February 21, 2024 • 21 mins
Have you ever been captivated by the seamless execution of a magic trick, wondering how such a perfect performance came to be? That's the magic of practice and refinement, and my wife Kimberly and I, Danny Ray, are here to reveal how these principles are just as essential in the world of marriage. Join us on a journey through the artistry of trust and forgiveness, as we compare the meticulous practice of a magician to the deliberate work required to strengthen the bonds of matrimony. This episode isn't just a discussion; it's an intimate sharing of our own experiences, offering you the tools to turn your marriage into a masterpiece of love and resilience.
As a magician and pastor, alongside my better half, an associate marriage and family therapist, we bring to the table a unique blend of perspectives on the importance of communication, setting boundaries, and the profound impact of forgiveness. We explore the delicate balance between performance and practice, and how, much like a carefully crafted illusion, a strong marriage is built on a foundation of constant improvement and adaptation. From personal anecdotes to practical advice, we guide you through the transformative process of nurturing your marriage, inviting you to embrace the rituals that cultivate growth and harmony within your relationship.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Danny Ray (00:00):
Well, this is Danny Ray.
Kimberly (00:01):
I'm a magician and a pastor, and this is my
incredible, amazing, wonderfulwife Kimberly, you know, and
yeah, I'm Kimberly and I am anassociate marriage and family
therapist.
Danny Ray (00:17):
Love that and love that we get to speak into the
life of marriages.
Kimberly (00:22):
Today We've not because we have it all together,
but because we've been workinghard, learning stuff.
Danny Ray (00:28):
You still have a lot of problems.
Kimberly (00:31):
Oh nice, nice, Me too OK so.
Danny Ray (00:35):
So, yeah, this isn't about us having it all together.
It's about giving you some tipsand tricks to do whatever it
takes to create a great marriageand we've been.
Kimberly (00:44):
I mean, it doesn't just happen by itself.
Danny Ray (00:47):
Well, you know, you got to put some work into it,
yeah, and so I want to look atthis idea from the perspective
of a magician and the process amagician has to do to create
moments in a show.
You have to start with practice, yeah, and then you go into the
(01:07):
performance, ok, but just likein a marriage where it's not
like you only have oneopportunity to forgive or one
opportunity to get, right, yeah,lots.
So you have to, I do aperformance and I'm like oh wow,
let me write this down.
This went wrong.
Let me talk to this person.
And so then there becomes arefinement of like what can I do
(01:28):
even better next time?
And then I go and practicethose things and then back into
performance.
Kimberly (01:34):
And so yeah.
Danny Ray (01:35):
Yeah, repeat those things.
And so we want to look at kindof that concept in the context
of our marriage of what are thethings that we need to practice.
And this isn't like going to bean exhaustive list, but I think
it's, like you know, jesuswrapping up the entire Old
Testament hey, love God, loveothers.
(01:55):
It's like until you get thatright, let's, you know, let's
just keep to the big stuff.
And so we're going to keep tothe big stuff of of mercy and
forgiveness and communication,and trust and commitment and so,
looking at those things, howdoes that apply?
So I'll just start by asking you, like what?
What's that look like in thecontext of our marriage?
Kimberly (02:19):
Well to practice these things.
So we're choosing a few ofthese specifically right To
practice ideas, Not again.
Danny Ray (02:26):
this isn't an exhaustive list.
But to say let's put thesethings into practice.
Kimberly (02:31):
So obviously trust sometimes it takes practice
right, especially if trust isbroken in any form.
Any way, we have to learn totrust again with each other and
we have to be honest so that theother person can trust us and
(02:52):
you know.
So every time that gets brokenwe have to build that backup.
Danny Ray (02:57):
So, to use this on the the practice, performance
refinement, repeat, what's,what's the difference between
practicing something in ourmarriage, in performing?
So what's the differencebetween like practicing
forgiveness, but actuallyperforming or giving?
Kimberly (03:15):
forgiveness.
Danny Ray (03:16):
What's that look like ?
Kimberly (03:17):
So the practice part might have more to do with the
mindset and just an awarenessthat OK, I need to look for this
when it comes up in ourmarriage that there's.
It feels like a trust issue hasbeen or trust has been broken.
So it's something we're awareof and going even with the
smallest thing you have anopportunity to to build trust to
(03:43):
practice, like you said.
Danny Ray (03:45):
So it's part of like the research, of, like you know,
reading a book together or youknow, you read a verse you know,
like Colossians 3, 13, where itsays bear with each other and
forgive one another.
If any of you has a grievanceagainst someone, forgive as the
Lord has forgiven you.
