August 22, 2025 • 59 mins
Jude Sandvall and Dallas Bluth delve into the fundamental importance of identifying personal values and beliefs before re-entering the dating world after divorce. They explore how unexamined expectations can derail relationships and provide practical tools for building self-awareness.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the show and I am thrilled to be
back in action with the Dad'sDating After Divorce.
We are revamped and retooledhere and just ready to dive
right in and talk about somedating after divorce.
I have a new co-host.
(00:23):
My name is Jude Sample, I'm thefounder of the Divorce Dab and
my co-host is Dallas Bluth.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, Dallas Bluth, with Black Box Dating.
I'm a dating coach for men.
I help men build realconfidence, find deeper
connections and ultimately havereally hot sex.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's what I do deeper connections and
ultimately have really hot sex.
That's what I do and I wish I'dhave found Dallas about 13
years ago.
It would have helped metremendously.
As any of you that havelistened to some of the previous
podcasts that we've produced orhave listened to my podcast on
the Divorced Advocate I don'twant to say every mistake in the
(01:04):
book Dating After Divorce, butI've made quite a lot of them
and I've been joking with Dallasa little bit that he's going to
bring the expertise and I'mgoing to bring all of the dumb
situations and mistakes and allthe things not to do for him to
analyze and scrutinize about mydating life, in hopes that we
can share some pearls of wisdomwith you all and you don't make
(01:28):
those same difficult,challenging mistakes.
On that note, we have kind of acurrent event situation that
came up in the news this weekand if any of you I'm dating
myself with this reference now,because probably any of you that
are younger that read this werelike who is David Justice?
(01:50):
And you probably know who HalleBerry is, she's a famous actor,
an excellent, excellent actress, right?
But David Justice and HalleBerry were just in the news
because David Justice was on apodcast talking about.
Well, the context of the wholething was he was talking about
the scrutiny of stars.
(02:11):
And so, dallas, I went back Ilistened to the whole thing I
don't know if you went back andlistened to it but he was
talking about the scrutiny ofbeing in relationships and
stardom.
And for those of you who don'tknow, david Justice was a stud
baseball player in the 90s andearly 2000s for Atlanta Braves.
New York Yankees won a coupleof World Series, was just
(02:33):
tremendous.
Halle Berry, obviously I thinkshe's an Academy Award-winning
actress, just a tremendousactress.
And they were married in, Ithink, the mid to late 90s.
They were married in, I think,the mid to late 90s.
And I'm going to read the quotebecause this is what he said and
(02:55):
this is what kind of createdsome of this spark and outrage
on social media, which is likeyou can say the sky is blue and
you get spark and outrage, right.
But so let's read it and thenwe're going to just dive into it
a little bit.
He said quote, unquote or quotebecause I was young and I had
only honestly been in onerelationship before my knowledge
(03:16):
and my understanding, my wisdomaround relationships just
wasn't vast.
So I'm looking at my mom andI'm a Midwest guy.
So in my mind I'm thinking awife at that time should cook,
clean, traditional, you know.
Then I'm thinking, okay, if wehave kids, is this the woman I
want to have kids with and builda family with At that time as a
(03:36):
young guy.
She don't cook, don't clean,don't really seem motherly.
And then we start having issues.
Okay, wow, here we go.
Right, so Dallas, there's a lotto unpack in there.
But give me your initialreaction to this quote.
When we first talked about thistopic, I don't know who David
(03:56):
Justice was.
So tell me which is okay, right, like we don't all follow
baseball and we don't followeverything.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What's your initial reaction just to this quote?
You know a famous athlete and afamous actress, but the truth
is we tend to go intorelationships assuming that we
have the same picture in ourmind that the other person has
in their mind.
And in that quote he mentionsthe role that his mother had and
what the role of a wife and amother look like.
(04:38):
You know, cooking, cleaning,taking care of kids.
Even saying that doesn't getspecific enough as far as how
much of that, what theexpectations are, and this is
like classic miscommunication.
That happens both inrelationships and also in dating
.
You know, somebody says youknow, here we're talking about
(05:00):
relationship, but if you saidyou know, hey, I want to go on a
hot date, I'm going to take youout for a hot date on Friday.
You know, my brain as a guy hasone picture what's hot, exactly
yeah.
And then she's got a wholedifferent idea of what hot looks
like.
It might involve a whole lotmore of me listening and a whole
lot less of us touching, butthat's hot in her mind and and
(05:24):
the, the, it's, it's, and and.
What this really comes down tois essentially projecting an
image that we have onto theother person and we have to
project as humans there.
There's no way we can knowpeople you know out of the gate
and we can't we can't go off ofzero information.
We we have to from a survivalpoint of view.
We can't go off of zeroinformation.
(05:45):
We have to, from a survivalpoint of view, make certain
projections.
The problem is, as we moveforward in dating somebody or
being in a relationship orcourtship, towards marriage
especially, we have to realizethat there is a handoff going.
There's like a relay race going.
Where we start with projectionson one side and towards the
other side, we start to see whatthe person's actual pictures
(06:06):
are in their mind, what do theymean when they're talking about
a marriage?
And we need to be veryself-aware of that and we have
to dispel the projections inexchange for the reality in the
person's mind.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah.
So I think it's interestingbecause he says it too right
there in his quote.
He says my knowledge and myunderstanding, my wisdom around
relationships.
It just wasn't vast, and I feellike a lot of us that may not
have had anybody that sharedwith us how to date, what to
(06:42):
look for, all the nuances ofdating and relationships, which
are vast, right, they're sodynamic and relationships can be
so challenging that if youdon't do what you and so what
I'm going to boil downeverything you just said is
communication, right, liketaking the time to really talk
(07:07):
about what it is that you wantand you said it off the bat
which is, well, those are justlike tip of the iceberg things
to talk about Well, who's goingto clean, who's going to cook,
but how many babies do you wantto have?
Where do you want to live?
All that stuff is reallyimportant to figure out Now,
(07:29):
before we go down that road, andhow to do that.
I feel like it's reallyimportant also that we have to
know and understand ourselvesbefore we can even convey that
to somebody else.
And so this didn't last long,but I would use an example from
my life immediately.
Right, I had no clue.
(07:50):
My parents' relationship wasprobably the worst relationship
to model for a healthyrelationship.
I had just whatever I had in mymind from what I didn't want
from their relationship, whichis all that I could have taken
from it, the stuff that may havebeen out in society and in our
(08:11):
culture and stuff that I felt inin in my heart, that that I
wanted.
And and literally, when I met myex wife, the only the only bar
to me believing that she was theone is that she was the one
that I could date for thelongest period of time and still
get along like seven months.
There was like seven months andI was like, oh, she must be the
(08:33):
one we've gotten along for sevenmonths.
I've never dated anybody forlonger than seven months and I
was in my my late mid to late20s, right, david?
I think David Justice says theywere in their, their mid, like
25, 26 years old.
So you don't know what youdon't know and if, unless
somebody's guiding you, unlessyou've made the mistake of
(08:55):
getting into a relationship andhaving the challenge and maybe
having the divorce, then havingto go back and reassess things,
you don't know.
So how does one, especially inthe context of dads dating after
divorce, go about reassessingand evaluating what it is that
their values are and what theywant, so they don't get into
(09:18):
this situation in the nextrelationship.
Because I've got anotherexample of myself of what I did
in in my subsequent relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
This is maybe just going to be a therapy podcast
for me, dave dallas endlessquestions, endless mistakes, and
and I I haven't made all ofthem because I haven't been
married yet, but I've made.
I've made all all the ones youcan make before getting married.
For sure, actually, dallas, youdon't know- but this was my
whole intention around.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
This was yeah, just to, to get you to to help me
with my relationships by doing apodcast together.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Anyway, the secret's out okay gotcha, yeah, yeah,
much, much, much cheaper, hourlyrate understood, okay, um so,
uh, yeah.
So when it comes comes to tryingto know your values, knowing
your values is really, first ofall, you never know them
completely.
It's an ongoing self-discoveryprocess, and that self-discovery
(10:13):
process comes from a fewdifferent places.
Your parents we all had parents, and they modeled for us a
certain set of values.
Whether that relationship washealthy or not, it's still being
driven by values that thosepeople decided on.
(10:34):
I come from two parents thatgot married when they were 19
and they are still married today, in their early 70s, and by the
standards of today, that'sconsidered a huge success, and
it really is.
It's a testament to commitment.
Also, that can lead you tobelieve that well they've been
together.
(10:55):
That means that's a great model, turns out that's not entirely
true.
So the values that we're givenfrom early childhood, the models
that are set for us, that'smerely a starting point, and the
real trick is to develop anawareness of the values that we
take for granted.
We assume certain things aresimply the way you do it.
(11:19):
A concrete example growing up,we were never allowed to
weaponize words with one another.
We couldn't call each othernames.
We couldn't tell each otherthey're dumb.
Language was not something thatwe could ever use against
someone, even if we were angry,even if we were frustrated or
even if we were hurt.
That was a hard line that wewere never allowed to cross.
(11:42):
Fast forward, you know, 10, 20years.
I'm out there in the datingpool, dating women that are
suddenly completely fine withcalling each other names and
saying stuff that they don'tmean.
And they tell me later oh, Ididn't mean that.
I'm like what do you mean?
You didn't mean it For megrowing up you didn't say
(12:02):
something you didn't mean.
That wasn't reality and I'mlike okay, so those are my
values.
Do I want to keep those goingforward?
Yeah, for the most part I do,but I also want to realize not
everybody's coming from the sameplace.
What I found is that that canactually be rather rigid when it
(12:26):
comes to conflict resolutionwith somebody, because I was
expected to have a zerotolerance with language and I
then expect other people to havea zero tolerance with saying
things that they don't mean.
That might have made me alittle too strict in certain
situations.
So that's one particular value.
It's good.
I think it's a good value, butif overexercised, that can lead
(12:50):
to strenuous situations andreally cause relationships that
could have gone somewhere tojust die on the vine mind.
So what I have to do is I haveto realize, coming back to
self-awareness, that we all havecertain values that were just
copied and pasted right into ourlittle brains and we think it's
(13:13):
reality.
We think that that playbook ofvalues that we've been given is
the same playbook like 60% to90% the same as what everyone
else has out there.
Not true.
We want to become aware of whatthe rules are in our own
playbook, what the values arethat we've adopted.
And then two things.
One, realize that other peopleare going to have different
(13:35):
values Don't assume that theyhave the same ones and realize
there's a compare and contrastthat we want to do and bring it
to the surface.
Coming back to the marriagethat we were talking about
between the celebrities,assuming that we have similar
pages when we haven't actuallyread them off to each other,
that leads to getting entwinedin a very expensive Hollywood
(13:56):
marriage that then has to beunwound later.
That's one thing.
The other thing is I'm aware Ihave these values.
They're running in me bydefault.
They might not be the bestvalues.
So, for example, somebody mightfeel that avoiding conflict is
a high value because that's howeverybody in the family did it
and we don't talk about certainthings and you can see nobody
(14:18):
fights.
Well, is that a good value?
Depends on the situation.
If it's a casual encounter onthe street with a stranger, of
course that's a good value.
Depends on the situation.
If it's a casual encounter onthe street with a stranger, of
course that's a good idea.
A long-term relationship whereyou're going to be living with
somebody, in my opinion, that'snot going to lead to the biggest
open connection that you canhave with the person.
