Let's Chat with Will & Tony
Let's Chat with Will & Tony
LCWT - Navigating Trials: Exploring Adversity, Encountering Faith, and Embracing Hope
Have you ever found yourself questioning why you are facing trials and adversities? Ever wondered where God is in the midst of your struggle? We've all been there, and in this discussion, we tackle these challenging issues head-on. We share personal stories of resilience, transformation, and growth amidst adversity, reminding you that even those who seem to have it all together are also navigating their own storms. This episode warmly invites you, our listeners, to share your experiences, fostering a space of unity and understanding.
Transitioning into the deeper aspects of adversity, we engage in a profound dialogue about faith, regret, and the purpose of pain. We grapple with the age-old conundrum of why God allows suffering and the potential for growth through trials. Is it possible that adversity can be a gift rather than a punishment? This episode challenges you to reframe your perspective on life's trials and tribulations.
In the final segment, we delve into the potency of faith, hope, and gratitude when faced with adversity. We provide valuable tips on self-care, forgiveness, and the power of dreaming big. Inspired by a poignant song from Mercy Me, we discuss the importance of having something to look forward to in challenging times. Wrapping up the episode, we present a simple, yet effective four-step process to navigate grief and heartbreak. This discussion serves as a gentle reminder that even in our darkest hours, there is always a spark of hope. So, join us as we explore the crucial aspects of life that truly matter.
Are you ready to chat? Call Will and Tony now 607-414-CHAT.
Speaker 2:My teacher is telling my second grader about gender.
Speaker 3:Should I call the school? I'm having a huge struggle with eating too much and I'm not sure how to stop. My spouse seems to be changing her priorities and I'm worried. Yeah, we're fighting the digital battle in our house. I never can seem to make progress and I'm not sure what to do.
Speaker 1:Welcome to let's Chat with Will and Tony, Focusing on what matters and ditching what doesn't. Now here's Will Kesley and Tony Pack.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show. Always a pleasure to have you join us. I'm Will.
Speaker 3:Kesley.
Speaker 2:I'm Tony Pack here we go. My buddy, my lifelong friend of two years, tony Pack.
Speaker 3:It seems like it's been a lifelong, doesn't it? It feels like it sometimes yeah, sometimes it does.
Speaker 2:We're camping buddies. Yeah, sit around the fire. Yeah, we're chatting, chatting, and we thought, you know, we ought to just do a radio show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we might as well get on like we're chatting all day long anyway.
Speaker 2:And then one day somebody heard us doing a chat and they're hey, you got to do a radio show and here we are. Here we are. Funny how that works, isn't it, tony? Always great to see you. It's good to be here. By the way, we've got our podcast up now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go check out the podcast. People are starting to download like crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got eight episodes up there. We'll keep loading them every month, different episodes of the let's Chat with Will and Tony show, and we sure appreciate everybody. It's been passed those long to their friends. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we love it. We're hoping we're helping people who knew that's the goal right.
Speaker 2:Right, who knew Every day A couple guys sitting around?
Speaker 3:drinking root beer.
Speaker 2:Drinking root beer Fishing Fishing, talking Common sense advice, common sense advice, and it's from two guys that kind of. You know we've both been down the road a little bit, been married. I've married 35 years. I'm married 25 years, I got five kids, five kids also. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Raised a few of them.
Speaker 2:Right, we've worked in corporate America.
Speaker 3:We've worked with a couple of employers on a couple and we'll see if we can Works out See how it's working.
Speaker 2:So we just passed on some of the stuff we've learned along the way and hopefully it can bring you a little less heartache and pain by diverting some of the things. But what's interesting and today we're going to talk about diversity, at least in our first segment is that it's quite common. We think that I don't know. You look around. You think these people have their whole life together, right? Oh no, they're archivists. Have you noticed? Oh yeah, nobody gets away with it, nobody gets away.
Speaker 3:I call it the mortal experience, right? Nobody gets away with it. I mean you might look across the street and, oh, they have everything. They have the boat, they have the suite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're so happy, the kids are so great, the kids are all good. Yeah, no.
Speaker 3:No, there are cracks under the surface and everybody's dealing with an issue. Everybody's dealing with the stresses of life.
Speaker 2:When we talk about adversity and looking at the difficult things in our life. We're going to broaden this out just a little bit, but just for each of us, I'm sure. As you said, just think about your own life You've all had. Well, listen, if you haven't had a crisis in your life, something real nasty, something that's giving you a lot of grief, then bless your heart and we're going to put you on the prayer roll because it's coming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can come into the show and talk to us about your perfect life.
Speaker 2:How you did that. I doubt we're going to give you any, but adversity is probably the broad word. I was looking more this week at Disgrief. What brought this on is I had a friend who passed away this last week. Oh man, that's too bad. Got to go to another funeral. Yeah, I mean, I thought some of us manage this grief quite well and some really really struggle, don't they?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, adversity is one of the, and we have all types and we're going to talk about a lot of them today. We're going to talk about illness, we're going to talk about death, we're going to talk about a number of the different, you know, big challenges of the lives that causes. But you're right, some people just completely crumple.
Speaker 3:It destroys them and they're never the same. I mean, you're never quite the same after an emotional vein. You learn and you grow, but some people progress on and become even better people after adversity and others just come they're. You know it's like a dumpster fire you know it's like everything comes off the you know the bus and it's, it's a total mess.
