#122: Why Is Navigation More Important Than Destination?

00:01Why is navigation more important than destination? Welcome to the Real Talk Recovery podcast with the Therapy Brothers. We're brothers. We're therapists and we know recovery. Bring your stories, your questions, successes with real recovery.00:32Love it. Tyler. So how are you doing? Doing good, man. Still kind of living off of the high from the trip to Mexico. Missing it a little bit. Wishing I was back there still. Yeah.00:46We got to go with our parents and our aunt and uncle Doug and Punk and shout out to them, they're taking off for two years. We're going to miss them a lot. So it was really good to spend some quality time with them and just sit around. We just sat around and connected, hung out, got the sun. It was basically a bunch of our parents and our aunt and uncle who are older now and then a bunch of middle aged people on the beach acting like children again.01:18Well, it's funny what Jenny said. Jenny is my wife. She said, gosh, it was weird. All of us have young kids. So we've been in the grind for the last little while, like all of us and just taking care of other people, taking care of our children. And then we went there for five days and we got taken care of. And it was like Jenny said, I didn't know what to do with myself because I had nothing to do. I was just getting taken care of. I was like, yeah, isn't it great?01:50It was awesome. It was a good trip. I actually wanted to start our episode today with a story from the trip because I think it illustrates at least a segue into our topic for the day, if that's all right. Brandon, please. On the second day, we ended up out at the kind of an extra dock with our boat captain named Fernando to go do some deep sea fishing.02:15And I thought it was interesting that when we got on the boat with him, when you or I look out at the ocean, it's so vast and large that we don't really like. And with the lack of knowledge that we have, we don't really know where to go to catch a certain type of a fish in the ocean. We don't know which way to drive. We don't know what to look for. But with the captain, like the captain that we had, we go driving out in the middle of the ocean, and all of a sudden he takes one hard turn, and then he says, all right, we'll catch fish in two minutes.02:44And then boom, he's throwing stuff in the water and we're catching fish, like more fish than we can handle. We're like our arms are tired because we're catching so many fish. And then all of a sudden he goes, okay, we're done here. Pull up, let's go somewhere else. And he drives another five or ten minutes, and then he drops anchor again and says, okay, this is where we fish now. And boom, we're catching fish again. But I noticed that throughout the whole day that's what we did. It's like we go to a differentplace. We drop, we try. If we didn't catch anything in two or three minutes, boom, we're up.03:14We're going somewhere else. And it was just this constant back and forth thing. We call it navigation. That with an expert who is there to navigate to the destinations that we went to. We were eventually able to kind of have a really great time, find our targets, which were these fish we were trying to catch. And then we just had a really good time on the boat, too, right. Well, Tyler, so we've been up to Alaska a few times fishing and stuff. And I remember the first time we went, we'd get on those boats and we didn't really know what we were doing.03:48But then as we started to go more, we started to learn what to do. And here's the thing with Fernando. This is how I look at it. He took us to a destination where there was fish that was awesome. Like, boom fish. We're catching it. But if he didn't know how to drive a boat, there was big swells. There was like whales. We even saw a poisonous snake in the water. There was things that could really cause harm and get in the way. Not the whales, though.04:17But my point being, he took us to a destination. But if he didn't know how to drive the boat and he didn't know how to handle the ocean, then we would have never gotten to that destination and caught the fish the way that you're saying, Tyler, and I think this parallels to life in so many ways, especially relationships. For me and you, this is what I see all the time. Couples come in in pain and their relationship is not working.04:49And they're saying, I want something. I have expectations, and those expectations are not getting met. And because those expectations aren't being met, I want to throw money at therapy and get those expectations met. That's what I want. Tyler. We could have got to that place. And I asked Fernando, I asked these guys, like, do you catch fish every time? And they said, no, it's fishing. Some days the fish don't bite.05:17They even said sometimes the fish jump and you can see them everywhere and they still aren't biting. Right, right. And so the destination is great. Like that. Good things can happen there, but you don't know what's really going to happen when you get to the top of that mountain or that perfect fishing spot. And so to bring this back to our work, recovery, relationships and recovery, the same thing is true.05:46It's not about where you're going. It's about learning how to live in the present moment and navigate relationships and navigate life as you go. That's what ultimately brings peace and it's healthy. Yes, exactly. And I think with what you're saying, Brandon, for keeping the analogy going for just a second longer, it's like we did basically pay for Fernando for his expertise in navigation because he's got years and years of experience of doing that navigation.06:22Right. But the truth is that if we would have gotten out on that ocean and we would have not caught a single fish, every one