So practicing might mean likewhat's it mean to forgive as the
(04:10):
Lord has forgiven you?
What's that look like in ourmarriage?
Well, how did God forgive us?
He forgave us before we everasked.
Yeah, he forgave us completely.
It's not like this partialforgiveness.
It was a sacrificialforgiveness.
He went to the cross for youknow.
So all these different thingswhen we think about like
forgiveness, we could have thatconversation right, and that's
(04:31):
practicing and talking about it,but it's very different to talk
about those things.
And then, when you've hurt meor I've hurt you, to actually
forgive that person.
Kimberly (04:44):
Yeah, that's a great way to put it to yeah, yeah.
So forgiveness, trust, mercy,commitment are all things we
have to practice really everymoment of every day.
But you're right, it's those,the reading the books, the being
intentional, realizing okay,this is what God calls me to do,
and then kind of having thosethings at the forefront.
Danny Ray (05:07):
Yeah, so we have a plan of action when this comes
up, because it will come up.
Kimberly (05:12):
Yeah, you know.
Danny Ray (05:14):
I love that.
You know the Bible doesn't sayyou know you're not going to
have to bear with each other.
It's not really going to bethat difficult.
No like bear with each.
You know, like that's a in.
This is, you know, talkingabout, like the community on the
body of Christ as well.
You know it's right.
Kimberly (05:32):
Not just in the context of marriage, that that
verse.
But yeah, for these purposes.
We are talking about themarriage and there's a lot to
bear with each other, right?
We, every couple, I think theywould say we do it so
differently, we're so opposite,we, you know, one puts the
toothpaste lid on and the otherdoesn't.
Danny Ray (05:52):
And who doesn't put the toothpaste lid on?
Is that a thing?
Kimberly (05:56):
You know, I think in our first year it was.
I actually do kind of rememberthat.
Danny Ray (06:00):
So were you not doing that, oh please, oh please.
That's cute that you don't evenremember that's awesome, I
don't remember that, but you'vechanged, we've changed, that's
okay, we're good.
We've changed for the better,but there's.
Kimberly (06:14):
There are things like that, as small as the toothpaste
cap, that that couples can getreally frustrated with Trash,
you know, taking out of thetrash the all sorts of chores
and things.
Danny Ray (06:29):
I want to talk about this too, Because I think the
the silliness of that is likeit's.
It really isn't like, in thegrand scheme of things, that big
of a deal.
But I'll take your word for itthat I wasn't doing that and I
could see how that could befrustrating, like leaving the
toilet seat up or forgetting totake the trash out, things that
(06:53):
aren't the end of the world, butsomehow they feel like it
sometimes in the moment.
Yeah, because you've had thatconversation of like, hey, I
really want you to take thetrash out, oh, I'll take the
trash out, and then you don'ttake the trash out, and now
trust is broken, yeah, so somuch is happening with that
example right.
Kimberly (07:09):
So, yes, trust is broken.
Some people feel that even morethan others that?
Danny Ray (07:14):
what do you mean by?
Kimberly (07:14):
that, just that sometimes we take it a little
too extreme and go, oh well, nowI can't trust that person and
anything with anything, so thatthere are extreme examples of
that.
But for the most part it's asmall rupture interest right.
And going okay, now I don't knowthat he or she's gonna do what
(07:38):
I asked because.
So the other part of thatthat's painful, even though it's
silly because it's about trashthe other part that's painful is
that I don't feel listened toor you don't feel listened to,
so we're not seen, we're notheard.
They didn't hear me when we hadthis conversation about the
(07:59):
trash and that I need that takenout once a week or whatever.
The conversation was.
Right, they don't.
Then they're hurt.
Right, we're hurt when somebodydoesn't hear us.
We have this conversation aboutit.
Why isn't it like?
Why didn't you change?
Why aren't you doing the things?
And yet sometimes we think thatthis goes to the press, speaks
(08:19):
to practice, because it's notthat.
We can.
Just you and I can have a fight, we can talk about it, we can
go okay, here's the plan, Iwon't do that again.
And then it can.
We're human.
So easily it comes up again andwe go oh, that you know I was
gonna do better on that.
Danny Ray (08:36):
Yeah, so there's two things going on here for both
parties.
One, the person that left thetrash out or left the toothpaste
and have had the conversationright is to build that trust.
They need to be dependable andreliable right and they need to
work on the consistency of thatwill help to build trust, but
(08:58):
then on the other side, theother person needs to work on
letting it go forgiving likelooking at the having grace and
mercy trust this person in allareas because they're gonna put
the toothpaste lid on.