So we want to check and see howthe value, become aware of the
(14:41):
values that were instilled in us, compare them to other people,
but also look at the values thatwere in ourselves and ask
ourselves do we, for ourselves,want to keep them, do we want to
modify them, or do we juststraight up want to trade them
out for a different set ofvalues?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah.
So I want to distill that downa little bit more in a how for
the dad's listening, which is so.
Maybe you're, maybe you'retaking an inventory and
reflecting upon the relationship, uh, and your, uh, your, your,
your marriage, and what that waslike.
(15:17):
Can you write a list of all thethings that you enjoyed, that
you like, maybe values andbeliefs that you, that you, that
you, uh, that, and beliefs thatyou, that you, that you, that
you had, that you shared, thatwere were positive and that were
good, but then also, right, theones and the things and the
values and beliefs that werechallenging?
Because, whether whether wewant to accept it or not, there
(15:40):
is always a relational dynamic.
Right, you and I have arelational dynamic going on
right now.
Right, everybody has arelational dynamic that is
happening and, to your point, itstems from childhood
experiences, maybe trauma, yourearly adult life experience,
like all of your lifeexperiences, distilled all
together, put in a pot, mixedall together, and then you meet
(16:02):
somebody and then thatrelational dynamic starts to
form.
Right, that's the, that's thebest way I can, I can, I can
describe it.
And so when there's anunhealthy, where there are
unhealthy parts of thatrelational dynamic, obviously
there's healthy parts of thatrelational dynamic Otherwise you
wouldn't have fallen in love,you wouldn't have gotten married
, you wouldn't have had childrentogether, started a family and
(16:24):
done that for so many years.
But that doesn't mean thatthere's not, at the same time,
unhealthy dynamics that arepresent.
You're just not payingattention to them.
Or, like I said, like sevenmonths I was like, yeah, this is
the one right, but I didn'ttake enough time.
And I think David Justice saidafter five months, halle Berry
(16:47):
asked him to marry her and hewas like, yeah, she's hot and I
don't want to.
He said another thing that wasvery telling and I would I would
welcome people or encouragepeople to go and listen to it,
because it seemed like he had alot of really good
self-reflection on on himselfand he literally says near the
end that honestly his quote ishonestly, we probably could have
(17:09):
made it if I knew about therapy.
If we knew about therapy, weprobably could have made it and
we never had any major issueslike that.
So it was pretty self-aware andhe talks about that.
He didn't know and so, takingthat, so give us some advice on
(17:33):
how to identify those unhealthyparts of that relational dynamic
that you had going on, and Ialso want to ask that you put it
in the context of theseunhealthy relational dynamics
are typically not isolated toyour romantic relationships,
right?
They're going to show up withyour children, maybe at work,
with your friendships, et cetera.
(17:54):
So how do you first becomeaware of those and then what can
you do with them?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, okay, big question, lots of answers.
I'll jump into the parts thatcome to mind first.
So when we experiencerelationships, whether they're
romantic or, like you said, withfriends, with kids, with family
, members of the family we wereborn into, we tend to take the
relationship and all thedynamics and interactions in one
(18:20):
big lump sum.
It's very hard to achieveclarity for ourselves when we do
that.
We tend to get lost in the backand forth in the conversation.
We tend to get lost in thenegotiations, and then it
quickly turns intojustifications and accusations
that might be direct but a lotof times are actually very
(18:42):
passive and hidden, and it turnsinto a big mess.
The way I like to look at it iswhat you're trying to achieve
is clarity in your interactionin a relationship, and the way
you do that is you start tostratify it, just like sort of
layers of sentiment in the earth, and what you want to realize
is okay, I'm interacting withthis other person, this is our
(19:03):
dialogue going back and forth,back and forth.
That's one part of it, and thenI have my emotional side, how
I'm feeling about it.
That is separate from the wordsgoing back and forth.
This person could have said theexact same words to somebody
else and they would have atotally different emotional
reaction to it.
That means that those emotions,those are mine, not ours.
(19:24):
It's mine.
Obviously, what the otherperson says has an impact on my
feelings, but the feelings aremine, so I cut it as a separate
layer.
That's my emotional layer Also.
Then, another layer that I wouldstratify out is the behavior.
How, when I have those emotions, when I'm getting frustrated,
when I'm getting angry you know,if I have a child and I'm
losing patience, when I'mgetting angry, if I have a child
(19:45):
and I'm losing patience becauseI've told them 12 times we have
to get going and they stillwon't put their shoes on, that
frustration, that's a feelingthat's going to happen, whether
I choose to yell or whether Ichoose to go over, get down on
my knee, make eye contact withthe child and show them that you
(20:05):
have no wiggle room anymore.
Those are two very differentsets of behavior.
So the behavior is a wholedifferent strat of you know, a
whole different layer that wehave to to stratify in this.
And the last one is and this isthis is really, this is really
the piece when it comes tovalues is values in a large to a
(20:26):
large degree, values actuallyare what define our identity as
an individual.
And when it comes to behaviors,when it comes to reacting and
not reacting, when it comes togood habits and bad habits,
honesty, any part of ourbehavior is going to be driven
(20:50):
by, ultimately, what we chooseto value.
And I learned a great templatefor this.
It's a simple phrase.
And you say you know, you takea step back.
Okay, so you're having aninteraction, you feel an emotion
, you could see that you couldbehave one way or another.
And then you ask yourself hangon, what kind of a guy am I?
(21:10):
And that's the beginning of thetemplate.
And you say you know what andthis is where the
self-reflection comes in youtake a step back, you go all
right, I could go a fewdifferent ways here.
What kind of guy am I?
And then you decide and you sayI'm the kind of guy that.
And then you fill in the blankso I'm the kind of guy that
(21:31):
yells at his kids after I'veasked six times and they don't
do it.
A lot of guys.
Their behavior reflects thatthat is their value.
Now, those guys, would theyactually say that?
No, no self-respecting adult,especially a self-respecting dad
is going to want to say I'm thekind of guy that yells at his
(21:52):
kids in any situation.
He's not.
Well, the problem, though, iswe're not defining what the
value is.
We're leaving it open toemotions, reactions, behavior,
and we're not actuallyarticulating the core value at
the root.
So if it said, I'm the kind ofguy that takes a knee to get his
(22:14):
child's attention when I don'thave it, that would be.
I don't have any childrenpersonally, but I do interact
with kids.
I am an uncle and I have workedwith not worked with but I've
interacted with kids in fairlyintimate situations.
Every time that I find that,when I take a knee and they have
an adult's undivided attentionand they can see that the adult
(22:37):
is 100% present, the presence ofthe child tends to focus in on
them, because one thing thatchildren want more than anything
is the attention of an adult.
They really really do.
It's when we say, as an adultokay, you got to get your shoes
on, but it's something I saidand they have 3% of my attention
they're not going to take itseriously.
However, if they have 95% of myattention because I've gotten
(23:02):
down to that level, I've lookedthem in the eye, they can see
that all of my stillness isfocused on them.
Whole different reaction.
And again, those are thebehaviors of two very different
men, and both of them, alongwith a limitless number of other
men, are living inside of thepotential of myself.
(23:23):
And I have to choose what kindof a guy I am.
So I'm the kind of guy thatyells at my kids, or I'm the
kind of guy that takes a knee,holds my child by both hands,
looks them in the eye and sayswe need to go now.
No more you, no more putting iton them.
(23:43):
We need to do this.
And when we make statementslike that about the kind of guy
that I am, we're makingstatements about our identity
and that identity has valuesfused into it.
And from there that's like thelowest level of all the layers,
from there the behavior makessense, our emotions start to
(24:04):
shift.
And when that kind of guy I amcomes all the way out in the
conversation, that clears up allkinds of messes, just all on
its own up all kinds of messes,just all on its own Right.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So if I were to boil it down, it's the question helps
you to pause and identify theemotion that you're having that
is leading to the behavior,right, is that what you're
saying?
So this I'm the kind of guy.
And then you're identifying thebehavior that you're exhibiting
and if it's not a behavior thatyou like, that you're
(24:43):
comfortable with or beingdescribed as, then you need to
look at the emotion behind whatit is, because our emotions
drive everything right.
So this helps us to stop and beaware of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So let me correct what I.
Let me just clarify what I wassaying.
So emotions are there to getour attention that something is
happening, something's off.
Emotions do not tell us thetruth of what's going on.
Behavior is something we do bychoice.
Emotions we don't choose theemotions.
For the most part, the behavior.
We are 100%, as adults,responsible for our behavior, so
(25:21):
that makes them very distinctfrom the emotions, the identity
piece.
That is what dictates thebehavior.
If I'm the kind of guy that doesthis, if I'm the kind of guy
that values this, certainbehaviors will automatically
fall into place.
Once I've defined that, thequestion is what?
(25:42):
So we have all these layersjust running automatically in us
when we ask the question.
That's where we're hittingpause.
We're going okay, I'm feelingan emotion that is not the kind
of vibe that I want to give offas a man or as a dad.
So I'm hitting pause so that Ican get back down to of vibe
that I want to give off as a manor as a dad.
So I'm hitting pause so that Ican get back down to the root
and I need to figure out what'sthe programming at my
(26:04):
self-identity level, because ifI'm having a negative emotion.
There's a conflict inside of meabout my identity and I need to
go back down right and and umarticulate not, you know I had.
The question starts it, butthen the statement completes it.
The statement is what makes itclear.
(26:25):
I'm the kind of guy that liftsup everything control, or is in
control of his emotions.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Right, I'm the kind of guy that's in control of his
emotions.
I'm not the kind of guy that isscreaming, yelling at his kids,
or I'm the kind of guy that'shonest.
I'm not the kind of guy that'sgoing to lie about the situation
, or or whatever and and um andsaying something like I'm the
kind of guy that's honest.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's, that's an excellent statement.
However, honest again is a bitof a summary term, the more
personal we can make it.
I'm the kind of guy that alwaysspeaks the truth.
That is a more concrete you canfeel it Like if you say I'm the
kind of guy that's honest.
I'm the kind of guy that alwaysspeaks the truth.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm the kind of guy that has integrity.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Okay, integrity could be a lot.
I'm the kind of guy that actsthe, that acts the same way
whether someone is looking ornot.
That's one way of makingintegrity a more concrete
concept.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So what's come to me in talking about this is I'm
drawing a correlation betweenthe concept of nonviolent
communication that we, that you,perform with somebody else.
But this is kind of like a kindof like a, an internal type of
nonviolent communication withyourself.
(27:44):
You're identifying the behaviorYou're talking about, how it
makes you feel, how you feelwhat you want to do instead and
taking a course correction.
So it's almost.
It's almost internal nonviolentcommunication and for those
listening that it's almostinternal nonviolent
communication, and for thoselistening that aren't familiar
with nonviolent communication,it is a concept of how to
communicate effectively withanother person and there's four
(28:08):
or five steps to doing that.
But what I'm hearing Dallasdescribe here is a way to have
nonviolent communication withyourself.
So there's a lot of positivesto what you're saying.
Describe here is a is a way tohave nonviolent communication
with yourself.
So a lot, there's a lot andthere's a lot of positives of
what you're saying, dallas,because one it's not.
You're not beating yourself upabout it Like I'm I.
It's the.
I'm the kind of guy it might be.
It might be it might shake youa little bit If you, if you do
(28:39):
identify the fact.
Well, you stopped yourself andyou are screaming at your kids
or you are not telling the truthor whatever.
But that's exactly what we wantto do, because we want to
course correct on what has beencausing these unhealthy
relational dynamics.
