. But when you set up a trellis of habit, you start to realize, oh, I can flourish like a plant, and this is a gift to those around me. And so it's. It's not. It's a. It's a thing that is beautiful more than it is. Oh, you ought to do this. This is the right way to live. It's. It's more like, do you want to live a beautiful life, or do you want to live the typical American life that you see? And I don't think any of us are happy with that one. So I. I want people to set up these healthy and holy habits because they want to live a beautiful life.
- [37:32]
Jenny Urch
Right. Like, the doctor who's like, this is common. This is basically what everyone's experiencing is.
- [37:36]
Justin Whitmill
Let's make it uncommon.
- [37:37]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And another thing that you can start to teach your children, I almost wonder. It's like God just put all of these spiritual lessons and life lessons in creation, in nature. And you almost wonder if he's like, oh, yeah, it's so cool that Justin just discovered that one about the jasmine. You know, like, there's just so many.
- [37:57]
Justin Whitmill
Or he's like, man, it took him a long time to figure the one about the Jasmine, because 2,000 years ago, I said, consider the lilies.
- [38:05]
Jenny Urch
Yes, yes. But there is a problem for our kids when we're not outdoors. Because all of those lessons are out there for us to just to come across.
- [38:14]
Justin Whitmill
And you could not.
- [38:16]
Jenny Urch
Yes, they, they almost like overtake you. You know, I talked to this woman who was saying she was on the hunt for a certain type of mushroom, morel mushroom. And she said in all that. And like, I couldn't find any. She's like, but in all that hunting, I was overlooking everything that was already there. Like, oh, that's a great life lesson.
- [38:35]
Justin Whitmill
If you just being outside in nature for an hour teaches us a way of attention that is robbed from us in every minute of social media, which is, you know, the way to start to train yourself not to pay attention. That idea of paying attention is such an encouragement from the outdoors.
- [38:52]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot there for us. And I just think, I wonder if God's just like, when are they going to discover and even all the things that are like, at the bottom of the ocean and, you know, it was like, oh, yeah, the telescope. Like, God was fine to wait. Like, no one's going to discover that until they find the telescope. Or no one's going to discover that until they have scuba gear. Then there's more there and there's even more that, you know, that we've never seen. So you write in the trellising part, we overestimate what can happen in. But we underestimate what can happen in a year. So you also talk about food. This is a big one. Fasting and feasting, eating and drinking. You talk about sleeping. You talk about keeping the Sabbath, how we are made for limits. I'd love to talk about the sleep just because. And then you talk about technology. You talk about exercise, sickness and pain. There's 10 kind of main things that are happening in our world today that are very strong culturally that if we could push back on, would really help us to feel a lot better. But I love to talk about the sleep because you, you combine the Sabbath with the sleep. They're different, but we need both. God didn't need both. He chose to do the Sabbath. He doesn't need to sleep. But can you talk about the. The sort of wonder of now? I've had this happen, you know, wake up in the middle of the night and you know the answer.
- [40:07]
Justin Whitmill
Yes, yes, yes.
- [40:08]
Jenny Urch
Your book title is there. Whatever you say, the wonder of sleep is that it allows us to solve problems in ways we cannot when we are awake. Because in REM sleep, some of the logical parts, those guard parts shut down and allows the creative part to take charge and make connections. So we are discounting sleep. You said you were doing that. You were like, I don't really need to sleep. I'm going to build this business. I got these kids.
- [40:30]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Who needs to sleep?
- [40:32]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah, I. I used to think of myself more like a machine than a human being. I see now. Because I thought, oh, if I can just life hack it to the right efficiency, then everything will go better. And sleep is the thing that teaches us that we are spiritual, human, limited creatures. Like, we're not machines. It's not just like you can put in more fuel or plug it into the right source, which makes sleep really humbling. Honestly.
- [40:58]
Jenny Urch
We're limited and we're not God.
- [41:00]
Justin Whitmill
Yes, exactly.
- [41:01]
Jenny Urch
And we're not God.