But that's where, like, we getcrazy in our heads and that's.
This is, I think, like thewhole thing of marriage.
(09:22):
It's like we want to experience, like that grace and that love
and that forgiveness forourselves from our spouse.
Yeah, but we have to be willingto give that as well.
Kimberly (09:32):
Absolutely, absolutely .
Danny Ray (09:34):
Yeah, so I want to talk about because I get crazy
with practice.
I'm not saying this is healthy.
At times We've really had towork on like the health before
when I was single, practicinglike six to 10 hours a day.
Kimberly (09:50):
Of magic, of the illusions.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Danny Ray (09:53):
I loved it.
Kimberly (09:53):
But when?
Danny Ray (09:57):
when I got married I I can remember like I get into
like a focus mode when I'mpracticing that I could
literally tune out the entireworld.
Dogs could be barking, youcould be talking, music be
glaring, the sirens going offand I don't hear a thing.
(10:18):
I'm just like zeroed in.
Kimberly (10:20):
That's a gift.
That's pretty awesome on mostlevels but, as your wife, very
frustrating in the beginning.
Danny Ray (10:26):
Yeah, so I had to learn to dial that back, and now
we have conversations like whenI did a pen and teller you know
I had 70 days before going tothat of you know the taping of
it taping of it and actually,you know, attempting to fool
these guys which you did verywell, well, spoiler alert.
(10:49):
Wow, I did.
It is a crazy deal to me, butfor 70 days I was practicing
nonstop, trying to create youknow a piece.
That would actually fool them.
And I I think the similaritiesin terms of us going into like
(11:10):
this deep, like how you know ifif you're really struggling in
some area of your marriage, ishow do you go deep to really
work towards forgiveness andbetter communication is maybe
you're doing like a two weekintensive marriage thing.
Maybe you've decided to getinto counseling, maybe you go to
(11:32):
a conference, maybe there'ssomething at your church where
it's like hey, there's thisweekend event where we're going
to talk about marriages.
There are ways, things outthere, that you go a little bit
more in depth, depending onwhere you are in your marriage,
either to just make it stronger,because it's healthy and you
want to make it stronger, orbecause there's some division
(11:53):
between the two and it's likeyou know what.
We're not going to let anotherday go by.
We're going to make a commitmentright now to work these things
out.
Kimberly (12:02):
To do whatever it takes.
Danny Ray (12:04):
Do whatever it takes A way to bring that back in.
I like that.
Uh so but yeah, I think thoseare.
When I think about practicing,there's all kinds of things that
we could learn so that whenthose things come up in our
marriage, we're not, we're ready, we're prepared.
Kimberly (12:23):
Yeah because we've been deliberate and consistently
rehearsing that skill, right?
Yeah, so we've talked aboutpracticing.
Performing, meaning just takingthose practice skills and
actually using them in aconflict within the marriage or
to maybe even prevent a conflictin the marriage, right?
(12:46):
And then we were talkingrefinement.
Yes, and you do that in termsof magic.
What does that look like?
Danny Ray (12:55):
Yeah, so wow.
Kimberly (12:59):
When you're analyzing it right.
Danny Ray (13:02):
Yeah, there's so many things.
I don't believe in this conceptof a perfect show.
I write every show and we'lltalk about like I give it a 9, I
give it an 8, I give it.
It's not that I've never had ashow that I would give a 10, but
even that I would still saythere were like it was a 10,.
(13:23):
Everything went great, but Icould still work on this or
still develop this or what if Ihad?
this, but there's so manyvariables in a show that you
can't control.
The audience is new, the peopleyou're bringing up maybe
somebody in the audience lookslike they'd be great on stage
but then they brings up on stageSure.
And same thing in our marriages.
(13:46):
It's like we go to thisconference, we get fired up,
we're all excited.
We read this book.
We're going to put these newideas.
We've read a passage in theBible today we're going to
forgive, we're going to givegrace.
10 minutes later we're like ah,what is the matter with you?
Why can't you use this?
Kimberly (14:01):
It's like okay let's back up.
Danny Ray (14:07):
I blew my biscuit.
What do you?
Kimberly (14:08):
call that your Limbic system.
Yeah, I blew your biscuits,yeah same thing Right?
Danny Ray (14:17):
Do you want to explain that?
For a moment, I won't attemptto explain that.
Kimberly (14:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's just more the scientific term.
Your limbic system is so wewould say.
You blow your top right whenyou get really upset.
But once that's triggered andyou're not just upset but angry
and you feel that in your bodythat's somewhere, then at that
point you need to stop in theconflict or whatever it is that
(14:45):
you're driving and you're upsetwith somebody.
