Episode 61: Reclaiming Freedom: "Don't Worry About Anything..."

In episode 61 of the Reclaiming Man Podcast, Brad leads the discussion, inspired by a sermon he heard. He shares insights about worry, stress, and faith. Brad highlights how worry, often rooted in fear, can lead to stress, which in turn impacts health. He references a Bible verse about not worrying and emphasizes the importance of faith. Preston relates to the topic, sharing personal experiences with anxiety and stress. Michael adds insights about the connection between stress and fear, suggesting that confessing the truth about worries can help alleviate them. The conversation touches on the significance of reading and understanding the Bible, and Brad encourages listeners to check out Craig Groeschel's leadership podcast. They conclude with reflections on the benefits of faith, community, and self-improvement.

Transcript

Brad: 0:05

I'm, big on that. I'm big on Craig right now because I'm really involved in church.

Michael: 0:08

You should be, that's great.

Brad: 0:09

His leadership podcast is really good. He had the elevate pastor on there who's a songwriter. And he wrote all that elevation stuff. The music video? Yes. Michael knows everything. That's why he's the mastermind.

Michael: 0:23

No,

Brad: 0:25

No, like you can't say, there's hardly anything that he just like hasn't heard about. I didn't know anything

Michael: 0:28

about that bridge. The ship hit.

Brad: 0:32

True.

Michael: 0:32

I looked it up and I was like, this is really interesting.

Brad: 0:35

I was just realizing some of like our strengths and weaknesses, not weaknesses so much, maybe my own weaknesses, but strengths. I'm trying to turn this light off, our strengths and like what our strengths are and what we bring to the table as I was like going through my own little struggles and I just, that was one of yours. I recognize it's like,

Michael: 0:55

Oh, I was

Brad: 0:55

like, why do they call him the mastermind?

Michael: 0:57

Oh, do you want to know that? Yeah. There's a book, have you heard of think and grow rich? Have you read that? Oh yeah, Okay. So that's where the concept of the mastermind comes from, Napoleon Hill. He basically he asserts that anytime you have more than two people, so at least three people generally, the amount of intelligence and the amount of insights that you gain in that conversation, it's not additive. So it's not like the combination. Yeah. It's exponential. Yeah. Oh, I love that. The mastermind.

Brad: 1:27

Oh, cool. I didn't know that was where you got it from. That was like the mastermind key to success. Napoleon Hills. Did you ever watch the YouTube video of him? That's like an hour, three hours or however long it is.

Michael: 1:36

Yes.

Brad: 1:37

In his like old fifties video, it's so good.

Preston: 1:46

Welcome to episode 61 of the reclaiming man podcast, Brad the, Lieutenant Dawson is air drumming and air puffing back there like a goddamn maniac. You got me pressing the Southern Canuck Radomski and Michael, just Michael tonight. I guess no mastermind on his label, but we'll still call him the mastermind Beckwith. And tonight Brad is going to lead us off. With, I don't totally know what he was pulling us that he's got some things he has on his mind that he would like to talk about and thought would be a good thing to chat about. So we figured we'll let him start it off and then we can just respond, listen, answer, tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. I don't know, mostly right there.

Brad: 2:28

Thank you, man. Dude, As I've said before, I attend Life Church pastors Craig, Rochelle, and I wanna credit him to some of this because he's got a podcast as well, and as a podcaster. Now I can say that. Now I am a podcaster. We talked about on our last polo episode that we say we aren't we have these self-imposed limitations. And like I am a podcaster every I took some of my own advice and it's like every podcaster needs a podcast, right? Or every leader needs a leader. And we got to see ourselves as leaders too. So there's always people we can lead. And I was listening to one of actually, I want to say it was the sermon. On Sunday, and what's great is I mixed sound at the church. So I get to hear the message four times. So I'm a pretty dense dude and have a pretty thick skull. So it's actually really good because the first I do the rehearsal and the first one, I'm really worried about sound. And then some of his message gets through. As I sit there, cause once his message starts, I really just sit there. I don't really have much work to do. I'm just set his levels and just wait for the. The call to Christ, but second message, I hear it again. And then third. And like by the fourth one, it's less drilled into my head. And it's honestly, this kind of cool experience. If I could stay awake, if I'm honest, he's usually, I played a gig the night before and had to be there at six 30 in the morning. What happened was this weekend, his message was, about freedom and it's going to tie into, we're talking about reclaiming body today was really our schedule. We're not we don't have stick to that, but it does lead to that. I realized as I'm looking at my notes and, but it starts with this and I thought this was a really. Really good fact, right? Research shows that Americans worry. They worry more than any other culture. And I thought that was really interesting. And,