Speaker 2:Well, as we're sitting around enjoying a little meal with the family and stuff after the after the ceremonies, it was interesting to just kind of hear some of the dialogue around the room, right, same kind of thing. And there were questions of this like how come this has to happen to her? How come you know why? Why did she have to die? How come this other person got to live?
Speaker 3:These kind of questions. Right, it's not fair, you know? Yeah, it's not fair.
Speaker 2:And this person died so young and and why would God do that? It was just interesting to see some of the despair that we feel when we have these kinds of trials. In this particular one, we're talking about the grief of death, which is is a difficult one.
Speaker 3:It's tough, I mean when somebody's super close to you, you know, and especially when they do you know, especially when they die without, without any, you know.
Speaker 2:precursor right, just boom and they're gone, and it's a tragic death.
Speaker 3:It just the void that people feel. It's intense and it it's hard to get over. Now you mentioned a word there and I know you've talked to me about this and I love the way you talk about. Talk to me about the, the what, if and the why. Yeah, you start talking the why and the if onlys, you know, and you have that situation Right, and that can cause a lot of people to go down a rabbit hole per se.
Speaker 2:We have a handful of things we like to suggest. When people are having kind of and particularly this kind of grief with the death death is a big one, or somebody has a male, a major thing happen to them it's difficult for those that are still around to manage the feelings they have, but what we find is there's a productive way to manage them in an in productive way, and a couple of words come out every time, and so we strongly urge if you've had somebody recently died or something that horribly happened to somebody close to you, you have to mechanically stop yourself from using the words why and if yeah, and it's like well, what, what do you mean?
Speaker 3:by that yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's like if I, if I wouldn't know him, we could have done this, if I'd done this differently right, if I would have turned on left instead of right, if I would have if I would have only put the you know groceries away before I left the you know house, then I wouldn't have been there, you know. Why didn't I know this was going on? Why didn't I? If I would have stopped by yesterday and talked to the person.
Speaker 3:I mean, you see that a lot when you have, like, a suicide, which is another, another, tough one, another, really tough one for people to get through, and we did a whole whole series on that show on suicide and, and you know, getting into that, if, if, then if what? And all the different machinations that you can go on in your own mind on on why you you'll take yourself to a place that's really hard to get out of.
Speaker 2:And this is why it's not like it's a, it's a crime by saying the word if or why. You just have to ask ourselves what is it we're hoping to accomplish by using the word if or why? Because we're stating something that can't be changed. Yeah, so you're actually walking yourself into the cycle of just returning back to the bottom, as we call it, kind of going down a rabbit hole, and so nothing productive comes from it. It's hard to come to a place when you know it just has to be that it is.
Speaker 2:But my father died when I was a teenager and the circumstances around him dying were kind of crazy. He was in having a back surgery done, he'd been to car accident and they had a rupture disc in his back not a big deal, right. They had him on some heart monitors, some other things. I had called him on the phone to see how he was doing and it set off one of his alarms. So the nurses at the front desk turned off all his alarms Because of the call, because the phone call came in and it set off his alarms and they didn't reset them. Well, during I hung up the phone call, he was having dinner and his heart stopped and he died, and none of the alarms went off. Wow, they turned them all off, right? So what happens is the first thing you want to do is go. But if, if I wouldn't have?
Speaker 3:called if I, if the nurses wouldn't have done this.
Speaker 2:It happened. Everything was done with the right intent, Nobody was trying to be malice, Nobody was trying to kill him. It happened. And so it was actually my mom that said to me when we first, my brother and I, drove down to see my mom because he was having surgery down in Salt Lake City, and we came in, we hugged each other, we kind of embraced each other my mom sat down and said kids, one thing we're not gonna do now going forward is we're not gonna say the word if. And that's where I learned this from Wow as a teenager, because I thought, wow, that I can't tell you how many times I caught myself you wanting to say if, If or why. Why did my dad have to die? Why didn't I lose him at this young age? Why? And there's just nothing productive that'll come from it. Instead, what I did is I picked up this next phrase, which is I can become better or bitter.
Speaker 3:Okay, and we talk about that in it. We've brought that up for the show. If or why better, bitter right, we do this one a lot and I get to make choice now you get better or get better.
Speaker 2:Right, and there's. I realize some things are tragic. You want us to go. That's not fair, it's not right. I completely understand it's a part of grieving, and even being angry at them or at the situation is a part of grieving. We don't have to hide from that. But it's what we do with that anger.
Speaker 3:And I really liked that. I really liked that premise about what are you going to do productively to move forward and what are you going to do with this new state of life. I now have this death. That's happened. I now know that. You know my wife has cancer and she only has two months to live. You know these facts that come at us. What am I going to do with that? To then be, have it be productive and have it help me move forward as a person or move the situation forward to be the best situation possible, Right? I think that principle of looking forward, not looking in the rear view mirror while you're driving that car, is so important.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about, we're looking at grief, looking at adversity, we're looking at trials of life today. Trials of life, it happens to all of us. It happens to all of us and I know many have gone through it quite well your experts at it. Some have really struggled through it, some haven't had it happen yet and like we say to you, bless you, it's coming, it'll come Right Sooner or later.