So I really love that I'm thekind of guy and then put in the
behavior, right, be specificabout what the behavior is, and
then the emotion behind it.
That's um, that's pretty,that's golden, my friend, I
(29:00):
really really like that.
That's uh, that is uh, that'samazing because and and I'll use
another, uh, I use anotherexample I had some as a as a
young adult, had some verysignificant like anger, being a
codependent and raised in ahousehold where I was
(29:25):
conditionally loved and havingto give love in order to get
love and by being aquote-unquote good boy.
That just builds up a whole lotof resentment and anger.
But I didn't have any idea,right, this is the conditioning
that I had in my childhood.
So one day somebody told meabout how angry that I seemed
(29:50):
and I was absolutely shocked,right?
And I say that because I wantthe dads to hear like, some of
this stuff it's going to be arevelation, and that's okay, and
it's not going to all happen atone time.
Also, there's no goal line here.
Fellows, this is a continualjourney.
There's going to be stuff here.
There's a reason this is allhappening.
(30:12):
Number one I know it might behard to hear but hopefully, if
you're listening now, you'remaybe a little ways down the
path and through some healing.
But there's a reason this ishappening and I can assure you,
having gone through it andworked with thousands of guys
that have.
One of the primary reasons issome self-awareness and ability
to move forward in a healthy andand better functioning way.
(30:36):
So these revelations, thisquestion, might shake you and
you might say, yeah, that's notwhat I want to be.
And then you can start to havethat conversation with yourself
about, okay, well, let me thinkabout this value, right?
And then how do we go aboutsorting through that?
(30:56):
We talked about maybe makinglists or or whatnot, and and
let's, let's if we can't, if wecan, let's define the difference
between a value and a belief.
And I've got, I've got, yeah,value and a belief, because we
hear those kind of innerintertwined and we talked about,
we talked about some valueshere already honesty, stuff like
(31:18):
that.
The way that I define thedifference between a value and a
belief is a value is somethingthat nobody can take away from
you.
You can be honest.
Somebody can't take honestyaway from you.
Integrity they can't takeintegrity away from you.
Integrity they can't takeintegrity away from you Stuff
like that.
(31:38):
Beliefs are hey, I believe inthe First Amendment, hey, I
believe in whatever.
Right, there's beliefs, butthey can get taken away, they
get changed, etc.
So that's how I define thedifference between beliefs and
values.
Beliefs, essentially, are muchdeeper and kind of a compass for
(31:59):
how you live your life.
Beliefs are things that youbelieve and ways in which you
might live your life.
If you believe in the FirstAmendment and free speech,
you're going to live your lifein a certain way, but that can
get taken away if you live in adifferent country, right.
So you can still have a beliefin that and go to a different
(32:20):
country, and that belief can betaken away from you because
you're not going to have it.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I love that distinction between values and
beliefs.
I think that's very applicable.
Another way that I look at itis I tend to see values as
introspective.
Looking inward, they're thingsthat have to do with my chosen
defined reality within myself.
Beliefs have to do largely withwhat I think is going on in the
(32:48):
world around me.
So I believe that this womanthat I'm going to get married
wants to have three kids and,you know, eventually, like over
job, when those children areborn, that's a belief that I
have.
Now, if I said you know, this isjust tying it back into the
original topic.
If I have a value that my wifeis going to be a stay at home
(33:11):
mom during those early childhoodyears, that's value.
I want to share that value, youknow, with other people.
And to childhood years, that'svalue.
I want to share that value withother people.
And, to your point, that's notsomething that's going to change
very quickly.
I would really have to learnsomething new about myself where
I had a blind spot and nowthere's a better value that I'm
trading it out for.
The other really important thingand this has to do with it
(33:33):
being internal versus externalis that values are things, to
your point, that don't change.
I hold them firmly.
My integrity, my honesty, myway of entering into the world
and interacting with it is notgoing to change because that
(33:53):
behavior is driven by values,beliefs.
However, I hold those veryloosely because beliefs are kind
of just a cousin to projections.
I don't really know what'sgoing on.
I think I do.
I believe that something'sgoing on, but I need to hold
them loosely and allow thebelief to be clarified over time
(34:15):
as things come into focus.
As somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I get to know them better I also just want to
circle back to what you said oh,go ahead.
Yeah I was gonna say, which isbasically the definition of how
you come about in holding trueto your beliefs, because I don't
have the same beliefs now atthis age as I did when I was 15.
Right, so those beliefs changeover a period of time and that
(34:42):
is by being open.
And I think the point of thepoint of we just don't know
everything, right as much as wewith our big human brains, we
like to think there is an, and Ithink if you really look at
science anymore, this can.
Or if you want to look at itfrom a spiritual perspective,
(35:04):
like the more we know, the morewe learn, the more questions we
have there's.
So there's like infinite numberof questions that come, of
questions that come.
And if we just approached moreof our questions or our
relationships that are with youknow, this is what I believe,
but I don't know, and I'mprobably not going to go no in
(35:25):
this lifetime or until I meet mymaker, as to what, what is true
and what's not true, then andthat would like kind of loosen
the grip for everybody on whatwe see out there, with everybody
, all, me and you and them andus, and it's just insane.
So I think that's a really goodpoint in adding a perspective
(35:46):
when our beliefs during divorceand after divorce change too,
because that's a very, verychallenging, challenging times.
So how do we, how do we or youwere going to make a point.
Did you still have that pointin your mind or did I just talk
it out of it?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
No, it's fine, it's fine.
I wanted to come back to whatyou said about nonviolent
communication, and it's normallytalked about as a dialogue
between two people and how theprocess I was talking about
about getting down to definingyour value is essentially a
nonviolent communication youhave with yourself.
I just wanted to add, bill,first of all, wonderful insight,
(36:25):
absolutely brilliant rightthere.
And I want to add to that thatwhen we do the work well, let's
put this another way, and whenwe do the work well, let's put
(36:50):
this another way.
When we don't do that withourselves first, the
communication we have with, mucheasier for me to say where I
stand on a certain point or whyI'm making the point that I am.
When we haven't done that workindividually and, like you said,
it can be very shaky to do thatwork when we haven't done that,
we're trying to sort it outinside of ourselves at the same
(37:12):
time as sort it out with ourpartner or with our child.
That is going to be, that isgoing to just turn into a messy,
messy situation.
So you know, in my coachingwith men we have three C's.
The first one is confidence.
That confidence is that work,that is, you as a man, getting
square with yourself and knowingwhere your values are.
(37:34):
You're never done doing that.
You're always discovering more.
But for this particularsituation, for this particular
set of emotions that I'm notreally cool with, I need to come
back, find square one formyself.
Where do I stand?
And once I have that confidencepiece that being square with
(37:54):
myself then the second C iscommunication, and I simply make
statements.
This is no longer a back andforth sort of.
We're both trying to sort itout, but the truth is I'm caught
up in my own emotions.
No, no, no, it goes all the waydown to the root of what the
value is.
So that internal discussion,with the nonviolent
communication, helps to reallydispel all of the mess and
(38:18):
stress that's happening in theconversation, all of the mess
and stress that's happening inthe conversation.
And the last thing I want tothrow in there, just to tie back
into the fact that this is adifficult moment because, yeah,
you're talking about shiftingaround foundation components
inside yourself, when you'retalking about defining values,
and it is rough when you have tosee that your behavior actually
(38:39):
doesn't align with your values.
That is an emotional place tobe.
I mean, it can be tears, it canbe anger.
It can be a lot, and that isthe price we have to pay, though
, in order to set ourselvesstraight, and a man that has set
himself straight is going to bea way better dad.
(39:01):
He's going to provide a lotmore tranquility and peace for
himself, going through anyturmoil, including divorce, and,
just because this podcast isabout dating, he is going to be
so much more attractive and sexyto women when he has set
himself straight.
When has?
That's what we mean when yousay you know, have you done the
(39:22):
work?
That's what the work is.
The work is realizing mybehaviors don't align with my
values.
Let's define the values andmake sure my behaviors are
matching up, and that process,like you mentioned earlier, is
incredibly destabilizing.
It's difficult, it's emotional,but that is what a man does
(39:45):
when he's on his journey.
A man is constantly reinventinghimself, he's digging deeper,
he's finding better values.
He's always, always trading upto a better version of himself.
A guy that's not doing that isgetting fat and lazy, so to
speak.
You know, as he gets older,he's not alive, he's not on fire
(40:05):
.
You know, in the way that heneeds to be.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, and I'll take it back to the interview with
David Justice too.
He had mentioned at one point.
He said you know, looking back,I can't imagine how Haley felt
when I went to her and said, hey, I want to be done with this.
But she was truly in love withme and she didn't recognize, she
(40:32):
didn't know any of this thatwas going on in my heart and I
didn't bring any of it up and Ididn't talk to her, I just said
we're done and then I left.
I didn't transition or anything, it was just done and so, uh,
so I think I think that was a, a, a very poignant, um, uh point
and just example of someself-awareness, some
(40:54):
self-reflection, uh, uh, someself-reflection, and then
maturity, after a period of timeof looking back and having
compassion for for him, for him,for her, for himself, and how
he showed up as a 20 some yearold you know I'm gonna say kid,
right, but but a 20, 20 someyear old young adult, uh, that
(41:15):
didn't know what they were doing.
And that goes to to what you're, what you're saying, which is,
which is it's a progression andit's an ongoing progression and,
yeah, it's going to bring uptough stuff, but I'll use a
sports analogy or a gym analogy.
It's hard when you get intothat gym the first time,
especially if there's selfawareness.
If you're just coming in thefirst time, your muscles hurt,
(41:38):
you feel like you're going todie.
It is awful.
If you're running, you feellike your chest is going to.
Whatever you're doing for thefirst time in exercising your
body, it's going to hurt, butafter a while you start to see
results and then it's the samething, mentally and emotionally,
that it's going to hurt.
There's a lot of stuff that'sgoing to come up.
(41:58):
I would just say we're notgoing to dive into this, but if
you can avoid romanticrelationships during this time
while you're doing this work,that's probably a really good
idea.
I speak this from massiveexperience myself and making
that mistake until I got the twoby four upside the head
multiple times post-divorce andpost-failed relationship after
(42:22):
that, because this work is verydeep and it's very we call it
when we talk about it in groupmusic.
You're breaking open, which isnot a bad thing.
That's a good thing, but you'rebreaking open.
You want time to go throughthat.
You talked about grief earlier.
Do some healing, learn theemotions and then learn the
(42:45):
skills that you need to then getinto dating and that
communicating right, like wewere talking about with the
nonviolent communication, orbeing able to communicate then
somebody with somebody.
You started with confidence,right.
The first one is confidence.
So that's that phase where Iwould say post that you're,
you're broken open, you're doingthat work and then then you're
(43:09):
starting to learn to communicate.
But there's skills in that thatyou still have to learn.
And then there's a progression.
Uh, that we're.
We will talk about in thefuture, I'm sure on one of the
podcasts of the podcasts,because there's a myriad of
stuff for us to talk aboutthrough this.
But yeah, I wanted to make thatpoint Take it slow, guys.
(43:30):
Be tender with yourself andyour heart.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
You're going to be doing a lot of work and then
there's going to be plenty oftime for it you know there's
going to be plenty of time forit, yeah, and when you talk
about breaking it open, thatthat really is the feeling that
you get.