Preston: 4:38

I can pretty much agree with that statement, that sentiment 40 percent

Brad: 4:43

of what we worry about never happens. 30 percent of it. We can't change because it's in the past. And then 20 percent of it. is what people think of us, which isn't accurate. And 10 percent of it is we worry about is our health. So it does tie into health, but where it really does tie into body is that 90 percent of our disease has been tied back to stress, which is linked to worry. And I found this really interesting. Now I feel like I already knew this, or I presumed this to be true. So I really wanted to kick it off with that. And he goes into, a Bible verse, which if I'm going to get biblical here, Matthew 6, 25, I was trying to have this kind of ready, but I thought it was really good. I was going to pull it up. I don't know if anyone has that ability right now. It's Matthew, do you have like a computer in front of you? Matthew 625. Yes. So I just wanted to allude to this because, I felt like it just really hit home.

Michael: 6:22

do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food in the body, more than clothing?

Brad: 6:31

We've all heard this verse, right? Thank you for bringing that up. He tells us in the Bible to not worry, right? We've got all these things that we worry about and it's like, okay what do we do with it? And it's like it comes back to faith and that we look to our higher power, you know We look to our father. We look to our faith who conquers fears and then he says we look into our we look into our future and we talk about seeking that power, first. So we think about to conquer worry, we think about turning that over and then all those other things will be added. And I really didn't have some big plan for tonight, but this just really hit me and I wanted to turn it over to you guys really. And I wanted to just see what you thought about how, these worries and these fears Turn into stress and that stress. ultimately kills us. It has the power. It has the power to kill us. And I, just want to get your guys's thoughts on it. I'm really just going to kick it off with that. I don't have a whole thing planned out. But I'll just add that I think worry never fixes anything. I think it just steals. The joy of the moment and how I felt like I really needed to learn more about how to trust in whatever power is outside of me, whatever you believe in. I'm not here to say I choose to be, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I'm growing as a Christian man and that's super new to me and but whatever your power is more power to you. And the last thing that I have on it is what do we do? How do we strengthen, how do we strengthen that relationship? How do we do that? How do we learn to turn that over when those problems seem so real to us? So incapacitating. And I just couldn't help but think of the serenity prayer and how we have to know. The difference between what we can and can't change and how we have to take action and we can't take action. Like we talk about, if we don't know what action to take, and I think that's where everybody gets stumped is they don't know what action to take and to capitalize on or to capitalize to follow up on our podcast. Previous episode about taking that action. And we've really linked all these together. But I just wanted to like, put that out there for you guys. I thought that was really, interesting stuff. And that's pretty much. Pretty much my lead in, so

Preston: 9:33

I, almost feel like his podcast is you're meant to tell me that this week in a weird way, because I've been, I don't know, like for like, not like every day, but like, I've had this struggle. I think I remember talking to you about it, like about a year ago, Brad, like just having this anxiety stuff that was going on for, I'd had a panic attack. Like when I was out with the kids and stuff, no, I've had like. To them like where they've been pretty have you ever had one of those like if you're listening and you've never had it was weird. Like the first time I had one like it's this weird sensation where you almost feel like you're about to die.

Brad: 10:16

I had one. I had one real quick. I had one in Vegas, but I

Preston: 10:19

attribute it

Brad: 10:19

to you. Vaping, but I, don't think it was man. Like, I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was an asthma attack, but I like woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't breathe and I had like a weird dream and I was, I remember being stressed out and so I quit vaping for a week and now I'm vaping again, which is, It's the human condition obviously at play here, but I had a buddy that I talked to and was like, Hey, I went to Vegas too, and it was super dry and the air conditioning. And he's like, I had the same thing happen. And so I've told myself, whatever, maybe it's a lie. I struggle with this nicotine addiction. I'm back vaping again, but maybe I had an anxiety attack. I don't know. So I, I don't know if I've ever had one. I always wondered, I feel like maybe I have, and I just didn't know. Cause I sure have felt like I was going to die a few times, but, sorry to interrupt. I just,