Speaker 3:It's going to happen. I had a kid in a youth class tell me that I've never had anything wrong going to happen to me. Just wait.
Speaker 2:I'm going to put you on the payroll because it's coming. I like to call it right. All right, let's chat with Will and Tony If you'd like to get on the show 607-414-Chat, 607-414-chat. Or you can email us. Let's chat with Will and Tony at gmailcom. Gmailcom and go check out our podcast. Yeah, download it, it's fun. When we return, I want to talk about God. Okay, what God had to do with it. All right, there's a reason and it might shock you. Okay, I'm ready for it, you for that one.
Speaker 2:All right, it's the God issue, the God issue all right, let's chat with Will and Tony News talk 107-9, back in two the God Issue. All right, let's chat with Will and Tony.
Speaker 1:News talk 107-9, back in two. Here's Will and Tony. Now here's Will. Now here's Will and Tony. Come on, welcome back to the show, will and Tony. Here we are, let's chat.
Speaker 2:We're talking about adversity today, versity, which we have to add in things like grief, sorrow, regret, loss, shame, right, mistakes. Yeah, no, they're all in there. I think those all have to go in there.
Speaker 3:Regret, shame, shame right, yeah, no, they're all in there.
Speaker 2:I think those all have to go in there regret.
Speaker 3:Regret? Yeah, that's a big one. You've had any regrets? Yeah, I have regrets. Yeah, but you're the older, the older we get the more we get.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's thing. It's interesting. You talk about regrets, right, you know, to some degree I think a regret is healthy as long as that emotion is moving you to a better place. If that motion is like an anchor, though that's hampering your soul from, yeah, becoming a better person, I think that regret is very unhealthy. But reflecting back on life and saying, hmm, yeah, I could have done that one better right. But then going forward and living your life from that learning yeah, I think is is the mortal journey, right. That's what we're all trying to do, is, as we learn and we grow and we mature is to Think of those things and move forward. But I think the negative connotation of regret is when it becomes that nagging never-ending I can't get over this and it continually is bringing your happiness down, right.
Speaker 2:Yes that self-talk in the back your head that pings at y'all lifelong, well into the break. I threw this out there because it's it's a topic we have to. I just feel like I have to address. Because I hear it every time, which is why would God do this? Why did God let this happen? You ever heard that?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, all time. Why did a loving God, that God, supposed to love us, right, yeah, and and why did a loving God?
Speaker 2:let me go through all that or let them. Or let my mom die, or you know whatever right and this came up even in this stuff, you know, the other day it's like, but it was God punishing them for some reason. And we get that way. We sometimes, when we get into grief and we get into these kind of trials, it's easy to turn.
Speaker 3:It's easy, it just seems for some blame a non-anted Somewhere else why would God do this?
Speaker 2:I have a friend who lost his son to cancer, okay and and, oh, you know, I think for, at least for me and I think for many the most difficult thing I think a person can go through is that loss of a child.
Speaker 3:I can't even imagine. Right, you know, gratefully I've not experienced that. But I just can't even imagine the pain that goes.
Speaker 2:A parent goes through right, but I had to pick up my own perspective. Having gone through cancer myself and having touched the brief of death myself, I got a different view on what kind of happens with this. What's the God role in all this kind of thing? And it ended up, this guy ended up turning himself on against God. He's like I prayed for him to be healed. I prayed, I, I did everything God said to do and to save him, and then God let let him die he's. I even offered my life in return for his life and God wouldn't take it. What kind of God would do that? He just basically turned on God and it's a difficult place to be in because I get I get the pain and the frustration of it.
Speaker 2:However, from a personal perspective and we've talked about this on the show of my own world, I won't get into it today, but I've gotten to touch those very special things and I would tell you we sometimes look at death as as as a bad thing that happened to a person. Yeah, let me just share my knowledge of this. Death is not bad. In some ways, we should be congratulating them for being done with this journey and once you think about it for a minute, I've gotten to touch that window. I know what the feeling is and I can assure you what we do in this life is miserable Compared to what you feel when you get to die. And we don't ever grant that to the other person who passed away. So you look at this, his father who sees the trial of his son, and you think, yes, horrible tragedy, right, but in some ways his son did it. He's done, he's in much better place, much happier place, not exactly why is this a crime that God did to him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure there's a crime. I think in some ways it's a gift.
Speaker 3:Isn't it one? I don't think it's crime either, and I don't, you know, because the way I look at it and you know, you know, call me simplistic, but I go out on a football field every single day and I have these football players that I love. I think they're awesome, they're amazing kids, and I put them through pain, I, I run them. Why do I run them? So they'll be conditioned. I, I put them through challenges every single day, hard challenges to build them up.
Speaker 3:And You'd say, well, how could a loving coach, you know, make a kid sweat and run and and hurt, right, you can. You could say that same thing about the coach Well, if you really loved them, you wouldn't put them through that pain, you wouldn't put them through those challenges, yeah, and and any good coach out there would say, well, yeah, I do, because they're not gonna be prepared, they're never gonna grow, they're never gonna be the the type of player that you want, unless you put them through the challenges right and if you think of life as a journey of growth and that there actually is something beyond this that we're learning and growing to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, god has to let us experience the challenge, right, he's a loving Heavenly Father and that it lets you experience the pain of a child's death. That's a learning thing, because how, if, if I was a parent and I had, you know, 10 billion children down on earth and I had never gone through any Like any trials myself, how would I ever console you as a loving, loving God? You know we have a father, right.