When you're, when you're doingit properly, when you're setting
yourself square with who reallyis who, with who you really are
deep inside, you are breakingyourself open, because what's
(43:56):
happening is you had an identitythat you've been living with
for years, and when you break itopen, that identity is cracking
like an eggshell and it'sfalling out and a new version of
you is emerging from inside ofthat shell.
And that is a painful process,you know.
Look at any baby bird will tellyou that the hardest part of a
(44:20):
baby bird's life is getting theout of their shell.
Like that is.
That is the.
That is the thing, however,that you know, um, this
disappears lots in nature.
That struggle that we gothrough cracking open and
emerging anew, that struggle iswhat creates the new level of
(44:42):
strength that can sustain thenew identity, and that is part
of it.
And, when it comes down to it,everything of value, this new
version of yourself, everythingof value, comes at a price.
The price is struggle.
When you go to the gym, you arestruggling.
When you're running, you'restruggling.
When you're lifting weights,you're struggling just to get
your butt into the car you go tothe gym, you are struggling.
When you're running, you'restruggling.
When you're lifting weights,you're struggling just to get
(45:03):
your butt into the car to go toit.
Psychologically, everything ofvalue comes at a price.
The price is the struggle, andif anything just given to us
without a struggle, the valuejust isn't the same.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Right, there's a saying what comes easy won't
last long, and what lasts longwon't come easy.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
So that's a good mantra.
I've got it up dry stone walls,you just stack them.
You have to dig up the stonesout of the ground with a bar,
(45:46):
put them in a wheelbarrow, takethem over to some other part of
the land and start stacking themup, an incredibly slow and
painful process.
Great overall total bodyworkout Totally great.
The cool thing is, though, whenyou build that wall right, it
lasts for generations, and forme it's just a reminder.
Um, the oldest structures in inthe world are all dry stone
structures.
They're just stone stacked ontop of each other.
(46:07):
Um, and when you do it right,which is a very, very slow
process, you know, it's thestory of the three little pigs.
You're going to build your houseout of straw.
You're going to build it out ofwood.
Are you going to build it outof brick?
Well, brick.
You going to build it out ofbrick?
Well, brick takes a long timeto manufacture and create and
then delay.
I mean, it is so much more work, but that house will last
(46:28):
multiples longer than the woodenhouse.
Doing it.
Once you start going to the gym, once you start approaching
women, you know the way that youwant to.
Once you start embracing thestruggle, you realize the
struggle is where the life isLike.
That's how you get the beststuff, particularly as a man.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah, absolutely I, and I know that's hard for some
of the dads that are listening,especially if they're still
working through heartbreak andhealing from some of that, but
you do come out stronger.
We call it Life 2.0 in thecommunity With a Life 2.0, it's
like an upgrade.
I'm telling you guys, it isabsolutely remarkable and
(47:13):
amazing.
You'll probably look back andyou'll be talking years later
and say this is what happened,this is what I went through, and
people will be just amazed athow strong you are in getting
through that and the person youhave become in getting through
it.
So to that I say stay strong.
(47:34):
And I love the stone wallbuilding exercise that you do or
I guess you call it fun.
I don't know that I would callit fun, but it's fun for you.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Okay, but I wanted to Out of perspective.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Whatever, yeah, no, we all have our thing right
there's.
I wanted to give a couple ofresources to the dads that are
listening and one of them is abook that is based upon that.
It's called Rebuilding Afteryour Relationship Ends and it
basically goes through all ofwhat we talked about today and
(48:16):
it is a building block.
They take a base buildingblocks and they talk about the
emotions.
It talks about how to identifythe emotions and then the next
layer of them like you weretalking about the next layer et
cetera.
So I think it ties in really,really well with what we kind of
talked about and also yourstone wall analogy as well.
(48:37):
But it's called Rebuilding whenyour Relationship Ends.
That's a great book.
And there's a couple others.
I don't know if you've heard ofthese.
One of them is called theTactical Guide to Women, written
by Dr Sean Smith.
He's a clinical psychologisthere in Denver Metro.
Excellent, excellent, excellentbook.
First half of the book is whatwe talked about today, which is
(48:59):
learning about yourself,understanding yourself, learning
about your values so that youcan communicate them, and it's a
great, great read.
I feel like, as a 15-year-oldboy, I wish somebody would have
given it to me and any15-year-old.
I have three girls, so I don'thave 15-year-old boys, so any
boy, I think, should read thisto really try to understand the
(49:21):
whole process of dating.
I think it would be a greatBible, if you will, for young
men that are dating.
So that's a good one.
And then the last one is calledthe Power of Commitment.
It's by a professor here atScott Stanley at Denver
University Scott Stanley atDenver University, and the cool,
(49:46):
the interesting thing that I'dlike the dads to get from that
book is how we talked about notknowing what your values are and
how I said my criteria wasseven months.
This must be the one we getalong.
He talks about how we backslideinto all of our relationships
or not all of our relationships,but how we often backslide into
our romantic relationships.
We start dating, we don't haveintentionality or clarity, we
(50:09):
don't really know what ourvalues are.
We might move in together, weget joint checking accounts and
a dog and then we're like, oh,we should just get married now.
And that's the wrong way to doit, like, oh, we should just get
married now, and that's thewrong way to do it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
That's what they call a situationship these days.
You're in a situation and itevolves, and it evolves and
before you know it, somebody gotpregnant and now we're married
and we never really decided todo any of this.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Right, right, and so maybe that'll be our next week's
episode as we go on to the nextstep, which is learning how to
communicate, sharing thesethings once you've taken the
time to really do the work, andunderstanding what your values
are and define what your beliefsare, et cetera.
How do you bring that now theninto dating in post-divorce with
(51:03):
single moms?
You're a single dad, they'vegot jobs.
You've got jobs.
They've got an ex.
You've got an ex.
You've got this heartbreak.
They've got all their stuff,their childhood programming and
traumas in your childhood.
How do you then bringcommunication of this into
dating?
So maybe we're just going toput that teaser out there for
(51:25):
next week and maybe we'll see,or maybe we'll make you guys
wait a couple of weeks andyou'll have to listen to us talk
about some stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Can I jump in?
I'd like both of us to shareone concrete thing on this topic
, though, before we wrap it up,and I'll go first.
I'd like to talk aboutsomething that has shifted in my
identity, and I'll talk aboutthe woman that I was with last
year.
I learned something aboutmyself dating her for a year,
and I had to get through thestruggle and define a new piece,
(51:54):
and what it was was.
I realized I'm the kind of guythat dates women that are kind
and open, realized I'm the kindof guy that dates women that are
kind and open.
There was a lot of closedoffness in the relationship that
I had and there was a lot ofattacking that was happening and
it shredded me up inside.
It was really, really hard forme and I realized, oh, I'm
(52:18):
dating someone that is not thetype of woman that I really date
.
But I had to say it and Irealized I'm the kind of guy
that dates women that are openand kind.
Obviously, that's notivorce.
I'm sure some values you knowcame to light and you redefined
yourself.
Can you share one of those withus?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
That incident happened, with somebody pointing
that out to me probably in myearly 20s, late teens, early 20s
where and what the source ofthat was and how to handle
things better and learn how tobe a better man around that and
show up in a different way.
So that was a really big thingfor me, especially the
codependency thing.
Right Was not having boundaries, and so I was the type of guy
who was going to love and loveand love and love was going to
(53:46):
conquer everything and it didn'tmatter.
So as long as I was giving love, I would be getting love right.
So that was the kind of guythat I was, which might sound
nice, right, nice guy, whateverwhich is.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
we'll get into that, I'm sure, in some, in some, in
some fashion, in our, in ourpodcast and the fairy tale
belief and I'm using the wordbelief very intentionally here
the fairy tale belief that loveconquers all.
If you're doing it in a veryspecific way, yes, that that is
true, but but you're talkingabout in the largest sense
(54:22):
possible and when we're talkingabout love being doing things
and trying to make people happy,love does not conquer all.
But yeah, we will cover that inanother episode.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Well, and it's not even love.
So, yeah, we will definitelytalk about that.
It'll be my next therapysession with Dallas.
Join us next week.
Talk about that.
It'll be my next therapysession with Dallas, join us
next week.
All right, my friend, that wasexcellent, excellent, and I also
want to point out.
So a big takeaway, two bigtakeaways for me, and maybe you
(54:54):
can share if you had any othertakeaways today is your tool.
I'm calling it a tool becauseit is a tool for us to stop and
have self-awareness is thephrase.
I'm the kind of guy.
So stop, yeah, stop.
I'm the kind of guy that andthen fill in the blank with what
behavior you are exhibiting andthat's going to give you a real
(55:15):
, it might give you a wake-upcall, it might be, or it might
help you say, okay, I'm on theright track.
It could go both ways, right,but um, that is a great tool to
to help you analyze and do someself-reflection.
And then the other was the, themvc, the non-violent
communication with yourself.
I just, I just love that.
That one.
I'm gonna have to do some morereflection on myself and
(55:39):
self-reflection, uh, and andmaybe work through that in my
mind.
That's going to take me alittle bit of journaling, I
think, and a little bit of timeto think about it, because I've
never really even thought aboutit from that perspective.
And I love that because it's abeautiful gentle way in which
you can communicate withyourself.
I do it all the time outwardlywith that I that I meet and my
(56:00):
children and everything else,but I'd never thought to do it
with, uh, with myself, and kindof have that internal dialogue
so, um, so, that's a, that's a,that's a cool one.
Anything, anything that came up, man, I'm telling you this was
amazing.
Your, our conversation was wasgold Dallas?
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right back at you, jude.
I love, I love all the materialyou're bringing and I love the
audience that you have that ishungry for a new approach to
dealing with conflict anddealing with themselves as men
in the midst of all the turmoil.
Actually, one of my takeawaysis from what you just said,
which was when you make thatstatement about your own
identity that you might have tomake it again.
We are going to be tested.
If I'm the kind of guy thatalways speaks the truth that
doesn't make it suddenly easy todo, that's going to be tested
(56:49):
over and over and over again andI have to restate the statement
.
I have to say, yes, this is theline, this is the rock, I set
it down.
This doesn't move inside of meuntil I see a really good reason
that reiterating andreaffirming those components of
one's identity is a huge part ofit, and that work is just never
(57:14):
done.
It's never done.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Amen, yep, yep.
It's a journey, not adestination, for sure.
So, dallas, where can anybodylistening get a hold of you and
get some more pearls of wisdomif they want to work and talk
with you directly?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
If you're looking for pearls of wisdom, just real
fast.
Search for Dallas Bluth Datingon YouTube.
That's where most of my videocontent is.
You can also find me onFacebook and Instagram, where
most of my video content is.
You can also find me onFacebook and Instagram, but
those are smaller versions ofwhat's already on YouTube.
I also do group coachingsessions.
It's a live motivational talkand office hours every week,
(57:51):
along with a write-up one pageon a certain topic that I'm
doing and some other goodiesthrown in in my group coaching
packages.
Check out blackboxdatingcom.
It's $45 a month, $35 a monthif you do it by the year, and
you get discounts to all kindsof other stuff.
So blackboxdatingcom, that'sthe place to go.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Awesome and I'm going to encourage everybody also to
check out thedivorcedadvocatecom.
That's the community that Ifounded and we assist dads
before, during and after divorce.
We've got resources for youwherever you might be at, like
this with dating, but also itcould be legal, mental,
emotional, physical, spiritual,whatever it is.
(58:33):
So check out the website atthedivorcedadvocatecom and we
will talk with you next week.