Preston: 11:12

I think you would I think, you would know if you'd had one. What I'm trying to get to though, it's just like, I've just, I don't know, like lately I've just been in my head about that a lot when I'm just working or even like in the middle of the night, like I'll wake up to go pee and then I'll think Oh man, I'm probably going to have a heart attack because my grandfather died of a heart attack. Like my Nana died of a heart attack. Like I'm just in that age right now where I'm like in my forties and I've got this family and then I start thinking about this stuff and I'm like, I'm literally thinking to myself I didn't know this verse until you read it, but it's like, I would like just have conversations with God. It's weird that this is turning into sort of a God podcast tonight, but where I just be like, Hey man, like. I don't know why I have this shit on my brain, but like, can you just like, calm myself out and it's like, and then I would come down with it and not think about it, but it's just. It's weird that you bring that up tonight when it's like something I've like literally been personally like, I don't mean dealing with like, Oh, I'm fucking struggling with this shit. It's not that bad, but it's just annoying and a pain in the ass. And it's just like, wow, what the hell is going on? And you're reading this and I just feel like I'm like, Oh man, Brad's talking to me tonight. It spoke to me because

Brad: 12:29

I relate. I felt like that. On Sunday, I'm like, if we're, worried, it's misdirected trust. It's like, We're, not trusting in the plan or God or whatever you want to call it and I just, I'm still sitting with that and that's why I wanted to bring it up because I struggle with relying on God. And so I have a question in here where it says, how do we strengthen our faith? And I think, Yeah. I just posed that question to you guys and I'm new, like new to faith and we had a small group tonight and it was about like, we'd be doing this marriage thing. And it's like, everybody in the group seems so perfect. And I'm like, they love me cause I'm so vulnerable. And I'm like, I've just had a lot of practice in AA, so I've been encouraging them but I feel sometimes inferior, but just learning how to do this stuff. And, from a more religious side more biblical side, I guess I should say, because man, there's some good stuff in there. And he talks about God, I thought it interesting is as trivial as it sounds, like he feeds the birds, like they don't worry, they don't worry about how they're gonna get their food. Like it's always provided for them. And, I just thought the whole freedom concept, I thought, and I think we talked about this, maybe, when you In a free country like America, you have, the reason you're so have more stressed than other countries is because you have more freedoms. You have more choices. And I feel like all of our podcasts are tied together, which is great, man. Yeah, which is great. And it's like, of course we're the most stressed out culture because we have the most freedom.

Michael: 14:32

Yeah. That channels.

Preston: 14:34

Yeah. There's something to that, When you have to just get up and put your water jug on your head to go get water for the day and that's all you're going to do and like, if you don't, you die, it's, you just, you do that and you don't even think about bills or anything because there's no bills out there. There's no job to go to. There's just you surviving in a different kind of boat. Life in a different kind of a world and you know I don't know if you could say one is better than the other I'm sure you could say that there that lifestyle is way less stressful, they don't have Nintendo switch Yeah, I don't know like there's an element of like would you be able to gosh How would I word this like could you do that for six months? Without knowing, I don't know, like, it's just it's, a very interesting dichotomy you bring up there, Brad. Yeah,

Michael: 15:43

I think the you had the question of like, how do you strengthen your faith? And the answer to that one, I think it's a little bit hard because it basically is you have to go through hard things and realize that, you're going through them. And then you look back what you have already gone through. Gone through to get to where you are today and all of those things that could have been the end of you, that could have led you down a different path, but, you're where you are, you believe what you believe, and more importantly, where you're going, the direction that you're going now is something that to me, anyways, it increases my faith, even when like you're talking about vaping, still having addictions, like everybody, no matter where they're at in their faith, Journey, so to speak, whatever. I hesitated to use those words, everybody has different addictions that they deal with. And some of those are physical drug addictions. Other, the others are like emotional addictions and stress addictions. Like stress is at some point in an addiction, our body becomes so accustomed to stress that it anticipates it. It has memorized it, it anticipates it because it says, Hey, in the past I've With this stress and I know that I'm, even though I'm uncomfortable in that stress, like I'm more used to it, it's more familiar than not being stressed. And so there's a, that's one of the things that, right, but just