- [41:02]
Justin Whitmill
It is one of the things that shows us both how unlike we are to God, because he doesn't. You know, the psalms say, he neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches over Israel. But it's also this interesting invitation to be like God, because God is the God who. Who loves to rest, who loves to say, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the goodness of what I've done and what I've made. And we're actually invited into that. So one of the things that I learned about sleep, I think that helped me respect it and not just feel limited by it, was that creativity point, which is we are made such that sleep gives us almost a secret power to our brain's ability to function. So if you're sleeping well, you're solving problems way better, you're solving them differently, you're finding solutions that weren't previously available to your mind. And there's wonderful studies. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is a great intro book for this if anybody wants some of these fun stats. But there's lots of studies showing how better people perform on tests if they just sleep a little more instead of study a little more. For example, don't take that too far. You got to be prepared, right? Yeah.
- [42:13]
Jenny Urch
But there has to be consolidation.
- [42:15]
Justin Whitmill
Yes, exactly. Oftentimes we're like, oh, I'll just short sleep and work on this longer. Where as a lawyer and a writer now I've learned, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to get a healthy night's sleep, and then I'm going to work on this really well tomorrow. And I just realized how badly I was working because I didn't realize the creative power of sleep. Also, Ginny, I think this one's worth mentioning. The other thing I learned about sleep that I didn't know was how emotionally Therapeutic it is to us, again, on the same lines. We try to solve our problems by staying awake and doing a little bit more. When oftentimes gardening your life, gardening your body into a healthy sleep cycle. Because again, this can't be done one night in a row. It has to be a rhythm that you, that you cultivate in your life is like healthy sleep is some of the best therapy that you can't ever buy. You know what I mean? Like, you can go talk to people about your problems and you should, you can talk to your friends and your spouses about your problems, and you should. But sleep will be one of the greatest things to fix your depression, to fix your anxiety, to fix your trauma. And these are all like, you know, you could study this stuff. If doctors had a pill that could do for you what a healthy sleep schedule does for you, they would give it to every single patient who walked in with anxiety, trauma, depression, abuse, whatever. Because it heals you emotionally. It plays a huge role in healing you. And so that's where I started to be like, why am I thinking of myself like a machine and trying to short sleep when I should think of myself as a spiritual human being and embrace it for what God made it to do for me. That is to show me that I am limited and that he's in charge, but that this is a gift, not a curse. It fixes me, it makes me creative, it makes me happier, it makes me less anxious, it makes me more joyful. So now I think of my sleep schedule as a spiritual discipline. And I'm not like super rigid about this, but when I, my wife and I try to go to bed about 11 to 11:15 every night, which is pretty late, and then we sleep to about, you know, I wake up about 6:30, she wakes up about 7:30. But that, that sort of seven plus hour sleep window for me, eight plus hours sleep window for her is so good for our bodies. Men and women are a little bit different here and actually every human being's bit a little different. But that, but that rhythm of creating a healthy sleep cycle, saying, we do this every night no matter what. Obviously there's sometimes aberrations. And if when you're in the newborn stage you throw all this out and you focus on one thing.
- [44:45]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, possibly for a while.
- [44:47]
Justin Whitmill
Focus on one thing. Jesus stayed up all night in the garden of Gethsemane for you. Okay, Jesus lost sleep for you. It's a holy thing to lose sleep for the ones that you care about. So I'm talking about when you're not in that stage, but it's a spiritual discipline for us and it's done so.
- [45:01]
Jenny Urch
Much for my health and so many people would not relate that to a spiritual discipline.
- [45:08]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Does anyone else feel like the holidays.
- [45:10]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Just showed up overnight?