Dallas, thanks so much, alwaysa pleasure.
Thanks, jude.
Talk to you next week.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to the show and I am thrilled to be
back in action with the Dad'sDating After Divorce.
We are revamped and retooledhere and just ready to dive
right in and talk about somedating after divorce.
I have a new co-host.
(00:23):
My name is Jude Sample, I'm thefounder of the Divorce Dab and
my co-host is Dallas Bluth.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, Dallas Bluth, with Black Box Dating.
I'm a dating coach for men.
I help men build realconfidence, find deeper
connections and ultimately havereally hot sex.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's what I do deeper connections and
ultimately have really hot sex.
That's what I do and I wish I'dhave found Dallas about 13
years ago.
It would have helped metremendously.
As any of you that havelistened to some of the previous
podcasts that we've produced orhave listened to my podcast on
the Divorced Advocate I don'twant to say every mistake in the
(01:04):
book Dating After Divorce, butI've made quite a lot of them
and I've been joking with Dallasa little bit that he's going to
bring the expertise and I'mgoing to bring all of the dumb
situations and mistakes and allthe things not to do for him to
analyze and scrutinize about mydating life, in hopes that we
can share some pearls of wisdomwith you all and you don't make
(01:28):
those same difficult,challenging mistakes.
On that note, we have kind of acurrent event situation that
came up in the news this weekand if any of you I'm dating
myself with this reference now,because probably any of you that
are younger that read this werelike who is David Justice?
(01:50):
And you probably know who HalleBerry is, she's a famous actor,
an excellent, excellent actress, right?
But David Justice and HalleBerry were just in the news
because David Justice was on apodcast talking about.
Well, the context of the wholething was he was talking about
the scrutiny of stars.
(02:11):
And so, dallas, I went back Ilistened to the whole thing I
don't know if you went back andlistened to it but he was
talking about the scrutiny ofbeing in relationships and
stardom.
And for those of you who don'tknow, david Justice was a stud
baseball player in the 90s andearly 2000s for Atlanta Braves.
New York Yankees won a coupleof World Series, was just
(02:33):
tremendous.
Halle Berry, obviously I thinkshe's an Academy Award-winning
actress, just a tremendousactress.
And they were married in, Ithink, the mid to late 90s.
They were married in, I think,the mid to late 90s.
And I'm going to read the quotebecause this is what he said and
(02:55):
this is what kind of createdsome of this spark and outrage
on social media, which is likeyou can say the sky is blue and
you get spark and outrage, right.
But so let's read it and thenwe're going to just dive into it
a little bit.
He said quote, unquote or quotebecause I was young and I had
only honestly been in onerelationship before my knowledge
(03:16):
and my understanding, my wisdomaround relationships just
wasn't vast.
So I'm looking at my mom andI'm a Midwest guy.
So in my mind I'm thinking awife at that time should cook,
clean, traditional, you know.
Then I'm thinking, okay, if wehave kids, is this the woman I
want to have kids with and builda family with At that time as a
(03:36):
young guy.
She don't cook, don't clean,don't really seem motherly.
And then we start having issues.
Okay, wow, here we go.
Right, so Dallas, there's a lotto unpack in there.
But give me your initialreaction to this quote.
When we first talked about thistopic, I don't know who David
(03:56):
Justice was.
So tell me which is okay, right, like we don't all follow
baseball and we don't followeverything.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What's your initial reaction just to this quote?
You know a famous athlete and afamous actress, but the truth
is we tend to go intorelationships assuming that we
have the same picture in ourmind that the other person has
in their mind.
And in that quote he mentionsthe role that his mother had and
what the role of a wife and amother look like.
(04:38):
You know, cooking, cleaning,taking care of kids.
Even saying that doesn't getspecific enough as far as how
much of that, what theexpectations are, and this is
like classic miscommunication.
That happens both inrelationships and also in dating
.
You know, somebody says youknow, here we're talking about
(05:00):
relationship, but if you saidyou know, hey, I want to go on a
hot date, I'm going to take youout for a hot date on Friday.
You know, my brain as a guy hasone picture what's hot, exactly
yeah.
And then she's got a wholedifferent idea of what hot looks
like.
It might involve a whole lotmore of me listening and a whole
lot less of us touching, butthat's hot in her mind and and
(05:24):
the, the, it's, it's, and and.
What this really comes down tois essentially projecting an
image that we have onto theother person and we have to
project as humans there.
There's no way we can knowpeople you know out of the gate
and we can't we can't go off ofzero information.
We we have to from a survivalpoint of view.
We can't go off of zeroinformation.
(05:45):
We have to, from a survivalpoint of view, make certain
projections.
The problem is, as we moveforward in dating somebody or
being in a relationship orcourtship, towards marriage
especially, we have to realizethat there is a handoff going.
There's like a relay race going.
Where we start with projectionson one side and towards the
other side, we start to see whatthe person's actual pictures
(06:06):
are in their mind, what do theymean when they're talking about
a marriage?
And we need to be veryself-aware of that and we have
to dispel the projections inexchange for the reality in the
person's mind.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah.
So I think it's interestingbecause he says it too right
there in his quote.
He says my knowledge and myunderstanding, my wisdom around
relationships.
It just wasn't vast, and I feellike a lot of us that may not
have had anybody that sharedwith us how to date, what to
(06:42):
look for, all the nuances ofdating and relationships, which
are vast, right, they're sodynamic and relationships can be
so challenging that if youdon't do what you and so what
I'm going to boil downeverything you just said is
communication, right, liketaking the time to really talk
(07:07):
about what it is that you wantand you said it off the bat
which is, well, those are justlike tip of the iceberg things
to talk about Well, who's goingto clean, who's going to cook,
but how many babies do you wantto have?
Where do you want to live?
All that stuff is reallyimportant to figure out Now,
(07:29):
before we go down that road, andhow to do that.
I feel like it's reallyimportant also that we have to
know and understand ourselvesbefore we can even convey that
to somebody else.
And so this didn't last long,but I would use an example from
my life immediately.
Right, I had no clue.
(07:50):
My parents' relationship wasprobably the worst relationship
to model for a healthyrelationship.
I had just whatever I had in mymind from what I didn't want
from their relationship, whichis all that I could have taken
from it, the stuff that may havebeen out in society and in our
(08:11):
culture and stuff that I felt inin in my heart, that that I
wanted.
And and literally, when I met myex wife, the only the only bar
to me believing that she was theone is that she was the one
that I could date for thelongest period of time and still
get along like seven months.
There was like seven months andI was like, oh, she must be the
(08:33):
one we've gotten along for sevenmonths.
I've never dated anybody forlonger than seven months and I
was in my my late mid to late20s, right, david?
I think David Justice says theywere in their, their mid, like
25, 26 years old.
So you don't know what youdon't know and if, unless
somebody's guiding you, unlessyou've made the mistake of
(08:55):
getting into a relationship andhaving the challenge and maybe
having the divorce, then havingto go back and reassess things,
you don't know.
So how does one, especially inthe context of dads dating after
divorce, go about reassessingand evaluating what it is that
their values are and what theywant, so they don't get into
(09:18):
this situation in the nextrelationship.
Because I've got anotherexample of myself of what I did
in in my subsequent relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
This is maybe just going to be a therapy podcast
for me, dave dallas endlessquestions, endless mistakes, and
and I I haven't made all ofthem because I haven't been
married yet, but I've made.
I've made all all the ones youcan make before getting married.
For sure, actually, dallas, youdon't know- but this was my
whole intention around.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
This was yeah, just to, to get you to to help me
with my relationships by doing apodcast together.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Anyway, the secret's out okay gotcha, yeah, yeah,
much, much, much cheaper, hourlyrate understood, okay, um so,
uh, yeah.
So when it comes comes to tryingto know your values, knowing
your values is really, first ofall, you never know them
completely.
It's an ongoing self-discoveryprocess, and that self-discovery
(10:13):
process comes from a fewdifferent places.
Your parents we all had parents, and they modeled for us a
certain set of values.
Whether that relationship washealthy or not, it's still being
driven by values that thosepeople decided on.
(10:34):
I come from two parents thatgot married when they were 19
and they are still married today, in their early 70s, and by the
standards of today, that'sconsidered a huge success, and
it really is.
It's a testament to commitment.
Also, that can lead you tobelieve that well they've been
together.
(10:55):
That means that's a great model, turns out that's not entirely
true.
So the values that we're givenfrom early childhood, the models
that are set for us, that'smerely a starting point, and the
real trick is to develop anawareness of the values that we
take for granted.
We assume certain things aresimply the way you do it.
(11:19):
A concrete example growing up,we were never allowed to
weaponize words with one another.
We couldn't call each othernames.
We couldn't tell each otherthey're dumb.
Language was not something thatwe could ever use against
someone, even if we were angry,even if we were frustrated or
even if we were hurt.
That was a hard line that wewere never allowed to cross.
(11:42):
Fast forward, you know, 10, 20years.
I'm out there in the datingpool, dating women that are
suddenly completely fine withcalling each other names and
saying stuff that they don'tmean.
And they tell me later oh, Ididn't mean that.
I'm like what do you mean?
You didn't mean it For megrowing up you didn't say
(12:02):
something you didn't mean.
That wasn't reality and I'mlike okay, so those are my
values.
Do I want to keep those goingforward?
Yeah, for the most part I do,but I also want to realize not
everybody's coming from the sameplace.
What I found is that that canactually be rather rigid when it
(12:26):
comes to conflict resolutionwith somebody, because I was
expected to have a zerotolerance with language and I
then expect other people to havea zero tolerance with saying
things that they don't mean.
That might have made me alittle too strict in certain
situations.
So that's one particular value.
It's good.
I think it's a good value, butif overexercised, that can lead
(12:50):
to strenuous situations andreally cause relationships that
could have gone somewhere tojust die on the vine mind.
So what I have to do is I haveto realize, coming back to
self-awareness, that we all havecertain values that were just
copied and pasted right into ourlittle brains and we think it's
(13:13):
reality.
We think that that playbook ofvalues that we've been given is
the same playbook like 60% to90% the same as what everyone
else has out there.
Not true.
We want to become aware of whatthe rules are in our own
playbook, what the values arethat we've adopted.
And then two things.
One, realize that other peopleare going to have different
(13:35):
values Don't assume that theyhave the same ones and realize
there's a compare and contrastthat we want to do and bring it
to the surface.
Coming back to the marriagethat we were talking about
between the celebrities,assuming that we have similar
pages when we haven't actuallyread them off to each other,
that leads to getting entwinedin a very expensive Hollywood
(13:56):
marriage that then has to beunwound later.
That's one thing.
The other thing is I'm aware Ihave these values.
They're running in me bydefault.
They might not be the bestvalues.
So, for example, somebody mightfeel that avoiding conflict is
a high value because that's howeverybody in the family did it
and we don't talk about certainthings and you can see nobody
(14:18):
fights.
Well, is that a good value?
Depends on the situation.
If it's a casual encounter onthe street with a stranger, of
course that's a good value.
Depends on the situation.
If it's a casual encounter onthe street with a stranger, of
course that's a good idea.
A long-term relationship whereyou're going to be living with
somebody, in my opinion, that'snot going to lead to the biggest
open connection that you canhave with the person.
So we want to check and see howthe value, become aware of the
(14:41):
values that were instilled in us, compare them to other people,
but also look at the values thatwere in ourselves and ask
ourselves do we, for ourselves,want to keep them, do we want to
modify them, or do we juststraight up want to trade them
out for a different set ofvalues?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah.