Speaker 2:Well, so it's a fine line, but I just if just follow with me for a moment this line, which is this idea that you know, why would God allow this to happen to, like a child, or there's been some horrible things that happen to people. What I want you to kind of get your head around is it's not a crime to die, it's not a bad thing, it's it's. Let me, let me explain it this way. I'm gonna share a personal experience here. So, uh, you know, six years ago I was diagnosed stage 4 cancer.
Speaker 2:Miserable time in my life but most people don't know is what happened two months prior to that happening. Okay, um, I'll just listen a brief way. I was walking in the middle of the night my somebody in my room telling me it was time to go. And it's an odd feeling, tony, when you wake up, like one of my kids were in there talking. I'm like who's talking to me? And then I had learned that there was an angel or a person in my room telling me it was time to go and I said go where?
Speaker 2:At that point I began to leave my body and I saw my body lying in my bed and it hit me. What was happening and I said am I dying? And she very calmly said yes, I remember thinking I am so ticked off. I'm like, are you kidding me in my bed? This is the big event. I died in my bed. My wife oh, I wasn't very happy about the fact I was dying, but I got to touch what it felt like just briefly outside of my body and that experience. But what came from that? She said to me you don't wanna come. And I was like no, I really don't want to come. And I learned at that moment that I could go back. But I was going back to trial and tribulation.
Speaker 2:That my life was gonna get difficult and I immediately made the deal I'm like done, I'll take that. And she said okay, and back I went. I laid there in my bed, sat up in my bed until the morning. My wife woke up and she took one look at me and said what's wrong? And I said I am so sorry. I explained her what had happened. It's the weirdest thing, tony, I'm telling you, unless it happens to you in your life, it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain how it happens. But I said I am so sorry. We're about to go through some crappy times. For some reason I was being given the gift to leave the earth and not have to go through what's coming. I have no idea what's coming, I am just sorry. I know it's coming that a loving heavenly father loved me enough to say look, you don't have to go through this son, you don't have to go through what's coming, you can come now. Now, what's odd about that conversation is I was healthy, there was not a thing wrong with me.
Speaker 2:Two months later, out of nowhere.
Speaker 3:I'm diagnosed with stage four cancer.
Speaker 2:Following that, I was diagnosed with a bacteria called Bartanelle. Then I had COVID. It was number 16 in the county to get COVID. Then I'd have open heart surgery then I'd have lung surgery then I had pseudomonas, infections and the signs.
Speaker 2:So it has been nonstop since that little angel in my room said you don't have to go through this. So I see death as a different thing. I'm in this journey. I get what I'm here for, I get why I decided to stay and I embrace every bit of it as a great experience because I know God knows it was coming. You don't have to go through it. But we see people go through trials and tribulations and difficult things in their life and it hurts us in such a different. I look at it now and think, oh, bless your heart. It's the fact you're going through this. You have no idea the spiritual, you have no idea the special things that can happen if you'll let them and not get bitter right.
Speaker 3:And that's the I think that's the Death is not a crime.
Speaker 1:Death is not a bad thing, it was a gift to die, and I think Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm 100% with you because I think the interesting thing about your story, as you're telling it, I'm thinking, let's say you would have gone with the personage and chose to go yeah, your wife could have been laying there asking all the wise and the ifs, and it actually would have probably been a easier path, but even though she would have been thinking of all those same wise and ifs, because you would have been gone right and it's interesting is all of it is perspective. Where's your perspective on this particular trial Right? And if we can keep our perspective on the bigger picture of life and looking forward, that's one of those key things of getting through that adversity, not getting stuck in it.
Speaker 2:This is the gift I get to explain, which is I understand now that this life is about. I understand it's gonna worry about adversity. I understand it's gonna be difficult. I get it, but Heavenly Father isn't doing this to you as a punishment. He is-.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's never a punishment. When these bad things happen to us, they're for our experience and even for my wife. She understands, she was there in that moment and she goes look, I embrace this too. I get. Thank you for staying around. I join you in this. It's gonna be tough, but let's learn from it, let's grow from it, and it's done nothing but just purify us in such a beautiful way that we don't need to run away from it. And many times we have to change that viewpoint when we think that it's we hate God for this. You're back to the what and the ifs and the why questions. It's not gonna accomplish anything that's gonna be productive. God did not do this to you to harm you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting. When you get that feeling of God did this to me, you're right back in the victim mentality. Now become a victim. It wasn't your choice, You're now-.
Speaker 2:You stay bitter.
Speaker 3:Oh no, it's God's fault, right, and you can blame that, and to some degree I think people fill some comfort in there, but it holds them back from where they really need to go, right.
Speaker 2:So that's why I wanted to bring up the God question, not just to get into what happened in my world, but just I have a different view now of I know what it feels like to cross. I know what the conversation's about. It's different than how just I kind of see it and believe it and I would hope, if you're listening, you're going through these same kinds of things. Just be careful on the God issue. I assure you there's a lot you don't understand yet that would. He's not the reason for your calamity. You're not being punished because you did something wrong. That's not the nature of Heavenly Father. That's not what he does. If you'll let him, he'll encourage you, he'll comfort you, he'll give you peace and in my case, for whatever reason I was given this experience, I'm only learning later in my life why and especially being a counselor to understand the depths of some of these kind of conversations you can't get it in a book.