If you've actually blown yourtop, if you are no longer
processing it in a calm andhealthy way, then there's no
point.
At that point we can't evenhear each other.
So as far as conflict and inthe marriage, that's a cue to
(15:07):
take a break, like for a fewminutes everybody go to their
corners, anger.
Okay, we need to calm downbecause the yelling at each
other totally ineffective.
Nobody hears anybody and, yeah,that's because of the limbic
system.
Danny Ray (15:22):
Yeah.
So when we look at this idea ofrefining, Biscuit, as you call
it.
Blowing your limp biscuit.
So when we look at this idea ofrefining, it's wow, I blew my
top, I didn't handle myself well, and you're having that
conversation to go like, hey,next time, what could I do
(15:44):
better?
I'm so sorry I did this, but Iwant to handle things better and
having those conversations andsometimes that's a day later,
two days later, where you guysare cooled off, you have a fresh
perspective.
But if you don't ever haveconversations about how to
refine it, how to make it better, you're just going to end up
doing the same thing.
Kimberly (16:04):
Yeah, yeah I think that's crucial in marriage, in
repairing conflict.
For us, I think, just by God'sgrace, that happened early on
and I think that one might justbe more my personality, that I
wanted to know.
So we'd have a fight, anargument, a rupture, however you
(16:25):
want to call that, and I'mspecifically thinking even in
our first year of marriage inColorado and go okay at the end
after, like you said, we calmdown, we talk to each other and
go okay, this where I didn'tlike this, or you know, can you
do better?
yell, do better.
But what is the refinement partwas how do we make this, make
(16:46):
sure this doesn't happen again,right, and then one of our jokes
that comes out of that is I'dsay, well, let's make a rule,
right, and now that we're up torule 6823.
Now we?
The joke is that we just putnumber random numbers to those
rules, because there must be alot of them by now, but it's not
(17:08):
that there's an actual Look atour marriage.
Help us to create a marriage.
Danny Ray (17:14):
Like we don't.
We don't tear another persondown.
Like I could be super upset,but I'm never going to name call
.
Yeah, that's a boundary,happened early on in our
marriage.
We went there's never a timewhere calling for us somebody
else's name is going to bebeneficial, ever right.
Kimberly (17:35):
So it's like and that was a refinement, that was yeah
one.
Now I will never do that again.
Danny Ray (17:40):
Yeah, we don't use the word divorce.
We never have, we never willlike throw things we don't throw
.
Right, and so we've learned toput these boundaries on, but
what it does is when.
I'll take an example from fromthe show again.
When I've done thousands ofshows and I was doing a show at
(18:03):
the magic castle, which is likethe premier Magic club in the
world, and magicians from allaround the world, you know, come
to see people perform there andI was performing in a new,
certain people that were goingto be in oh yeah, and I wanted
this show to be epic.
Well, what I didn't know is,before I went out there, some
(18:26):
drunk guy knocked over all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah everywhere,like my entire show when I
walked out was all over thefloor all.
Had I not done thousands ofshows before and put this stuff
into practice?
(18:47):
Performance refinement.
I would have just completelyfreaked out.
Now I don't want to say it wasthe best show I've, yeah but you
were able to function.
Kimberly (18:58):
I was able to do yeah.
Danny Ray (19:00):
I was able to create the best show given that context
yeah, I could where I think ifthat would have been like the
first show I've ever done thisis the first time I'm ever, you
know, or first time showingforgiveness or for like it, I
would have been a rat, yeah,yeah, I think it's one of those
things that the more we put thisstuff into practice and have
(19:24):
conversations about how we coulddo it better next time, and
then we you know, read some moreand we talk about it some more.
You know like forgiveness andcommunication, and then we start
communicating better.
I'm do those things when we,when we need to show grace or
show forgiveness or build trust.
We're building those habits allthe time and that will create a
(19:48):
great marriage for you.
Kimberly (19:49):
Absolutely yeah.
We're building thesecharacteristics, the you know,
practicing these things tocreate a strong foundation for
growth, resilience and and loveright forever.
So, yeah, great.
Danny Ray (20:08):
So these are the things we'd encourage you to do
is maybe talk to your spousetoday about what this looks like
to really practice.
What are some things you canpractice?
Maybe a book you could read, adevotional you could read?
A conversation you can havearound how can we forgive each
other better?
And then next time you get intothat situation like, wow, we
(20:28):
did it, but what can we do evenbetter next time?
Yeah, this is what we believe.
This kind of cycle Helps tocreate a great marriage of a
practicing, performing andrefining and that refining is
crucial you know, we've talkedabout that.