So I want to distill that downa little bit more in a how for
the dad's listening, which is so.
Maybe you're, maybe you'retaking an inventory and
reflecting upon the relationship, uh, and your, uh, your, your,
your marriage, and what that waslike.
(15:17):
Can you write a list of all thethings that you enjoyed, that
you like, maybe values andbeliefs that you, that you, that
you, uh, that, and beliefs thatyou, that you, that you, that
you had, that you shared, thatwere were positive and that were
good, but then also, right, theones and the things and the
values and beliefs that werechallenging?
Because, whether whether wewant to accept it or not, there
(15:40):
is always a relational dynamic.
Right, you and I have arelational dynamic going on
right now.
Right, everybody has arelational dynamic that is
happening and, to your point, itstems from childhood
experiences, maybe trauma, yourearly adult life experience,
like all of your lifeexperiences, distilled all
together, put in a pot, mixedall together, and then you meet
(16:02):
somebody and then thatrelational dynamic starts to
form.
Right, that's the, that's thebest way I can, I can, I can
describe it.
And so when there's anunhealthy, where there are
unhealthy parts of thatrelational dynamic, obviously
there's healthy parts of thatrelational dynamic Otherwise you
wouldn't have fallen in love,you wouldn't have gotten married
, you wouldn't have had childrentogether, started a family and
(16:24):
done that for so many years.
But that doesn't mean thatthere's not, at the same time,
unhealthy dynamics that arepresent.
You're just not payingattention to them.
Or, like I said, like sevenmonths I was like, yeah, this is
the one right, but I didn'ttake enough time.
And I think David Justice saidafter five months, halle Berry
(16:47):
asked him to marry her and hewas like, yeah, she's hot and I
don't want to.
He said another thing that wasvery telling and I would I would
welcome people or encouragepeople to go and listen to it,
because it seemed like he had alot of really good
self-reflection on on himselfand he literally says near the
end that honestly his quote ishonestly, we probably could have
(17:09):
made it if I knew about therapy.
If we knew about therapy, weprobably could have made it and
we never had any major issueslike that.
So it was pretty self-aware andhe talks about that.
He didn't know and so, takingthat, so give us some advice on
(17:33):
how to identify those unhealthyparts of that relational dynamic
that you had going on, and Ialso want to ask that you put it
in the context of theseunhealthy relational dynamics
are typically not isolated toyour romantic relationships,
right?
They're going to show up withyour children, maybe at work,
with your friendships, et cetera.
(17:54):
So how do you first becomeaware of those and then what can
you do with them?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, okay, big question, lots of answers.
I'll jump into the parts thatcome to mind first.
So when we experiencerelationships, whether they're
romantic or, like you said, withfriends, with kids, with family
, members of the family we wereborn into, we tend to take the
relationship and all thedynamics and interactions in one
(18:20):
big lump sum.
It's very hard to achieveclarity for ourselves when we do
that.
We tend to get lost in the backand forth in the conversation.
We tend to get lost in thenegotiations, and then it
quickly turns intojustifications and accusations
that might be direct but a lotof times are actually very
(18:42):
passive and hidden, and it turnsinto a big mess.
The way I like to look at it iswhat you're trying to achieve
is clarity in your interactionin a relationship, and the way
you do that is you start tostratify it, just like sort of
layers of sentiment in the earth, and what you want to realize
is okay, I'm interacting withthis other person, this is our
(19:03):
dialogue going back and forth,back and forth.
That's one part of it, and thenI have my emotional side, how
I'm feeling about it.
That is separate from the wordsgoing back and forth.
This person could have said theexact same words to somebody
else and they would have atotally different emotional
reaction to it.
That means that those emotions,those are mine, not ours.
(19:24):
It's mine.
Obviously, what the otherperson says has an impact on my
feelings, but the feelings aremine, so I cut it as a separate
layer.
That's my emotional layer Also.
Then, another layer that I wouldstratify out is the behavior.
How, when I have those emotions, when I'm getting frustrated,
when I'm getting angry you know,if I have a child and I'm
losing patience, when I'mgetting angry, if I have a child
(19:45):
and I'm losing patience becauseI've told them 12 times we have
to get going and they stillwon't put their shoes on, that
frustration, that's a feelingthat's going to happen, whether
I choose to yell or whether Ichoose to go over, get down on
my knee, make eye contact withthe child and show them that you
(20:05):
have no wiggle room anymore.
Those are two very differentsets of behavior.
So the behavior is a wholedifferent strat of you know, a
whole different layer that wehave to to stratify in this.
And the last one is and this isthis is really, this is really
the piece when it comes tovalues is values in a large to a
(20:26):
large degree, values actuallyare what define our identity as
an individual.
And when it comes to behaviors,when it comes to reacting and
not reacting, when it comes togood habits and bad habits,
honesty, any part of ourbehavior is going to be driven
(20:50):
by, ultimately, what we chooseto value.
And I learned a great templatefor this.
It's a simple phrase.
And you say you know, you takea step back.
Okay, so you're having aninteraction, you feel an emotion
, you could see that you couldbehave one way or another.
And then you ask yourself hangon, what kind of a guy am I?
(21:10):
And that's the beginning of thetemplate.
And you say you know what andthis is where the
self-reflection comes in youtake a step back, you go all
right, I could go a fewdifferent ways here.
What kind of guy am I?
And then you decide and you sayI'm the kind of guy that.
And then you fill in the blankso I'm the kind of guy that
(21:31):
yells at his kids after I'veasked six times and they don't
do it.
A lot of guys.
Their behavior reflects thatthat is their value.
Now, those guys, would theyactually say that?
No, no self-respecting adult,especially a self-respecting dad
is going to want to say I'm thekind of guy that yells at his
(21:52):
kids in any situation.
He's not.
Well, the problem, though, iswe're not defining what the
value is.
We're leaving it open toemotions, reactions, behavior,
and we're not actuallyarticulating the core value at
the root.
So if it said, I'm the kind ofguy that takes a knee to get his
(22:14):
child's attention when I don'thave it, that would be.
I don't have any childrenpersonally, but I do interact
with kids.
I am an uncle and I have workedwith not worked with but I've
interacted with kids in fairlyintimate situations.
Every time that I find that,when I take a knee and they have
an adult's undivided attentionand they can see that the adult
(22:37):
is 100% present, the presence ofthe child tends to focus in on
them, because one thing thatchildren want more than anything
is the attention of an adult.
They really really do.
It's when we say, as an adultokay, you got to get your shoes
on, but it's something I saidand they have 3% of my attention
they're not going to take itseriously.
However, if they have 95% of myattention because I've gotten
(23:02):
down to that level, I've lookedthem in the eye, they can see
that all of my stillness isfocused on them.
Whole different reaction.
And again, those are thebehaviors of two very different
men, and both of them, alongwith a limitless number of other
men, are living inside of thepotential of myself.
(23:23):
And I have to choose what kindof a guy I am.
So I'm the kind of guy thatyells at my kids, or I'm the
kind of guy that takes a knee,holds my child by both hands,
looks them in the eye and sayswe need to go now.
No more you, no more putting iton them.
(23:43):
We need to do this.
And when we make statementslike that about the kind of guy
that I am, we're makingstatements about our identity
and that identity has valuesfused into it.
And from there that's like thelowest level of all the layers,
from there the behavior makessense, our emotions start to
(24:04):
shift.
And when that kind of guy I amcomes all the way out in the
conversation, that clears up allkinds of messes, just all on
its own up all kinds of messes,just all on its own Right.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So if I were to boil it down, it's the question helps
you to pause and identify theemotion that you're having that
is leading to the behavior,right, is that what you're
saying?
So this I'm the kind of guy.
And then you're identifying thebehavior that you're exhibiting
and if it's not a behavior thatyou like, that you're
(24:43):
comfortable with or beingdescribed as, then you need to
look at the emotion behind whatit is, because our emotions
drive everything right.
So this helps us to stop and beaware of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So let me correct what I.
Let me just clarify what I wassaying.
So emotions are there to getour attention that something is
happening, something's off.
Emotions do not tell us thetruth of what's going on.
Behavior is something we do bychoice.
Emotions we don't choose theemotions.
For the most part, the behavior.
We are 100%, as adults,responsible for our behavior, so
(25:21):
that makes them very distinctfrom the emotions, the identity
piece.
That is what dictates thebehavior.
If I'm the kind of guy that doesthis, if I'm the kind of guy
that values this, certainbehaviors will automatically
fall into place.
Once I've defined that, thequestion is what?
(25:42):
So we have all these layersjust running automatically in us
when we ask the question.
That's where we're hittingpause.
We're going okay, I'm feelingan emotion that is not the kind
of vibe that I want to give offas a man or as a dad.
So I'm hitting pause so that Ican get back down to of vibe
that I want to give off as a manor as a dad.
So I'm hitting pause so that Ican get back down to the root
and I need to figure out what'sthe programming at my
(26:04):
self-identity level, because ifI'm having a negative emotion.
There's a conflict inside of meabout my identity and I need to
go back down right and and umarticulate not, you know I had.
The question starts it, butthen the statement completes it.
The statement is what makes itclear.
(26:25):
I'm the kind of guy that liftsup everything control, or is in
control of his emotions.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Right, I'm the kind of guy that's in control of his
emotions.
I'm not the kind of guy that isscreaming, yelling at his kids,
or I'm the kind of guy that'shonest.
I'm not the kind of guy that'sgoing to lie about the situation
, or or whatever and and um andsaying something like I'm the
kind of guy that's honest.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's, that's an excellent statement.
However, honest again is a bitof a summary term, the more
personal we can make it.
I'm the kind of guy that alwaysspeaks the truth.
That is a more concrete you canfeel it Like if you say I'm the
kind of guy that's honest.
I'm the kind of guy that alwaysspeaks the truth.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm the kind of guy that has integrity.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Okay, integrity could be a lot.
I'm the kind of guy that actsthe, that acts the same way
whether someone is looking ornot.
That's one way of makingintegrity a more concrete
concept.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So what's come to me in talking about this is I'm
drawing a correlation betweenthe concept of nonviolent
communication that we, that you,perform with somebody else.
But this is kind of like a kindof like a, an internal type of
nonviolent communication withyourself.
(27:44):
You're identifying the behaviorYou're talking about, how it
makes you feel, how you feelwhat you want to do instead and
taking a course correction.
So it's almost.
It's almost internal nonviolentcommunication and for those
listening that it's almostinternal nonviolent
communication, and for thoselistening that aren't familiar
with nonviolent communication,it is a concept of how to
communicate effectively withanother person and there's four
(28:08):
or five steps to doing that.
But what I'm hearing Dallasdescribe here is a way to have
nonviolent communication withyourself.
So there's a lot of positivesto what you're saying.
Describe here is a is a way tohave nonviolent communication
with yourself.
So a lot, there's a lot andthere's a lot of positives of
what you're saying, dallas,because one it's not.
You're not beating yourself upabout it Like I'm I.
It's the.
I'm the kind of guy it might be.
It might be it might shake youa little bit If you, if you do
(28:39):
identify the fact.
Well, you stopped yourself andyou are screaming at your kids
or you are not telling the truthor whatever.
But that's exactly what we wantto do, because we want to
course correct on what has beencausing these unhealthy
relational dynamics.
So I really love that I'm thekind of guy and then put in the
behavior, right, be specificabout what the behavior is, and
then the emotion behind it.