Speaker 3:You kind of have to live it, you have to experience. I mean, there's nothing better than life experience right to really teach yourself.
Speaker 2:So, in our part of grieving and a part of adversity, when you get it, I would just highly encourage you to try to keep yourself from getting bitter towards God, because, honestly, I don't know a God that is involved in making your life miserable. If you'll let him, he'll uplift you. The time I had cancer, the most spiritual time of my life. It was a beautiful experience because I allowed it to be and not become bitter over it, like why are you doing this to me? Why am I being punished?
Speaker 3:So, and I think if you're looking, if you're constantly looking for where God's helping you, you'll realize that he is actually lifting you through the trials. You look at alcoholics right and you go to alcoholics anonymous. Now, I've never been through the full program, but I've known a number of alcoholics that talk to me about this. One of their steps is talking about a higher power and the need for that to help get them through this challenge, to get them through the pain.
Speaker 2:Outside of our own mortal knowledge, what's happening?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Until they can accept that, and until they can get to that place that we're talking about with God, they never really are able to really get through that challenge. And so it's fascinating to me that once you put God in that context of yes, you're going through a trial, but he is there actually loving you and helping you through that and making it as easy as it can be in this mortal experience, you have a whole different perspective and I can tell you firsthand.
Speaker 2:but that's I mean, it's not again something I've heard of have faith in. It's a knowledge that I was gifted to have the chance to go through. It's a beautiful thing, way more beautiful than I ever understood, and there was way more support in my trial than I ever understood because I got to a place where I allowed it. Now I understand, as I say this, there are some who get cancer and don't live. There are some who die tragically and don't get the chance to come back. I understand that and I have empathy because I don't understand why they made the choices they did, and I'm quite sure that most people don't get a choice. When it's your time, it's your time. It just so happens it wasn't my time. I had four people went through treatment with it at the same time. All three have died, but me. That's hard to get your head around. It's like why did I get to live? I didn't do anything special, I wasn't more blessed than somebody else you were more righteous or more whatever.
Speaker 3:Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 2:It just so happens to be. It's not my time. My time was to go through the experience I had and to learn from that and then help others learn from it as well, and that's my journey.
Speaker 3:Isn't it interesting? We all have our journey. Yes, we all have our time. We all have our journey.
Speaker 2:Right. Somehow I won and they lost, so they died. Actually, they kind of won Right, because you have to understand how difficult this life is compared to what we feel.
Speaker 3:Next, yeah, no, it's funny and it's all the same. We're all going to go pass through that gate, right?
Speaker 2:We're all going to pass through that gate, everyone of us is going to touch it, the one thing we all have in common, and that's why I hope you understand, why I feel obligated to explain that, because you will touch this and if you ever get a chance to touch it, even as I did, you can call me and say hey, I understand, yeah, I know what it is.
Speaker 1:I touch this.
Speaker 2:It's the coolest thing ever. It's amazing. With that, I can also tell you that there's a lot of despair when people die, because we think there's this eternal loss. You'll never get them again. They're gone forever. And I understand even if there's those listening that don't believe there's a God. I understand where you're at and why you feel that way. I can only tell you that my experience was not that way. There was a God and there is life after this and there is family after this. It will be there. It's worth the effort to take care of those things because they won't be gone when you die. That's not how it works. You move on to the next sphere of life and you continue those relationships. That's why you and I spend so much time talking about ways of making healthy relationships Now, because they will matter.
Speaker 3:That's one of the only thing that's mattered and the only thing you take with you.
Speaker 2:And it is the only thing that matters along the way. We're talking about adversity, we're talking about grief, we're talking about death, we're talking about God. What the role is.
Speaker 3:This is a big one.
Speaker 2:Today's is a good one. A lot of talk, a lot of the fence on this one, aren't we? We're talking about a couple strategies you can use if you're going through grief, going through loss. We've talked about a couple of handful things you want to stay away from the if and why, and the better versus bitter. Yeah, let's get into how you get out of it. How do you get?
Speaker 3:out of the slump. How do you pull yourself out of that slump?
Speaker 2:All right, Got that more coming up. Got news at the bottom of the hour. Let's go back with. Let's Chat with Will and Tony on News Talk 107.9.
Speaker 1:Common sense advice for life, helping with self-awareness, family and relationships in a complex world. Now here's Will Kesley and Tony Peck.
Speaker 2:Welcome to let's Chat with Will and Tony.
Speaker 3:This is Tony Peck and my good friend Will Kesley. I'm glad you still call me your good friend. That's right, Always will.
Speaker 2:Always will yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:As long as we chat, as long as, even if I wreck your car, even if I like. See, even that's a good word right there Even if Even if, even if I think I have a brother who's in the, he's a religious teacher and he taught me that, even if principle, even if God put in God in the right perspective, Look at adversity. Not blaming him and putting adversity in the context is one of those things, when you're have faith and when you believe in the things that in God.