You know once a week of youknow what's the plan for the
(20:52):
week, how can we do?
things better this week, youknow, can we plan a date night?
What things do you have goingon?
What things are going on, sothat we're on the same page, on
the same team so we can.
Set ourselves up for the bestpossible week possible.
But absolutely with that saidon this is Danny, this is
Kimberly with.
We do whatever it takes.
Well, this is Danny Ray.
Kimberly (00:01):
I'm a magician and a pastor, and this is my
incredible, amazing, wonderfulwife Kimberly, you know, and
yeah, I'm Kimberly and I am anassociate marriage and family
therapist.
Danny Ray (00:17):
Love that and love that we get to speak into the
life of marriages.
Kimberly (00:22):
Today We've not because we have it all together,
but because we've been workinghard, learning stuff.
Danny Ray (00:28):
You still have a lot of problems.
Kimberly (00:31):
Oh nice, nice, Me too OK so.
Danny Ray (00:35):
So, yeah, this isn't about us having it all together.
It's about giving you some tipsand tricks to do whatever it
takes to create a great marriageand we've been.
Kimberly (00:44):
I mean, it doesn't just happen by itself.
Danny Ray (00:47):
Well, you know, you got to put some work into it,
yeah, and so I want to look atthis idea from the perspective
of a magician and the process amagician has to do to create
moments in a show.
You have to start with practice, yeah, and then you go into the
(01:07):
performance, ok, but just likein a marriage where it's not
like you only have oneopportunity to forgive or one
opportunity to get, right, yeah,lots.
So you have to, I do aperformance and I'm like oh wow,
let me write this down.
This went wrong.
Let me talk to this person.
And so then there becomes arefinement of like what can I do
(01:28):
even better next time?
And then I go and practicethose things and then back into
performance.
Kimberly (01:34):
And so yeah.
Danny Ray (01:35):
Yeah, repeat those things.
And so we want to look at kindof that concept in the context
of our marriage of what are thethings that we need to practice.
And this isn't like going to bean exhaustive list, but I think
it's, like you know, jesuswrapping up the entire Old
Testament hey, love God, loveothers.
(01:55):
It's like until you get thatright, let's, you know, let's
just keep to the big stuff.
And so we're going to keep tothe big stuff of of mercy and
forgiveness and communication,and trust and commitment and so,
looking at those things, howdoes that apply?
So I'll just start by asking you, like what?
What's that look like in thecontext of our marriage?
Kimberly (02:19):
Well to practice these things.
So we're choosing a few ofthese specifically right To
practice ideas, Not again.
Danny Ray (02:26):
this isn't an exhaustive list.
But to say let's put thesethings into practice.
Kimberly (02:31):
So obviously trust sometimes it takes practice
right, especially if trust isbroken in any form.
Any way, we have to learn totrust again with each other and
we have to be honest so that theother person can trust us and
(02:52):
you know.
So every time that gets brokenwe have to build that backup.
Danny Ray (02:57):
So, to use this on the the practice, performance
refinement, repeat, what's,what's the difference between
practicing something in ourmarriage, in performing?
So what's the differencebetween like practicing
forgiveness, but actuallyperforming or giving?
Kimberly (03:15):
forgiveness.
Danny Ray (03:16):
What's that look like ?
Kimberly (03:17):
So the practice part might have more to do with the
mindset and just an awarenessthat OK, I need to look for this
when it comes up in ourmarriage that there's.
It feels like a trust issue hasbeen or trust has been broken.
So it's something we're awareof and going even with the
smallest thing you have anopportunity to to build trust to
(03:43):
practice, like you said.
Danny Ray (03:45):
So it's part of like the research, of, like you know,
reading a book together or youknow, you read a verse you know,
like Colossians 3, 13, where itsays bear with each other and
forgive one another.
If any of you has a grievanceagainst someone, forgive as the
Lord has forgiven you.
So practicing might mean likewhat's it mean to forgive as the
(04:10):
Lord has forgiven you?
What's that look like in ourmarriage?
Well, how did God forgive us?
He forgave us before we everasked.
Yeah, he forgave us completely.
It's not like this partialforgiveness.
It was a sacrificialforgiveness.
He went to the cross for youknow.
So all these different thingswhen we think about like
forgiveness, we could have thatconversation right, and that's
(04:31):
practicing and talking about it,but it's very different to talk
about those things.
And then, when you've hurt meor I've hurt you, to actually
forgive that person.
Kimberly (04:44):
Yeah, that's a great way to put it to yeah, yeah.
So forgiveness, trust, mercy,commitment are all things we
have to practice really everymoment of every day.