That's um, that's pretty,that's golden, my friend, I
(29:00):
really really like that.
That's uh, that is uh, that'samazing because and and I'll use
another, uh, I use anotherexample I had some as a as a
young adult, had some verysignificant like anger, being a
codependent and raised in ahousehold where I was
(29:25):
conditionally loved and havingto give love in order to get
love and by being aquote-unquote good boy.
That just builds up a whole lotof resentment and anger.
But I didn't have any idea,right, this is the conditioning
that I had in my childhood.
So one day somebody told meabout how angry that I seemed
(29:50):
and I was absolutely shocked,right?
And I say that because I wantthe dads to hear like, some of
this stuff it's going to be arevelation, and that's okay, and
it's not going to all happen atone time.
Also, there's no goal line here.
Fellows, this is a continualjourney.
There's going to be stuff here.
There's a reason this is allhappening.
(30:12):
Number one I know it might behard to hear but hopefully, if
you're listening now, you'remaybe a little ways down the
path and through some healing.
But there's a reason this ishappening and I can assure you,
having gone through it andworked with thousands of guys
that have.
One of the primary reasons issome self-awareness and ability
to move forward in a healthy andand better functioning way.
(30:36):
So these revelations, thisquestion, might shake you and
you might say, yeah, that's notwhat I want to be.
And then you can start to havethat conversation with yourself
about, okay, well, let me thinkabout this value, right?
And then how do we go aboutsorting through that?
(30:56):
We talked about maybe makinglists or or whatnot, and and
let's, let's if we can't, if wecan, let's define the difference
between a value and a belief.
And I've got, I've got, yeah,value and a belief, because we
hear those kind of innerintertwined and we talked about,
we talked about some valueshere already honesty, stuff like
(31:18):
that.
The way that I define thedifference between a value and a
belief is a value is somethingthat nobody can take away from
you.
You can be honest.
Somebody can't take honestyaway from you.
Integrity they can't takeintegrity away from you.
Integrity they can't takeintegrity away from you Stuff
like that.
(31:38):
Beliefs are hey, I believe inthe First Amendment, hey, I
believe in whatever.
Right, there's beliefs, butthey can get taken away, they
get changed, etc.
So that's how I define thedifference between beliefs and
values.
Beliefs, essentially, are muchdeeper and kind of a compass for
(31:59):
how you live your life.
Beliefs are things that youbelieve and ways in which you
might live your life.
If you believe in the FirstAmendment and free speech,
you're going to live your lifein a certain way, but that can
get taken away if you live in adifferent country, right.
So you can still have a beliefin that and go to a different
(32:20):
country, and that belief can betaken away from you because
you're not going to have it.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
I love that distinction between values and
beliefs.
I think that's very applicable.
Another way that I look at itis I tend to see values as
introspective.
Looking inward, they're thingsthat have to do with my chosen
defined reality within myself.
Beliefs have to do largely withwhat I think is going on in the
(32:48):
world around me.
So I believe that this womanthat I'm going to get married
wants to have three kids and,you know, eventually, like over
job, when those children areborn, that's a belief that I
have.
Now, if I said you know, this isjust tying it back into the
original topic.
If I have a value that my wifeis going to be a stay at home
(33:11):
mom during those early childhoodyears, that's value.
I want to share that value, youknow, with other people.
And to childhood years, that'svalue.
I want to share that value withother people.
And, to your point, that's notsomething that's going to change
very quickly.
I would really have to learnsomething new about myself where
I had a blind spot and nowthere's a better value that I'm
trading it out for.
The other really important thingand this has to do with it
(33:33):
being internal versus externalis that values are things, to
your point, that don't change.
I hold them firmly.
My integrity, my honesty, myway of entering into the world
and interacting with it is notgoing to change because that
(33:53):
behavior is driven by values,beliefs.
However, I hold those veryloosely because beliefs are kind
of just a cousin to projections.
I don't really know what'sgoing on.
I think I do.
I believe that something'sgoing on, but I need to hold
them loosely and allow thebelief to be clarified over time
(34:15):
as things come into focus.
As somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I get to know them better I also just want to
circle back to what you said oh,go ahead.
Yeah I was gonna say, which isbasically the definition of how
you come about in holding trueto your beliefs, because I don't
have the same beliefs now atthis age as I did when I was 15.
Right, so those beliefs changeover a period of time and that
(34:42):
is by being open.
And I think the point of thepoint of we just don't know
everything, right as much as wewith our big human brains, we
like to think there is an, and Ithink if you really look at
science anymore, this can.
Or if you want to look at itfrom a spiritual perspective,
(35:04):
like the more we know, the morewe learn, the more questions we
have there's.
So there's like infinite numberof questions that come, of
questions that come.
And if we just approached moreof our questions or our
relationships that are with youknow, this is what I believe,
but I don't know, and I'mprobably not going to go no in
(35:25):
this lifetime or until I meet mymaker, as to what, what is true
and what's not true, then andthat would like kind of loosen
the grip for everybody on whatwe see out there, with everybody
, all, me and you and them andus, and it's just insane.
So I think that's a really goodpoint in adding a perspective
(35:46):
when our beliefs during divorceand after divorce change too,
because that's a very, verychallenging, challenging times.
So how do we, how do we or youwere going to make a point.
Did you still have that pointin your mind or did I just talk
it out of it?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
No, it's fine, it's fine.
I wanted to come back to whatyou said about nonviolent
communication, and it's normallytalked about as a dialogue
between two people and how theprocess I was talking about
about getting down to definingyour value is essentially a
nonviolent communication youhave with yourself.
I just wanted to add, bill,first of all, wonderful insight,
(36:25):
absolutely brilliant rightthere.
And I want to add to that thatwhen we do the work well, let's
put this another way, and whenwe do the work well, let's put
(36:50):
this another way.
When we don't do that withourselves first, the
communication we have with, mucheasier for me to say where I
stand on a certain point or whyI'm making the point that I am.
When we haven't done that workindividually and, like you said,
it can be very shaky to do thatwork when we haven't done that,
we're trying to sort it outinside of ourselves at the same
(37:12):
time as sort it out with ourpartner or with our child.
That is going to be, that isgoing to just turn into a messy,
messy situation.
So you know, in my coachingwith men we have three C's.
The first one is confidence.
That confidence is that work,that is, you as a man, getting
square with yourself and knowingwhere your values are.
(37:34):
You're never done doing that.
You're always discovering more.
But for this particularsituation, for this particular
set of emotions that I'm notreally cool with, I need to come
back, find square one formyself.
Where do I stand?
And once I have that confidencepiece that being square with
(37:54):
myself then the second C iscommunication, and I simply make
statements.
This is no longer a back andforth sort of.
We're both trying to sort itout, but the truth is I'm caught
up in my own emotions.
No, no, no, it goes all the waydown to the root of what the
value is.
So that internal discussion,with the nonviolent
communication, helps to reallydispel all of the mess and
(38:18):
stress that's happening in theconversation, all of the mess
and stress that's happening inthe conversation.
And the last thing I want tothrow in there, just to tie back
into the fact that this is adifficult moment because, yeah,
you're talking about shiftingaround foundation components
inside yourself, when you'retalking about defining values,
and it is rough when you have tosee that your behavior actually
(38:39):
doesn't align with your values.
That is an emotional place tobe.
I mean, it can be tears, it canbe anger.
It can be a lot, and that isthe price we have to pay, though
, in order to set ourselvesstraight, and a man that has set
himself straight is going to bea way better dad.
(39:01):
He's going to provide a lotmore tranquility and peace for
himself, going through anyturmoil, including divorce, and,
just because this podcast isabout dating, he is going to be
so much more attractive and sexyto women when he has set
himself straight.
When has?
That's what we mean when yousay you know, have you done the
(39:22):
work?
That's what the work is.
The work is realizing mybehaviors don't align with my
values.
Let's define the values andmake sure my behaviors are
matching up, and that process,like you mentioned earlier, is
incredibly destabilizing.
It's difficult, it's emotional,but that is what a man does
(39:45):
when he's on his journey.
A man is constantly reinventinghimself, he's digging deeper,
he's finding better values.
He's always, always trading upto a better version of himself.
A guy that's not doing that isgetting fat and lazy, so to
speak.
You know, as he gets older,he's not alive, he's not on fire
(40:05):
.
You know, in the way that heneeds to be.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, and I'll take it back to the interview with
David Justice too.
He had mentioned at one point.
He said you know, looking back,I can't imagine how Haley felt
when I went to her and said, hey, I want to be done with this.
But she was truly in love withme and she didn't recognize, she
(40:32):
didn't know any of this thatwas going on in my heart and I
didn't bring any of it up and Ididn't talk to her, I just said
we're done and then I left.
I didn't transition or anything, it was just done and so, uh,
so I think I think that was a, a, a very poignant, um, uh point
and just example of someself-awareness, some
(40:54):
self-reflection, uh, uh, someself-reflection, and then
maturity, after a period of timeof looking back and having
compassion for for him, for him,for her, for himself, and how
he showed up as a 20 some yearold you know I'm gonna say kid,
right, but but a 20, 20 someyear old young adult, uh, that
(41:15):
didn't know what they were doing.
And that goes to to what you're, what you're saying, which is,
which is it's a progression andit's an ongoing progression and,
yeah, it's going to bring uptough stuff, but I'll use a
sports analogy or a gym analogy.
It's hard when you get intothat gym the first time,
especially if there's selfawareness.
If you're just coming in thefirst time, your muscles hurt,
(41:38):
you feel like you're going todie.
It is awful.
If you're running, you feellike your chest is going to.
Whatever you're doing for thefirst time in exercising your
body, it's going to hurt, butafter a while you start to see
results and then it's the samething, mentally and emotionally,
that it's going to hurt.
There's a lot of stuff that'sgoing to come up.
(41:58):
I would just say we're notgoing to dive into this, but if
you can avoid romanticrelationships during this time
while you're doing this work,that's probably a really good
idea.
I speak this from massiveexperience myself and making
that mistake until I got the twoby four upside the head
multiple times post-divorce andpost-failed relationship after
(42:22):
that, because this work is verydeep and it's very we call it
when we talk about it in groupmusic.
You're breaking open, which isnot a bad thing.
That's a good thing, but you'rebreaking open.
You want time to go throughthat.
You talked about grief earlier.
Do some healing, learn theemotions and then learn the
(42:45):
skills that you need to then getinto dating and that
communicating right, like wewere talking about with the
nonviolent communication, orbeing able to communicate then
somebody with somebody.
You started with confidence,right.
The first one is confidence.
So that's that phase where Iwould say post that you're,
you're broken open, you're doingthat work and then then you're
(43:09):
starting to learn to communicate.
But there's skills in that thatyou still have to learn.
And then there's a progression.
Uh, that we're.
We will talk about in thefuture, I'm sure on one of the
podcasts of the podcasts,because there's a myriad of
stuff for us to talk aboutthrough this.
But yeah, I wanted to make thatpoint Take it slow, guys.
(43:30):
Be tender with yourself andyour heart.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
You're going to be doing a lot of work and then
there's going to be plenty oftime for it you know there's
going to be plenty of time forit, yeah, and when you talk
about breaking it open, thatthat really is the feeling that
you get.
When you're, when you're doingit properly, when you're setting
yourself square with who reallyis who, with who you really are
deep inside, you are breakingyourself open, because what's
(43:56):
happening is you had an identitythat you've been living with
for years, and when you break itopen, that identity is cracking
like an eggshell and it'sfalling out and a new version of
you is emerging from inside ofthat shell.