Speaker 2:Don't you also have to have faith to not get healed? You gotta.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you gotta have faith that, even if you don't get healed or even if the accident did happen, that even if this happens, I will still love you. God Right, it'll never change my faith in you. Nothing that this mortal world can happen to me will actually change my faith. That's when you get to true faith. That's when you really get to that bare metal. True faith is when you can believe that, hey, this horrible things happening to me right now, even if, even if I still will still love you, even if I will still do the things that you ask me to do, even if you don't heal me, even if yeah, and there's a song out there by, please heal me.
Speaker 3:but even if Even if you don't, you don't, I will still be your servant.
Speaker 2:I will still be your follower, right, it's a healthy way of looking at adversity, right, because life's gonna go on and you get to decide what you're gonna do when you go on. You're either gonna go out and you're boat and sink it, or you're gonna keep paddling and find shore.
Speaker 3:Even if my boat sinks, I'm still gonna try and swim to shore.
Speaker 2:There's this great song out by Mercy Me. Okay, Right, contemporary Christian artist called Mercy Me. So anyway, listen if you want to go up and find, even if it's a song. He wrote about his son who had type two diabetes and he said at this point in his life he'd had like 32,000 shots in him. Every time food wouldn't take a shot. And some lady came up to him and said, well, haven't you done, Haven't you called on God to heal him? And so on and so forth, and you listen to him tell the story. The head guy from Mercy Me, the man. He said you know you think, oh, yeah, that's so sweet, Thank you. Like, like he says I was mad. Like you don't think I haven't asked God, you don't think I haven't prayed for you, Don't think you don't think you know.
Speaker 2:I pray every single day he was angry about that conversation. He said that's when I decided. I said you know what, even if you don't heal this, it's not changing who I am with you, God.
Speaker 2:My son's just gonna be great at it being a type two diabetic, yeah, and I'm gonna make the best of the circumstance of that and, what's amazing, it was one of my favorite songs when I go in for treatment every day before I'd go back in for radiation Listen to. Even if I'd listened to, even if it was, it was a theme song. Even today, it makes me cry to hear it. So if you have that challenge in your life, just go listen to the words of, even if he talks about things like if you had faith to move a mountain. Then he says but what if you don't? Yeah, you know where. Yeah, so it's a good way to look at life, which is even if bad things happen to me, I'm gonna continue to do good things. I'm gonna continue to be a positive person. I'm gonna continue to help other people. It's that turning bitter and that's that break.
Speaker 3:Oh, I wanted to talk about one other thing, about turning bitter. So we talked about individuals who, during adversity, turned bitter against God. Yeah, there's another. Another common way of bitterness is to turn bitterness against other people and blaming some other people, like that drunk driver or that person did this to me, or it's all their fault and they put this blame on some other person that did something to him.
Speaker 3:And it's interesting, when we're talking about God and all these things is one of the things that I believe is God will never interfere with our agency or the agency of any others, right? So if somebody else used their agency to get drunk and then crash their car and kill my wife, I can get extremely bitter at that person for their, what they, the choices they have made, yeah, but that's only going to be keeping me in that bitter cycle. I have to get to the point where I'm able to forgive that person and recognize that part of this whole experience is for all of us to exercise our agency the way we, the way we deem fit, and I can't get that bitterness. I give that forgiveness and let it pass part of me and move forward.
Speaker 2:Part of allowing that to happen, though, is you have to be having an understanding of what's happening in this life. Yes, right, it's like I'm going to forgive them. Well, for what. You know? What does that get for me? We have to trust that this is just a small portion of your complete journey. Like I mentioned before, I'm fully confident you will live again after death. There is more on this journey. It doesn't end at death. Yep, your soul moves on. Your soul moves on, and the point to that is is that we have to be okay with the idea. This is just a preparatory time. This is, this is like work camp. Yeah Right, you're coming down here working. You guys have to train camp we're in basic training.
Speaker 2:So you get to move on to the next one. Good on you. It's not such a bad thing. Like my dad's case died young, I'm like good on him. He didn't have to stay around and deal with all the other headaches we get to deal with, right, yeah, it didn't have to get old. It became a positive thing for me to look towards. But I had to understand when something bad happens, like somebody's child is taken before they should have, it's not the end. Yes, there's a current pain and we feel that loss. This is just a small window of time and then you're going to be back together again. I fully believe you will have that opportunity to be together again and once you are, all of this past will go away. It's like that quick, it's over and all that grief. So we don't look celestial yeah, can you use that word? We don't like to look outward at what the future is. We'll look at what our losses today instead of how this fits in the total plan. We'll never have that loss again once we get out of this.
Speaker 3:You definitely got to look at the bigger picture and that's one of those keys. Now I did want to ask you about grief. I think grief is important, Right? I think grief. There's a time where these tough things happen in life. There is a time that you need to feel that emotional pain, but you got to get at some point, get past that.
Speaker 3:Talk to me about how you went in, your, how we get to the panel people and when people come into your clinic and they have this pain and they can't seem to get past out of the grief cycle, how do you help them?
Speaker 2:Part of getting out of the grief cycle also is to understand it's okay to be in the grief cycle. Yeah, agreed, right. And so we, we, we sometimes will force ourselves we got to get out of it. No, you'll know. You'll know when it's a problem, which is when it it decapitates you, when it takes you down and you can't get out of bed and you can't walk out of the house and you and this was all for months just debilitating you.