- [45:11]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
One minute we're picking pumpkins and the next I'm looking around my house thinking wait, do we have enough guest towels? Where's the wreath from last year and who am I still missing gifts for if you are in that same last minute scramble? Wayfair has been such a lifesaver for us during this season. The holidays are here and you get what you need fast with Wayfair. From bedding and linens to decorate decor for every room in the house. It is truly your one stop shop. We've been adding some final holiday touches to our home and I recently ordered a couple things from Wayfair. A beautiful neutral throw blanket for the living room and the sweetest little lamp for the kids reading nook. Everything came with fast. Free hassle, free delivery and it all looked even better in person than online. It is amazing how one new piece can make your home feel warm, refreshed and ready for hosting. And if you're in the gifting mode, Wayfair really is the perfect place to shop for anyone on your list. Their selection is huge. Every style, every budget and I keep finding things I didn't even realize they carried like kitchen essentials, storage solutions and seasonal decor to get everyone in the holiday spirit. Now is the time to get your home ready so you can actually enjoy the holidays with your family instead of running around trying to catch up. Wayfair truly has everything your home needs this season. Get last minute hosting essentials, gifts for your loved ones and decor to celebrate the holidays. For way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every home this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are full of traditions. Some of us grew up with dozens of them, and some of us are just beginning to create our own. In our family, we've been slowly rewriting a few traditions, like perfecting a new hot chocolate recipe with the kids or dropping letters to Santa at the same place each year. And every year, I'm reminded that traditions don't have to be inherited. We can shape them, refresh them, and make them meaningful for the season we're in. One tradition I've personally been thinking more about is carving out space for myself, especially during a time that's joyful but also busy, emotional and sometimes lonely. And that's where therapy can become a part of the rhythm. This season, setting aside time to reflect, to process, to breathe. It can help rewrite the holidays into something clearer and calmer instead of chaotic. And better help makes that so accessible. Their therapists are fully licensed here in the US and follow a strict code of conduct so you know you're in good hands. They do the matching work for you, too. After a short questionnaire, BetterHelp uses over 12 years of experience to pair you with someone who fits your goals and preferences. And if the first match isn't quite right, you can switch therapists anytime based on their tailored recommendations. With more than 30,000 therapists and over 5 million people served, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. And it works. So maybe this December, the new tradition is taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off@betterhelp.com 1000 hours. That's BetterHelp. H E-L-P.com 1000 hours there's a woman.
- [47:55]
Jenny Urch
Named Aaron Lynam who wrote a book called the Nature of Rest. And she had a statistic in there that I said, I think with something like the people before screens and maybe lights, they used to sleep 11 hours.
- [48:06]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah, it was way more, particularly in the winter. Yeah.
- [48:10]
Jenny Urch
I mean, because what else are you going to do?
- [48:13]
Justin Whitmill
This. This happens to us all the time when we go camping. Jenny and I think we've talked about this, but we're four boys. Like, we're a big camping family. And I always think it's kind of funny. We get out and, you know, we're, you know, by 8pm it's really dark. And by 9pm we've already finished our s' mores and we're sitting on the campfire and the boys are like, I want to go to bed. And Lauren and I are like, I think I want to go to bed, too. It's like at home, around all the blue light and the screens and the electricity, everybody's like, I don't want to go to bed.
- [48:40]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
I don't want to go to bed.
- [48:41]
Justin Whitmill
I don't want to go to bed. You have to force them to bed. But when we're outside in the dark, people are like, I think I want to sleep until the sun comes up. And as it turns out, that sun rhythm is really good for us. Like, it's really good for our sleep schedule to be in a very dark place. It's really good for our health in the morning to go face the sun and be in that sunlight. And I'm not huge on like, oh, our ancestors did, blah, blah, blah. So definitely for us, it's going to be blah, blah, blah. There. There is a lot of nuance there, but it is well demonstrated that if you sync yourself to more of the closer to the sun's rhythm than not, you're going to improve your. Your life a lot.
- [49:22]
Jenny Urch
Yeah. Because here you're talking about seven plus hours of sleep and you're like, this is actually way better than what you were doing before, which was discounting it. So now you're like, all right, I'm at seven hours. But even that is still a lot less than what people used to sleep in the past. So they just were more rested.
- [49:38]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
That.
- [49:38]
Justin Whitmill
Very much so, yeah.
- [49:39]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Okay.
- [49:40]
Jenny Urch
So then there's this book out, and that's why I want to stick on this point, because I've never heard anybody say this, but I thought it was super interesting. There's a woman named Tiffany Schlane, and she wrote a book called 24Six, which is about Sabbathing from technology and, like, turning the screens off for one day a week. And here's what she said. I've never heard this before. I thought I was so interesting. She talks about technology. Well, what is technology? Technology is things that make things more efficient. Technology is things that save you time. Technology is things that allow you to get more done.
- [50:08]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Right.
- [50:09]
Jenny Urch
So it's like your dishwasher, your microwave. These are all technologies. AI is a technology. She said, if you use that definition of technology, then rest is a technology.
- [50:20]
Justin Whitmill
Oh, interesting. Because that's not how I expected that sentence to end. Very interesting.