But you're right, it's those,the reading the books, the being
intentional, realizing okay,this is what God calls me to do,
and then kind of having thosethings at the forefront.
Danny Ray (05:07):
Yeah, so we have a plan of action when this comes
up, because it will come up.
Kimberly (05:12):
Yeah, you know.
Danny Ray (05:14):
I love that.
You know the Bible doesn't sayyou know you're not going to
have to bear with each other.
It's not really going to bethat difficult.
No like bear with each.
You know, like that's a in.
This is, you know, talkingabout, like the community on the
body of Christ as well.
You know it's right.
Kimberly (05:32):
Not just in the context of marriage, that that
verse.
But yeah, for these purposes.
We are talking about themarriage and there's a lot to
bear with each other, right?
We, every couple, I think theywould say we do it so
differently, we're so opposite,we, you know, one puts the
toothpaste lid on and the otherdoesn't.
Danny Ray (05:52):
And who doesn't put the toothpaste lid on?
Is that a thing?
Kimberly (05:56):
You know, I think in our first year it was.
I actually do kind of rememberthat.
Danny Ray (06:00):
So were you not doing that, oh please, oh please.
That's cute that you don't evenremember that's awesome, I
don't remember that, but you'vechanged, we've changed, that's
okay, we're good.
We've changed for the better,but there's.
Kimberly (06:14):
There are things like that, as small as the toothpaste
cap, that that couples can getreally frustrated with Trash,
you know, taking out of thetrash the all sorts of chores
and things.
Danny Ray (06:29):
I want to talk about this too, Because I think the
the silliness of that is likeit's.
It really isn't like, in thegrand scheme of things, that big
of a deal.
But I'll take your word for itthat I wasn't doing that and I
could see how that could befrustrating, like leaving the
toilet seat up or forgetting totake the trash out, things that
(06:53):
aren't the end of the world, butsomehow they feel like it
sometimes in the moment.
Yeah, because you've had thatconversation of like, hey, I
really want you to take thetrash out, oh, I'll take the
trash out, and then you don'ttake the trash out, and now
trust is broken, yeah, so somuch is happening with that
example right.
Kimberly (07:09):
So, yes, trust is broken.
Some people feel that even morethan others that?
Danny Ray (07:14):
what do you mean by?
Kimberly (07:14):
that, just that sometimes we take it a little
too extreme and go, oh well, nowI can't trust that person and
anything with anything, so thatthere are extreme examples of
that.
But for the most part it's asmall rupture interest right.
And going okay, now I don't knowthat he or she's gonna do what
(07:38):
I asked because.
So the other part of thatthat's painful, even though it's
silly because it's about trashthe other part that's painful is
that I don't feel listened toor you don't feel listened to,
so we're not seen, we're notheard.
They didn't hear me when we hadthis conversation about the
(07:59):
trash and that I need that takenout once a week or whatever.
The conversation was.
Right, they don't.
Then they're hurt.
Right, we're hurt when somebodydoesn't hear us.
We have this conversation aboutit.
Why isn't it like?
Why didn't you change?
Why aren't you doing the things?
And yet sometimes we think thatthis goes to the press, speaks
(08:19):
to practice, because it's notthat.
We can.
Just you and I can have a fight, we can talk about it, we can
go okay, here's the plan, Iwon't do that again.
And then it can.
We're human.
So easily it comes up again andwe go oh, that you know I was
gonna do better on that.
Danny Ray (08:36):
Yeah, so there's two things going on here for both
parties.
One, the person that left thetrash out or left the toothpaste
and have had the conversationright is to build that trust.
They need to be dependable andreliable right and they need to
work on the consistency of thatwill help to build trust, but
(08:58):
then on the other side, theother person needs to work on
letting it go forgiving likelooking at the having grace and
mercy trust this person in allareas because they're gonna put
the toothpaste lid on.
But that's where, like, we getcrazy in our heads and that's.
This is, I think, like thewhole thing of marriage.
(09:22):
It's like we want to experience, like that grace and that love
and that forgiveness forourselves from our spouse.
Yeah, but we have to be willingto give that as well.
Kimberly (09:32):
Absolutely, absolutely .
Danny Ray (09:34):
Yeah, so I want to talk about because I get crazy
with practice.
I'm not saying this is healthy.
At times We've really had towork on like the health before
when I was single, practicinglike six to 10 hours a day.
Kimberly (09:50):
Of magic, of the illusions.
Yeah, it was beautiful.
Danny Ray (09:53):
I loved it.
Kimberly (09:53):
But when?