Preston: 17:26

becomes your baseline. No, that's exactly when you normalize stress

Michael: 17:30

in your life, then it does start to build up and compound against you. To your point, Brad, with your body, and it does start to have really negative impacts. Think about the different types of stress that come from, for instance, if you binge eat something, you are trying to satisfy like this, immediate need of some sort of stress condition that you're trying to eat your way out of almost, right? But then in doing so, if you put yourself in a position where if that persists, eventually leads to potentially depending on what you eat, maybe it's diabetes, maybe it's obesity, maybe it's some sort of heart disease. Or other type of serious type of risk, yeah it's all linked and it's, yeah, it is interesting and not interesting. Sorry, that's the wrong word. It occurs to me that it's like, this is nothing new, right? You point to a Bible verse that says, Hey, you shouldn't worry. And it's very easy to. To read those words and scoff at them and say like, yeah, but there's so many things that we have to worry about because we have to do X, Y, Z. And I think the way to reframe it is instead of worrying about something, choose what am I focusing on today? Instead of like what am I worried about, I want to focus on perhaps dealing with a problem that normally I could worry about, but I'm going to focus on finding a solution or a path forward or a resolution or even if it's I have to take a step backwards. And, regain my footing, so to speak. I think that's the important way to reframe what worry has become in our culture. And it's the same way when we talk about like being busy. And instead of being busy, I heard someone tell me like, Oh, my life is full, but it's not busy. Like, yeah, you're doing a lot of things, but it's not. Just arbitrarily busy, like you're churning in place and not getting anything done. So there's just different ways to reframe the worries. And I think there's a lot of them that are to your point, things that. The majority of them by the math are not things that we need to worry about.

Brad: 19:59

Yeah. He said another thing. He was like, when I said, I paraphrased earlier about, stress kills people. It can kill as the power to kill. But he said something about like, no one has ever died from. Work or taking action it or taking action

Michael: 20:20

Yeah. But where does stress come from? Like at the end of the day? Yeah. What is the underlying emotion from stress? It's probably fear. Fear, sure. Right. And like we were talking about that a little bit before this show, so that's an interesting kind of partial segue. But I think the two are very closely related. It's most of the time we have some sort of, sometimes it's an unidentifiable fear. Like that's the case of my father-in-Law. Who has dementia, like he can't even sometimes pinpoint exactly what it is that's stressing him out and worry, but he's really worried a lot of times. It's just at night when it gets dark and

riverside_michael__ may 6, 2024 001_reclaiming_man: 20:55

yeah,

Michael: 20:57

But there's just. I think there's fear behind a lot of those, those worries and that's another place to go with it, I suppose. But it's really, it sounds like a good podcast that I should take a listen to.

Brad: 21:13

Yeah, it's yeah, it really is. There was another, I was going to say this, like, how do you build your fear? I'm trying to see if I can find the Bible verse that it alluded to. Oh, it was in Psalms, and it was, and it said, The Lord is close to all who call on Him, yes, but to all who call on Him in truth. And it was the truth. Okay, so what, He's not close to you unless you get honest.

Michael: 21:46

That's exactly, man, that's so crazy. So you guys, yeah this is, so good. And definitely recommend living fearlessly this book by Jamie Winship, because he says that one of the absolute key components to dealing with worry and fear is confessing and confessing. He says it doesn't mean apologizing to God or somebody else. It means Telling them the truth. You're telling the truth. And so when you do have a worry or a fear you have to tell the truth about it and you have to say, okay, this thing is really bugging me. And then you have to ask, but what is. The truth about it and put it in one of those categories that you just talked about, Brad, is this something that I don't have control of? Okay. It no longer should have a hold on me. I have spoken truth into this and now I can no longer be afraid of it. And so it's partially rational, but at the same time, like you said, you have to turn some of that stuff over as far as like, what is the actual truth about who I am? And if, this stuff is actually something that should stress me out. Yeah. Yeah. That book is all about that. So I think it's interesting that you say that, the true element of it.

Brad: 23:05

I think there's like 15 books now that I probably have to read that you've recommended. Oh, just,

Michael: 23:12

they'll just keep on coming, man. So I listened to that podcast accidentally coming out of the sauna, like I was meditating doing this stuff and I was like, Oh, this is good. I'm like, I'm just going to chill here. And this podcast comes out, I was like, Oh, this is interesting. Like the intro of it. And then I was like, by the end of it, I was like, I'm buying this book. And then the next morning, I'm like that 50 percent of the way through it just like burning through this book. But, check that one out too. It's, it was a fast read to be honest with you.

Brad: 23:45

Yeah. I'm not going to say I'm not a reader. Good. Good. Cause that could be a lie. Maybe you just don't read as much yet. Yeah. I got all the excuses about time and all that stuff. But that's one on my list. It's on one of my it's on my list. It's on my list to, to be a more of a reader and, do that.