- [50:26]
Jenny Urch
Rest is a form of technology because if you respect rest and you include rest in that, the daily, the weekly rhythm of a Sabbath, sleeping at night, if you include rest in your life, you actually will get more done.
- [50:40]
Justin Whitmill
I. That strikes me as 100% true. I do. Yes. I do feel a nuance is important there for most people because if you think about rest solely in terms of what it can do for you, you're still thinking in the same category that got you to the problem in the first place. But you're in a healthier place. Right. Because you're probably realizing, oh, I ought to sleep because it will make me more productive, more happy and everything. Which. Which is a great reason.
- [51:10]
Jenny Urch
Yeah. The reasoning is off.
- [51:11]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah. I. So I just want to say I would complement it with the idea that rest is also just a gift.
- [51:19]
Jenny Urch
Yeah.
- [51:19]
Justin Whitmill
Right. It's like sometimes everything. We shouldn't interpret everything in the world in terms of its usefulness. There's also another way to see it. Even though I firmly agree it is useful, it is a great technology.
- [51:32]
It is also just a gift. And one, if you're a parent and you give your kids a gift on Christmas, probably what you want to see is them just enjoying it. Like the best thank you they could give to you is to watch them unwrap, use and play with that gift over and over. And I believe that God gives us rest as a gift. And one of the things that brings him glory and happiness, which I think is what leads to our happiness, like, like giving God glory is to just enjoy the gift. Like literally just enjoy rest once a week. So I, I completely affirm it. I just want to add that enjoyment and gift perspective because it is a gift.
- [52:16]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, it's just, it's interesting. I never heard anybody say that. And I guess the thing that really draws me into it is that it's counterintuitive and doesn't make any sense at all. What would make the most sense is that you burn the wick at both ends and that you never sleep and that you never take a day off. And so beyond it being a gift, I also think it is a revelation every single week, every single night that God cares for us.
- [52:41]
Justin Whitmill
I had some fun reading through because I read a lot of like, you know, just sort of science books on, for the research of this whole book. And one of the things that I came across a couple times, the. The Body by Bill Bryson was one of the neat ones that wrestled with this. Was he wrestled with. Nobody has really given a great explanation for how evolution or natural selection gives us the, the apex creatures, I'm sorry, the apex creatures of the whole universe called human beings that need to be vulnerable and unconscious about a third of their existence. It doesn't, you know, And I'm not trying to kind of dunk on natural selection theories. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense. If you think of it solely as useful, it is actually very unuseful. You would think that we would get a better product. But when you think of it as a gift, something to enjoy, and through which enjoyment you'll find a much better life, a happier, less anxious life, that's when it starts, I think, click. Like when you try to medically explain something, sleep, you're, you're left with a lot of holes. But when you just enjoy it, it's like, oh, this makes Sense of life.
- [53:53]
Jenny Urch
And I think it's that weekly reminder that God has got it. You know, there's a verse that says, we talk about this one a lot. There's a verse that says, the blessing of the Lord makes truly rich. And neither does toiling increase it. Something like that. And I'm like, we talk about the word toil a lot. Like, yeah, what does that mean? And it does feel like a lot of people are toiling. And it's. I think that it's that weekly reminder that you don't have to toil. Yes, God's hand is on this. And, and also then when people say, wow, Justin, how is it that you're an international lawyer and also that you've written all these books and you've got a podcast and you've got a wife and kids. And I think in every single case, you can say it's because I keep the Sabbath. And so God's hand, it showcases God's power, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
- [54:48]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Right?
- [54:48]
Jenny Urch
Because I think if we toil, toil, toil, and never take a break and never sleep, then we're going to say.
- [54:52]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Well, this is my work.
- [54:54]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Look at all I did.
- [54:55]
Justin Whitmill
I think the fruits of my, my work are most demonstrated in my anxiety crisis. Like, that's, that's what my toiling led to. I think the fruits of the Lord's work in my life, which has been a lot of surrendering. All the coolest things have happened in my life when I started saying, I'm going to submit to limitations. My life of family has been a submission to saying, I'm going to stay with one woman and love her. Her name is Lauren, and I do love her, but we're committed. Like I'm. We stick together. We're both stuck in the most holy of ways. With my kids, it's been the surrendering to the limitations of saying, I'm going to. I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night. I'm going to serve these children. I'm going to pay for them. I'm going to do everything for them. I'm going to be patient with them. And so in the spiritual and physical disciplines, it's been the surrendering and say, I'll submit to the workout in the gym. I'll submit to a night's sleep. I'll submit to taking a Sabbath fasting. I'll fast in all these limitations, all this cool stuff in my life that you just mentioned, Jenny, have, have, have bloomed. And I'm like, oh, that's God's blessing. All I did was submit to the limitations.