Danny Ray (09:57):
when I got married I I can remember like I get into
like a focus mode when I'mpracticing that I could
literally tune out the entireworld.
Dogs could be barking, youcould be talking, music be
glaring, the sirens going offand I don't hear a thing.
(10:18):
I'm just like zeroed in.
Kimberly (10:20):
That's a gift.
That's pretty awesome on mostlevels but, as your wife, very
frustrating in the beginning.
Danny Ray (10:26):
Yeah, so I had to learn to dial that back, and now
we have conversations like whenI did a pen and teller you know
I had 70 days before going tothat of you know the taping of
it taping of it and actually,you know, attempting to fool
these guys which you did verywell, well, spoiler alert.
(10:49):
Wow, I did.
It is a crazy deal to me, butfor 70 days I was practicing
nonstop, trying to create youknow a piece.
That would actually fool them.
And I I think the similaritiesin terms of us going into like
(11:10):
this deep, like how you know ifif you're really struggling in
some area of your marriage, ishow do you go deep to really
work towards forgiveness andbetter communication is maybe
you're doing like a two weekintensive marriage thing.
Maybe you've decided to getinto counseling, maybe you go to
(11:32):
a conference, maybe there'ssomething at your church where
it's like hey, there's thisweekend event where we're going
to talk about marriages.
There are ways, things outthere, that you go a little bit
more in depth, depending onwhere you are in your marriage,
either to just make it stronger,because it's healthy and you
want to make it stronger, orbecause there's some division
(11:53):
between the two and it's likeyou know what.
We're not going to let anotherday go by.
We're going to make a commitmentright now to work these things
out.
Kimberly (12:02):
To do whatever it takes.
Danny Ray (12:04):
Do whatever it takes A way to bring that back in.
I like that.
Uh so but yeah, I think thoseare.
When I think about practicing,there's all kinds of things that
we could learn so that whenthose things come up in our
marriage, we're not, we're ready, we're prepared.
Kimberly (12:23):
Yeah because we've been deliberate and consistently
rehearsing that skill, right?
Yeah, so we've talked aboutpracticing.
Performing, meaning just takingthose practice skills and
actually using them in aconflict within the marriage or
to maybe even prevent a conflictin the marriage, right?
(12:46):
And then we were talkingrefinement.
Yes, and you do that in termsof magic.
What does that look like?
Danny Ray (12:55):
Yeah, so wow.
Kimberly (12:59):
When you're analyzing it right.
Danny Ray (13:02):
Yeah, there's so many things.
I don't believe in this conceptof a perfect show.
I write every show and we'lltalk about like I give it a 9, I
give it an 8, I give it.
It's not that I've never had ashow that I would give a 10, but
even that I would still saythere were like it was a 10,.
(13:23):
Everything went great, but Icould still work on this or
still develop this or what if Ihad?
this, but there's so manyvariables in a show that you
can't control.
The audience is new, the peopleyou're bringing up maybe
somebody in the audience lookslike they'd be great on stage
but then they brings up on stageSure.
And same thing in our marriages.
(13:46):
It's like we go to thisconference, we get fired up,
we're all excited.
We read this book.
We're going to put these newideas.
We've read a passage in theBible today we're going to
forgive, we're going to givegrace.
10 minutes later we're like ah,what is the matter with you?
Why can't you use this?
Kimberly (14:01):
It's like okay let's back up.
Danny Ray (14:07):
I blew my biscuit.
What do you?
Kimberly (14:08):
call that your Limbic system.
Yeah, I blew your biscuits,yeah same thing Right?
Danny Ray (14:17):
Do you want to explain that?
For a moment, I won't attemptto explain that.
Kimberly (14:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's just more the scientific term.
Your limbic system is so wewould say.
You blow your top right whenyou get really upset.
But once that's triggered andyou're not just upset but angry
and you feel that in your bodythat's somewhere, then at that
point you need to stop in theconflict or whatever it is that
(14:45):
you're driving and you're upsetwith somebody.
If you've actually blown yourtop, if you are no longer
processing it in a calm andhealthy way, then there's no
point.
At that point we can't evenhear each other.
So as far as conflict and inthe marriage, that's a cue to
(15:07):
take a break, like for a fewminutes everybody go to their
corners, anger.
Okay, we need to calm downbecause the yelling at each
other totally ineffective.
Nobody hears anybody and, yeah,that's because of the limbic
system.
Danny Ray (15:22):
Yeah.
So when we look at this idea ofrefining, Biscuit, as you call
it.
Blowing your limp biscuit.