And that is a painful process,you know.
Look at any baby bird will tellyou that the hardest part of a
(44:20):
baby bird's life is getting theout of their shell.
Like that is.
That is the.
That is the thing, however,that you know, um, this
disappears lots in nature.
That struggle that we gothrough cracking open and
emerging anew, that struggle iswhat creates the new level of
(44:42):
strength that can sustain thenew identity, and that is part
of it.
And, when it comes down to it,everything of value, this new
version of yourself, everythingof value, comes at a price.
The price is struggle.
When you go to the gym, you arestruggling.
When you're running, you'restruggling.
When you're lifting weights,you're struggling just to get
your butt into the car you go tothe gym, you are struggling.
When you're running, you'restruggling.
When you're lifting weights,you're struggling just to get
(45:03):
your butt into the car to go toit.
Psychologically, everything ofvalue comes at a price.
The price is the struggle, andif anything just given to us
without a struggle, the valuejust isn't the same.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Right, there's a saying what comes easy won't
last long, and what lasts longwon't come easy.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
So that's a good mantra.
I've got it up dry stone walls,you just stack them.
You have to dig up the stonesout of the ground with a bar,
(45:46):
put them in a wheelbarrow, takethem over to some other part of
the land and start stacking themup, an incredibly slow and
painful process.
Great overall total bodyworkout Totally great.
The cool thing is, though, whenyou build that wall right, it
lasts for generations, and forme it's just a reminder.
Um, the oldest structures in inthe world are all dry stone
structures.
They're just stone stacked ontop of each other.
(46:07):
Um, and when you do it right,which is a very, very slow
process, you know, it's thestory of the three little pigs.
You're going to build your houseout of straw.
You're going to build it out ofwood.
Are you going to build it outof brick?
Well, brick.
You going to build it out ofbrick?
Well, brick takes a long timeto manufacture and create and
then delay.
I mean, it is so much more work, but that house will last
(46:28):
multiples longer than the woodenhouse.
Doing it.
Once you start going to the gym, once you start approaching
women, you know the way that youwant to.
Once you start embracing thestruggle, you realize the
struggle is where the life isLike.
That's how you get the beststuff, particularly as a man.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah, absolutely I, and I know that's hard for some
of the dads that are listening,especially if they're still
working through heartbreak andhealing from some of that, but
you do come out stronger.
We call it Life 2.0 in thecommunity With a Life 2.0, it's
like an upgrade.
I'm telling you guys, it isabsolutely remarkable and
(47:13):
amazing.
You'll probably look back andyou'll be talking years later
and say this is what happened,this is what I went through, and
people will be just amazed athow strong you are in getting
through that and the person youhave become in getting through
it.
So to that I say stay strong.
(47:34):
And I love the stone wallbuilding exercise that you do or
I guess you call it fun.
I don't know that I would callit fun, but it's fun for you.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Okay, but I wanted to Out of perspective.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Whatever, yeah, no, we all have our thing right
there's.
I wanted to give a couple ofresources to the dads that are
listening and one of them is abook that is based upon that.
It's called Rebuilding Afteryour Relationship Ends and it
basically goes through all ofwhat we talked about today and
(48:16):
it is a building block.
They take a base buildingblocks and they talk about the
emotions.
It talks about how to identifythe emotions and then the next
layer of them like you weretalking about the next layer et
cetera.
So I think it ties in really,really well with what we kind of
talked about and also yourstone wall analogy as well.
(48:37):
But it's called Rebuilding whenyour Relationship Ends.
That's a great book.
And there's a couple others.
I don't know if you've heard ofthese.
One of them is called theTactical Guide to Women, written
by Dr Sean Smith.
He's a clinical psychologisthere in Denver Metro.
Excellent, excellent, excellentbook.
First half of the book is whatwe talked about today, which is
(48:59):
learning about yourself,understanding yourself, learning
about your values so that youcan communicate them, and it's a
great, great read.
I feel like, as a 15-year-oldboy, I wish somebody would have
given it to me and any15-year-old.
I have three girls, so I don'thave 15-year-old boys, so any
boy, I think, should read thisto really try to understand the
(49:21):
whole process of dating.
I think it would be a greatBible, if you will, for young
men that are dating.
So that's a good one.
And then the last one is calledthe Power of Commitment.
It's by a professor here atScott Stanley at Denver
University Scott Stanley atDenver University, and the cool,
(49:46):
the interesting thing that I'dlike the dads to get from that
book is how we talked about notknowing what your values are and
how I said my criteria wasseven months.
This must be the one we getalong.
He talks about how we backslideinto all of our relationships
or not all of our relationships,but how we often backslide into
our romantic relationships.
We start dating, we don't haveintentionality or clarity, we
(50:09):
don't really know what ourvalues are.
We might move in together, weget joint checking accounts and
a dog and then we're like, oh,we should just get married now.
And that's the wrong way to doit, like, oh, we should just get
married now, and that's thewrong way to do it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
That's what they call a situationship these days.
You're in a situation and itevolves, and it evolves and
before you know it, somebody gotpregnant and now we're married
and we never really decided todo any of this.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Right, right, and so maybe that'll be our next week's
episode as we go on to the nextstep, which is learning how to
communicate, sharing thesethings once you've taken the
time to really do the work, andunderstanding what your values
are and define what your beliefsare, et cetera.
How do you bring that now theninto dating in post-divorce with
(51:03):
single moms?
You're a single dad, they'vegot jobs.
You've got jobs.
They've got an ex.
You've got an ex.
You've got this heartbreak.
They've got all their stuff,their childhood programming and
traumas in your childhood.
How do you then bringcommunication of this into
dating?
So maybe we're just going toput that teaser out there for
(51:25):
next week and maybe we'll see,or maybe we'll make you guys
wait a couple of weeks andyou'll have to listen to us talk
about some stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Can I jump in?
I'd like both of us to shareone concrete thing on this topic
, though, before we wrap it up,and I'll go first.
I'd like to talk aboutsomething that has shifted in my
identity, and I'll talk aboutthe woman that I was with last
year.
I learned something aboutmyself dating her for a year,
and I had to get through thestruggle and define a new piece,
(51:54):
and what it was was.
I realized I'm the kind of guythat dates women that are kind
and open, realized I'm the kindof guy that dates women that are
kind and open.
There was a lot of closedoffness in the relationship that
I had and there was a lot ofattacking that was happening and
it shredded me up inside.
It was really, really hard forme and I realized, oh, I'm
(52:18):
dating someone that is not thetype of woman that I really date
.
But I had to say it and Irealized I'm the kind of guy
that dates women that are openand kind.
Obviously, that's notivorce.
I'm sure some values you knowcame to light and you redefined
yourself.
Can you share one of those withus?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
That incident happened, with somebody pointing
that out to me probably in myearly 20s, late teens, early 20s
where and what the source ofthat was and how to handle
things better and learn how tobe a better man around that and
show up in a different way.
So that was a really big thingfor me, especially the
codependency thing.
Right Was not having boundaries, and so I was the type of guy
who was going to love and loveand love and love was going to
(53:46):
conquer everything and it didn'tmatter.
So as long as I was giving love, I would be getting love right.
So that was the kind of guythat I was, which might sound
nice, right, nice guy, whateverwhich is.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
we'll get into that, I'm sure, in some, in some, in
some fashion, in our, in ourpodcast and the fairy tale
belief and I'm using the wordbelief very intentionally here
the fairy tale belief that loveconquers all.
If you're doing it in a veryspecific way, yes, that that is
true, but but you're talkingabout in the largest sense
(54:22):
possible and when we're talkingabout love being doing things
and trying to make people happy,love does not conquer all.
But yeah, we will cover that inanother episode.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Well, and it's not even love.
So, yeah, we will definitelytalk about that.
It'll be my next therapysession with Dallas.
Join us next week.
Talk about that.
It'll be my next therapysession with Dallas, join us
next week.
All right, my friend, that wasexcellent, excellent, and I also
want to point out.
So a big takeaway, two bigtakeaways for me, and maybe you
(54:54):
can share if you had any othertakeaways today is your tool.
I'm calling it a tool becauseit is a tool for us to stop and
have self-awareness is thephrase.
I'm the kind of guy.
So stop, yeah, stop.
I'm the kind of guy that andthen fill in the blank with what
behavior you are exhibiting andthat's going to give you a real
(55:15):
, it might give you a wake-upcall, it might be, or it might
help you say, okay, I'm on theright track.
It could go both ways, right,but um, that is a great tool to
to help you analyze and do someself-reflection.
And then the other was the, themvc, the non-violent
communication with yourself.
I just, I just love that.
That one.
I'm gonna have to do some morereflection on myself and
(55:39):
self-reflection, uh, and andmaybe work through that in my
mind.
That's going to take me alittle bit of journaling, I
think, and a little bit of timeto think about it, because I've
never really even thought aboutit from that perspective.
And I love that because it's abeautiful gentle way in which
you can communicate withyourself.
I do it all the time outwardlywith that I that I meet and my
(56:00):
children and everything else,but I'd never thought to do it
with, uh, with myself, and kindof have that internal dialogue
so, um, so, that's a, that's a,that's a cool one.
Anything, anything that came up, man, I'm telling you this was
amazing.
Your, our conversation was wasgold Dallas?
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right back at you, jude.
I love, I love all the materialyou're bringing and I love the
audience that you have that ishungry for a new approach to
dealing with conflict anddealing with themselves as men
in the midst of all the turmoil.
Actually, one of my takeawaysis from what you just said,
which was when you make thatstatement about your own
identity that you might have tomake it again.
We are going to be tested.
If I'm the kind of guy thatalways speaks the truth that
doesn't make it suddenly easy todo, that's going to be tested
(56:49):
over and over and over again andI have to restate the statement
.
I have to say, yes, this is theline, this is the rock, I set
it down.
This doesn't move inside of meuntil I see a really good reason
that reiterating andreaffirming those components of
one's identity is a huge part ofit, and that work is just never
(57:14):
done.
It's never done.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Amen, yep, yep.
It's a journey, not adestination, for sure.
So, dallas, where can anybodylistening get a hold of you and
get some more pearls of wisdomif they want to work and talk
with you directly?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
If you're looking for pearls of wisdom, just real
fast.
Search for Dallas Bluth Datingon YouTube.
That's where most of my videocontent is.
You can also find me onFacebook and Instagram, where
most of my video content is.
You can also find me onFacebook and Instagram, but
those are smaller versions ofwhat's already on YouTube.
I also do group coachingsessions.
It's a live motivational talkand office hours every week,
(57:51):
along with a write-up one pageon a certain topic that I'm
doing and some other goodiesthrown in in my group coaching
packages.
Check out blackboxdatingcom.
It's $45 a month, $35 a monthif you do it by the year, and
you get discounts to all kindsof other stuff.
So blackboxdatingcom, that'sthe place to go.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Awesome and I'm going to encourage everybody also to
check out thedivorcedadvocatecom.
That's the community that Ifounded and we assist dads
before, during and after divorce.
We've got resources for youwherever you might be at, like
this with dating, but also itcould be legal, mental,
emotional, physical, spiritual,whatever it is.
(58:33):
So check out the website atthedivorcedadvocatecom and we
will talk with you next week.
Dallas, thanks so much, alwaysa pleasure.
Thanks, jude.
Talk to you next week.
Bye.
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