- [56:00]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
That's right.
- [56:01]
Jenny Urch
That's right. And that's what you learn. And it's meant to be something, I think, that you're reminded of week over week that God has it.
- [56:08]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [56:08]
Jenny Urch
God is taking care of it.
- [56:09]
Justin Whitmill
Yes.
- [56:10]
Jenny Urch
Week over week. That's that Sabbath. And so people are interested. I mean, I. I think there's nothing that's much more important these days than really taking that time off it. Because people used to have to do it because they couldn't work on Saturday.
- [56:23]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
Right.
- [56:23]
Jenny Urch
Like, their. Their office wasn't open, their factory wasn't open.
- [56:26]
Justin Whitmill
Yeah. And you didn't have an iPhone tethering to you. Like, yeah, yeah.
- [56:29]
Jenny Urch
This is a different world. Like, you can take your work on vacation. So you're seeing a lot more pop up about Sabbath. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people are so overdone.
- [56:40]
Justin Whitmill
Yes. Well, it's very important because you're right. There used to be cultural norms that helped us do it. Now there are cultural norms that make sure that we don't do it. So I'm all for the proliferation of, like, the new resources on how to rest and how to Sabbath, because we need to push back culturally, and I'm so glad that we are.
- [56:57]
Jenny Urch
One of my favorite things I saw on social media was the picture of you with all the books you'd read going into this book. It's fantastic. So can check that out on social media. I mean, it's just like stacks and stacks and stacks of books. You brought up a couple here in this podcast where you're talking about Ann Dillard and you talked about the sleep one. So if people want more information, they can go there. If they want more information, they also can listen to your podcast, which is in its second season, the Intentional Fatherhood podcast. Tell us just briefly about that.
- [57:22]
Justin Whitmill
That that's just been a joy to record. Record with my friend Brooke. We're talking through lots of habits and lots of rhythms of what it's like to be an intentional father. So anything I write about, you can kind of find an audio form there. So go check it out.
- [57:37]
Jenny Urch
Yeah, incredible. I'll make sure. I'll put a link in the show.
- [57:39]
Justin Whitmill
And we're also. We're also doing like a retreat now for it, so people want to come do it in person. In February, we're doing an intentional fatherhood retreat, so people might love to come hang out with us. Yeah, it's going to be fun.
- [57:49]
Jenny Urch
Where's that?
- [57:50]
Justin Whitmill
It's going to be Costa Costa Mesa, California, February 19 to 21. And it's on the Fatherhood, the Intentional Fatherhood podcast website, so people will find it.
- [57:58]
Jenny Urch
Justin, that's so great. You're bringing people in person. Yeah, I love it.
- [58:03]
Justin Whitmill
Going to be fun.
- [58:03]
Jenny Urch
The newest book is called the Body teaches the soul 10 essential habits to form a Healthy and holy Life. If you like Justin's books, and they always have good color and they always have like, good charts and like, it's.
- [58:12]
Justin Whitmill
Very, it's all the diagrams you want.
- [58:15]
Jenny Urch
Visually pleasing, though. They're very visually pleasing and I remember that from the very beginning. Like, the way that you do it I think is really intentional and I love that it is a phenomenal book. Really needed for this day and age when there's this onset of technology. Really needed to pass these habits on down to our children. Justin, thanks for being here.
- [58:32]
Justin Whitmill
Thanks, Jenny. You're the best.
- [58:36]
Marshall's Advertiser
Make their holiday unforgettable with a gift that says it all from Pandora Jewelry. A gift that tells a story and shows you know theirs that doesn't just sparkle but speaks. This season, give a gift that's perfectly theirs. Whether you're shopping for a shiny surprise for your significant other, matching bracelet, bracelets to celebrate your friendship or a heartfelt gift for a family member. Say more this holiday season with pandora. Shop@pandora.net or your local Pandora store.