Speaker 2:That's different than going through just good, healthy grief, because grief, grief is a funny. It helps you also appreciate love more. When you go through grief, then love is so much more precious to you. Relationships are much more precious to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you see the sweetness in those relationships because you know the pain of one that has gone on right.
Speaker 2:Yes, you start seeing your gratitude changes a ton by unfortunately going through what is a difficult situation. So we have to kind of understand that. But once we do, then we start looking at the handful of things that get us in trouble, right, which is to blame, to justify, to say if, to say why and to blame God. Those things in themselves, just you can't get out of the cycle and you have to at some point decide I don't want to go there anymore. There's nothing healthy happening here. And we start with what today can we be grateful for?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm glad you brought up gratitude, because that was one of the points I was going to make on getting out there. You know, getting beyond that intense grief is as you start to look at that bigger perspective and start to be grateful for the things you still have, the relationships, you still have the opportunities to continue those relationships which my guess is in the touching experience that you shared here, is why you wanted to go back. Right, you want to go back so you can continue those relationships, so you can continue that work right, I didn't want to leave my wife.
Speaker 2:I still have so much more fun to have with her. I've said this before. She's like why did you come back? And I said it was kind of like I don't. First of all I was kind of shocked that I was dying. It came out of nowhere, right, I was completely healthy. Then all of a sudden I'm you know, two months later. I'm trying to die for real, but it was. I felt like I was at Disneyland and I hadn't finished riding all the rides and the park was not closed yet. Now I get.
Speaker 2:That's not everybody else's journey, some you know but for some reason I got that journey. And so I've come back to life with a whole different look on what I want to do with life. I don't wish away any day, right, my wife and I give us the number one finger when we wake up in the morning and that's not to say like I'm number one, it's like one more day. It was that we are grateful, we got one more day. And so we talk about going through that grief. One of the blessings you'll give yourself is when you go. You know what. I'm grateful I got one more day in this journey. It may be miserable, but I'm going to gain from that, because on the other side of misery is sweet love and sweet joy and other things that come that you can't really feel unless you've also felt the downside of it. Yeah, you can?
Speaker 3:You got to feel the both. The lower you've been, the higher the high. Feel Right.
Speaker 2:It's the opposition kind of all things to feel you got to have them both. So for me it started with I had to start looking at ways that I was grateful when my dad passed away and I was a kid.
Speaker 2:I had to start thinking of the things I was grateful I did have with him, the time we did get to stay together, the times we did get to enjoy the things he taught me I had to start looking for the time I had instead of resenting what I didn't have, because I also knew at some point we'd be together again and I had to. I trusted in that, so I didn't have to despair that. I just had to then go on for my life and say what I can do, that he'd be proud of what can I do. That he'd look down from heaven and go that's good. Good on my kid for being that way. I just found it empowering and not debilitating.
Speaker 3:You started thinking how grateful you were for all the things you did have. I mean all the things you know. And it's so funny. You know that old adage, you know, just look around, there's always somebody has it worse off than you. Yeah, and that's that point of that gratitude, right. You start looking at it and you start you're changing your focus to not woe is me and what just happened to me. But hey, what are the other things that I have in my life that are amazing? What are the other relationships I have amazing? What are the other things that I have an amazing? And you start having that gratitude and everything.
Speaker 2:Things will start to pop back in, everything starts to pop back in. We like to use the word self care. We don't take good care of ourselves. When we're in a crisis, usually we let ourselves fall apart. We don't do things that are healthy for us. You're talking about.
Speaker 3:You know, exercise, eating well, getting enough rest right.
Speaker 2:How about putting back dreams on your list, dreams of things you want to do? Hope she's alive. Get a bucket list out. Go get a. Make a bucket list.
Speaker 3:You know, I think the key statement in is hope. Yeah, hope is a powerful, powerful tool. A lot of times when we get into times when you know you get in the middle of winter, you know here in Idaho, and you're like, ah, you have no hope, that it's that seasonal disorder of no sunshine, right, you get in that thing of like, is this over, gonna end? But if you have something you're looking forward to, I find, if I have a, you know, a vacation plan or something that you're like, ooh, this is what we're working for, this is the thing that we're looking out for, and that is that hope and that bright little thing I hope yeah that carries you through and the hope in life, and if you can reestablish some of those dreams.
Speaker 3:I love that you mentioned dreams, because if you reestablish those dreams and there's something you're searching for and you're you're Trying to strive for next thing you know you have hope in your life and you start moving forward and you start and, yes, I get it.
Speaker 2:That hope may have been in whatever else was in that life of yours. Maybe you know again it was that partner you had that you like to do fun things with. That time will be back again. It will come back again. What you need to do is, between now and then, what do you want to do with your life? Yeah, that's meaningful. We got a couple ideas on that when we come back. All right, let's do it. I got kind of a four-step thing we like to talk about when we're in adversity and or grief. We've kind of taken it into that. You know, that grief side, that broken heart, broken heart we all get to go through it. There are some positive things we can do nobody escapes Nobody's adversity of life.
Speaker 2:Let's heart for those that are in it right now. Bless your heart. I just Hope we're helping. Yeah, we've been there. We've been there. I can only tell you it does get better.
Speaker 3:It does get better.
Speaker 2:hang on to hope. I take quick break. We'll be back with closing thoughts and wrap up the show right after this. Let's talk, let's chat. Let's talk, let's talk with will and Tony. Now we're just gonna chat, we're chatting back in just a couple minutes.