Michael: 24:12

So yeah. Yeah. Try 10 pages a day for a week and see. Like how long it actually takes you to do 10 pages of anything. The Bible is pretty dense if you do 10 pages, but if you read any other book, The

Preston: 24:26

Bible's my buddy was going to do 75 hard a couple of weeks ago. He's like, I think I'm going to start with the Bible. It's like, you're not a reader. I was like, don't start with 10 pages. You got to have

Brad: 24:34

a plan with the Bible. Now it's like you got to have a Bible plan or it's pretty

Michael: 24:41

simple. You just read it every day. Yeah. True. No, that's, here's, that's the plan. Yeah. You do have to have a plan, but the plan is actually very simple. You just read it every day. Sure. Sure. It doesn't have to be more than a chapter, but if you read it every day, like sometimes you're going to get sucked in and you're going to read a few. Yeah. Sometimes you're going to be like, what is this lengthy list of names that has no relevance? And you're going to blur your way through it. But and you have to have

Brad: 25:09

That filter. And over time you learn how to read the Bible. It's going to, it's not going to tell this story that has What we're looking for entertainment, so to speak, so it's like, you have to like, read it with that filter of understanding and for sure. And letting the words, Letting the Bible do what it does, because I think there's a power there where when you read it, it's like, you don't always know what's happening, but you're reading like, really powerful stuff. And I feel like you open. This door to for him to come in through the word and that's why they talk about it. And I almost sound like this like preachy dude right now, and it's crazy to even hear myself talk because I'm like, still full of sin, right? But I'm learning that I don't have to beat myself up. Now I'm just like, you know what? No, it's all good. I had these problems anyway, I found ways to grow and, build on this stuff. And now I'm like having a little bit of fun where I'm like, cool. Like I can keep learning and keep growing and building. And sometimes it's going to be painful. That's the next thing I was going to say, why people don't get honest or why they don't tell the truth is because it hurts, but on the other side of that pain, is the growth. And it just like what you said, Michael, it was like, it.

Michael: 26:29

I

Brad: 26:29

can't remember what you just

Michael: 26:29

said a minute ago, I just drew a blank. We were talking about building faith and that's like when you go through those types of Oh, experience,

Brad: 26:35

right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, it was just like, you gotta go through it, you gotta experience it and I'm I'm grateful that I've had these experiences, but if I don't learn from them Then that's on me. Right. And yeah, it's just good stuff, man. Really good stuff.

riverside_michael__ may 6, 2024 001_reclaiming_man: 26:55

Yeah.

Brad: 26:59

Yeah,

Preston: 26:59

that's all of us.

Brad: 27:00

So I encourage, yeah, check it out. It's, I'm just going to check out Craig Rochelle's. What's the name of his podcast? I think it's just the leadership. I think it's just Craig Rochelle's leadership podcast. I'll look it up real quick. Yeah. Craig Rochelle leadership podcast.

Michael: 27:23

Maybe we should have him on our show, dude.

Brad: 27:25

All right. I don't think I can get to him quite yet, but I can get to, why not? Just ask. I'll try. I will. I'm going to I thought about that. For sure. So when I get to meet them, I'll be sure to keep telling people about reclaiming man. So I've been telling everybody about it. I've been sharing it. with people. I don't know if we've seen any new followers or anything lately, but I've been telling a lot of people about it. And if you're listening, thank you guys for following and giving us a listen, because a lot of what I've picked up and a lot of I've shared recently has come from the time that I spend at life church and being involved. So I love it, man. I do. It's hard. I don't always want to go like every time I don't want to go. And I'm always so glad that it did. It's like an AA meeting. I'm like, I don't want to go. And I feel so much better. I feel so much better when I leave, so

riverside_michael__ may 6, 2024 001_reclaiming_man: 28:25

yeah, that's good.

Preston: 28:28

It's like, Yeah it's just doing something that you, it's like getting in a cold plunge first thing in the morning. It's like, it doesn't sound good, but like when you get out, it feels phenomenal. It's like going to church. It's like, ah, I could sleep in a bit, but it's like, then you go and you see all your friends and your pastor gives a good message and you leave and you're just like,

Brad: 28:48

yeah. So I went my mom has this regiment, right? She's 65. And for 65, she's, My mom's in pretty good shape. She goes to the gym every day. She goes to the YMCA and she's like, I, she always talks about sitting in the sauna. She's like, you gotta, and so one day I was like, been, I've been working on building prioritizing my family. So making time for my son and then making time for her. So it's a little easier with her. Cause she's around a lot. My son and me have two totally different schedules. So it's hard. We're actually going to build Legos right after this. I told him to, if he took a nap tonight, Earlier, He could stay up late and we'd build Legos so that we could hang out. But anyway, my mom goes, I go, what do you want to do? Like, let's go do something. She's like, come to the Y with me. I want to do the sauna with you. And I'm like, all right, cool. And I sauna just not enough. Cause I don't have access to it at my gym.

Michael: 29:37

Right on. We can wrap up episode 61. I suppose thanks for listening.