So when we look at this idea ofrefining, it's wow, I blew my
top, I didn't handle myself well, and you're having that
conversation to go like, hey,next time, what could I do
(15:44):
better?
I'm so sorry I did this, but Iwant to handle things better and
having those conversations andsometimes that's a day later,
two days later, where you guysare cooled off, you have a fresh
perspective.
But if you don't ever haveconversations about how to
refine it, how to make it better, you're just going to end up
doing the same thing.
Kimberly (16:04):
Yeah, yeah I think that's crucial in marriage, in
repairing conflict.
For us, I think, just by God'sgrace, that happened early on
and I think that one might justbe more my personality, that I
wanted to know.
So we'd have a fight, anargument, a rupture, however you
(16:25):
want to call that, and I'mspecifically thinking even in
our first year of marriage inColorado and go okay at the end
after, like you said, we calmdown, we talk to each other and
go okay, this where I didn'tlike this, or you know, can you
do better?
yell, do better.
But what is the refinement partwas how do we make this, make
(16:46):
sure this doesn't happen again,right, and then one of our jokes
that comes out of that is I'dsay, well, let's make a rule,
right, and now that we're up torule 6823.
Now we?
The joke is that we just putnumber random numbers to those
rules, because there must be alot of them by now, but it's not
(17:08):
that there's an actual Look atour marriage.
Help us to create a marriage.
Danny Ray (17:14):
Like we don't.
We don't tear another persondown.
Like I could be super upset,but I'm never going to name call
.
Yeah, that's a boundary,happened early on in our
marriage.
We went there's never a timewhere calling for us somebody
else's name is going to bebeneficial, ever right.
Kimberly (17:35):
So it's like and that was a refinement, that was yeah
one.
Now I will never do that again.
Danny Ray (17:40):
Yeah, we don't use the word divorce.
We never have, we never willlike throw things we don't throw
.
Right, and so we've learned toput these boundaries on, but
what it does is when.
I'll take an example from fromthe show again.
When I've done thousands ofshows and I was doing a show at
(18:03):
the magic castle, which is likethe premier Magic club in the
world, and magicians from allaround the world, you know, come
to see people perform there andI was performing in a new,
certain people that were goingto be in oh yeah, and I wanted
this show to be epic.
Well, what I didn't know is,before I went out there, some
(18:26):
drunk guy knocked over all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah everywhere,like my entire show when I
walked out was all over thefloor all.
Had I not done thousands ofshows before and put this stuff
into practice?
(18:47):
Performance refinement.
I would have just completelyfreaked out.
Now I don't want to say it wasthe best show I've, yeah but you
were able to function.
Kimberly (18:58):
I was able to do yeah.
Danny Ray (19:00):
I was able to create the best show given that context
yeah, I could where I think ifthat would have been like the
first show I've ever done thisis the first time I'm ever, you
know, or first time showingforgiveness or for like it, I
would have been a rat, yeah,yeah, I think it's one of those
things that the more we put thisstuff into practice and have
(19:24):
conversations about how we coulddo it better next time, and
then we you know, read some moreand we talk about it some more.
You know like forgiveness andcommunication, and then we start
communicating better.
I'm do those things when we,when we need to show grace or
show forgiveness or build trust.
We're building those habits allthe time and that will create a
(19:48):
great marriage for you.
Kimberly (19:49):
Absolutely yeah.
We're building thesecharacteristics, the you know,
practicing these things tocreate a strong foundation for
growth, resilience and and loveright forever.
So, yeah, great.
Danny Ray (20:08):
So these are the things we'd encourage you to do
is maybe talk to your spousetoday about what this looks like
to really practice.
What are some things you canpractice?
Maybe a book you could read, adevotional you could read?
A conversation you can havearound how can we forgive each
other better?
And then next time you get intothat situation like, wow, we
(20:28):
did it, but what can we do evenbetter next time?
Yeah, this is what we believe.
This kind of cycle Helps tocreate a great marriage of a
practicing, performing andrefining and that refining is
crucial you know, we've talkedabout that.
You know once a week of youknow what's the plan for the
(20:52):
week, how can we do?
things better this week, youknow, can we plan a date night?
What things do you have goingon?
What things are going on, sothat we're on the same page, on
the same team so we can.
Set ourselves up for the bestpossible week possible.
But absolutely with that saidon this is Danny, this is
Kimberly with.
We do whatever it takes.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Come hang with Amy Poehler. Each week on her podcast, she'll welcome celebrities and fun people to her studio. They'll share stories about their careers, mutual friends, shared enthusiasms, and most importantly, what's been making them laugh. This podcast is not about trying to make you better or giving advice. Amy just wants to have a good time.