Speaker 1:Common sense advice for life, helping with self-awareness, family and relationships in a complex world. Now here's will kesley and Tony Peck.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back to show will kesley, tony Peck. Here we are talking about adversity, adversity and grief and trials Just some of the things we all, we all get to.
Speaker 3:We're on the same boat, we are that's the one thing I've learned is you know what? Every single one of us has these things, regardless of where you are.
Speaker 2:If you see somebody that's in the boat right now, go, and you're not. Go hold them up a little bit, because the day's coming that you're gonna need someone to hold you up a Little bit. It's just, it's a part of what we do in life be kind, it's a part of great growth. In fact, there are these trials, tribulations. When we left for the break, I said there's a handful of things we can do. Let me give you a kind of a five-step area of things that will help us maintain At least a focus of doing something forward. And I do want to stress, though it's okay to grieve, it's okay to cry, it's okay to be upset, it's okay to be hurt, it's all. Those things are okay, they're part of the process as you go through them, though it's how do we recover and come out of it? Yeah, what's the next step? To move forward? And we get lost sometimes in our grief by putting our Fears and our concerns in places that are not productive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you start putting your focus in the bitterness and then, right, you know, yeah, that thing, that's a little bit.
Speaker 2:Let me hear so like number one maintain a positive mindset. I want you to think about that. We talked about being grateful. Grateful, yeah, grateful. The service of other people really helps us kind of put ourselves in a very more productive mind. It allows us to have the windows of hope In your life, outward thinking.
Speaker 3:When you start loving somebody else, start serving them, it really brings you out, he'll you kill you yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to seek support. We sometimes feel like we have to do this on our own.
Speaker 3:So often I find that and this is something I've had to learn because I've always been a pull yourself up by the bootstraps I yeah, I began it get over it, I get over it right, and I've really had to learn that there are times where you need help, you need to talk to somebody, you need that other person.
Speaker 2:To step in walking through it, because you get stuck, we do, we get in cycles, we get stuck. So if you're stuck, find somebody, practice self-care. Now that means that we have to try, try to go back to sleeping decent, eat and decently getting some air, getting some activity. Go do some things you love and enjoy. You know one of the things that I like to do some things of life that are helpful.
Speaker 3:Get back into nature. Yeah yeah, I was on the golf course the other day is a big rainstorm, so it was me and my son the only time that just makes me angry, and I was off course. And I was walking along and I thought this is so nice just to be in the open quiet. I didn't even care I was golfing, I was just like, ah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:I know I back to nature. It helps you nature. Go on a drive. The next one is set small, achievable goals.
Speaker 3:You know I talk a lot of people. You know they'll have some big trial in their life and and they look at it. You know I have one son that does this all time He'll he'll be sitting here and he's college and he's worrying about how he's gonna. You know, put his five kids through school and I'm like whoa wait, a second buddy, you don't have five kids.
Speaker 3:You don't have five kids and you're not married. So you're putting a lot of stress into, like this full, complete journey. How about you wake up tomorrow and, you know, apply to a college? You know, let's start there, right, yeah? So that that principle of break things into manageable pieces and make small goals, and it might be I'm gonna get up tomorrow and I'm gonna take a deep breath, yeah, and I'm gonna, you know, do one thing.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna say thank you to somebody for something, and that's all I'm doing, mark, that's all I can do that's all my grief will allow me is to open the door for somebody and tell them Thank you. Yeah, just something, do something.
Speaker 2:I had a friend who, small goals, lost her husband and she was kind of in this stuck rut and I asked her about where's her dreams and but sorry, what if you could dream? Just take your magic, magic wand out, dream for a moment. She'd be like all that stuff's ruined. Now my husband to stop. That happened. Okay, we know that it's happened. Start, just tell me what you think you would like to do, and not that you can do it. Just dream of some things you wish you could do. Yeah, anything. She got this dream list out. Next thing. You know she's like you know what. Maybe she wanted to go on a triathlete, she wanted to run to try that. Right, and she goes. I think I'm gonna go up tomorrow and start walking perfect, so a little goal.
Speaker 2:And it was about six months later. She ran into me one day in a hallway and says you won't believe this. Let me show you a picture. Show me a picture of her. She went to a triathlete. She ran.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I bet she has smile on her face.
Speaker 2:I'm so grateful you just challenged me to try to go do something little that I dreamt, because I thought I would never do this Without my husband. I thought I had a wonderful time. I took my son. It was a beautiful experience, it's amazing. And that one thing just changed her whole direction. And I can't do this. Yeah, I'm a strong woman, I can make this happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that I'm gonna go on a walk tomorrow. Yeah, wasn't a triathlon, the next day it was a walk just remember one little thing keep perspective y'all.
Speaker 2:We love you. Thank you for listening to the show. Hope you helped out a little bit today with something we said. If you'd like to ask a personal question, just text us, or Texas get us in it.
Speaker 3:Put it in the email. If you've had an experience with death or with trials and experience, put it out on the. Put it out for the email and we'll address it.
Speaker 2:Let's chat with will and Tony on gmailcom, and our podcast are up in the same way. Go up and check it out. We'll post this one here in a couple days. That'll be great, and we'll see you again next week. Done, yep, take care. Bye.