of us on that boat would have had a phenomenal time. Right? Yeah, we were there to go fishing and the hope was to catch fish. But really, we were actually there for the camaraderie, for the Brotherhood, for the experience, for the chance to be on the ocean, for the chance to do something new, to having a new adventure with one another.06:53And we would have had a great time, even if we wouldn't have ended up with the target of the fish. Right. If you climb to the top of a mountain to look at the sunset and it's totally cloudy and you don't see anything, doesn't mean that that climb was for not, right. No. That climb still is blessing your life. And you can look at that leaf right in front of your face instead of the sunset and say, how beautiful is that, Tyler?07:28A couple was talking to me a couple of weeks ago and they said, man, we've had the best week. It was such a good week. We've gotten places where we haven't gotten in a while, and it feels like we finally made it. And when they said that, I cringed a little bit. And the reason I cringe was not because I was excited for them. Good for them. Yay. Wonderful week.07:55They probably had amazing sex, real intimacy, deep connection about emotional things, maybe even connected spiritually. Awesome stuff. Yay. Wonderful. But why the cringe, Tyler? Because it's still being seen as a finite destination to get to instead of as a set of principles that's worth living, that contributes to this outcome, that they're having to see this recovery work all the time, where it's like, as soon as I get sober for six months, I will have conquered this thing.08:25I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guy was 60 days sober and he was like, yeah, I figured this out. I've conquered it. And I'm like, that guy's not going to win. He doesn't understand that. It's not about just conquering the behavior. It takes more than 60 days to embrace a way of life that comes along with that. So it's like this couple comes into your office and says, all right, well, now we figured it out. We're all good.08:53It's like the very first question I'm going to ask that couple is, what are you doing? Like, what are the actual principles that you're living by? Because unless you know and you're intentionally doing those principles, you're basically just like us on the ocean and we'll roll into a pot of fish once in a while, but a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Right. But unless I know that the principles that I'm using to get there, that's one.09:23And then the second thing is, unless I have a broader perspective and I'm saying, great, I'm glad we're there. I'm going to embrace this. I'm going to soak it up. I'm going to try to live by these principles. And I know that this is not the end. I know that it's going to continue. It's going to carry on. And that's part of how life is. And that's how it should be, because it is well, it's fixed mindset. Growth mindset. Fixed mindset is I work a certain way and I get a certain thing.09:51And growth mindset is more, hey, God is doing things for me. I'm growing. And as life comes at me, which life will come at me when the hard things come, I can still have peace because therefore, I can navigate that and grow through that, rather than I've worked really hard. I've done a lot of therapy. I go to Church every week. How come this thing is happening to me?10:20And when you live the growth mindset way of, hey, let's let life come at me, and I'll navigate that with gratitude and with growth, then it changes everything. Tyler, I'm actually really interested and big on studying femininity and the female cycle. And it's really fascinating.10:46And not every woman has the same cycle, but for the most part, the cycle has a few phases, four phases to it. And if you look at it, those phases, there's the summertime where there's vibrance and connection andwanting to be close to people and wanting to put themselves out there. And I won't go through all of them.11:12But on the flip side of that, there's a winter time where it's about hibernation, it's about self reflection, and it's about rest and taking that space. Now, neither summer nor the winter phase is good nor bad. Right? But here's my point, Tyler, is when we get this destination thing in our head, where I arrive, that's not how women are designed. Women are designed to go up and down and change.11:43It's constant shifting. Right? And that's a beautiful, good thing for us. That's an awesome thing. When I say for us, I say for men and women. And so when we get this fixed mindset of this is how my wife should always just be happy and want connection. We should get to that place, and that's how she always should be. Well, what happens when she hits her luteal phase? She starts to hit into winter. And I'm like, hey, I thought we sorted this out. Where's the connection?12:13Do you see what I'm saying? That's problematic rather than, oh, there it is. Here's your luteal phase. Winter time is coming. I want to navigate this with you. You know what? I'm going to take the kids and give you some time on your own today because I know that's where you're at and we're not at a destination. We're navigating what is right now. Am I making sure? Yeah, I think so.12:36Brandon, what you're getting at here is that if both you and your wife and the example that you're giving and we're tying it into the couple you're just working with have hit this one point, call it summertime, and all of a sudden it drops into winter and you're both standing around yelling about how unfair it is and how you've been cheated and how like, why can't you stay where you were at?13:01You're causing more suffering and pain for yourselves than embracing the fact that it isn't summertime anymore and that there's something that can actually be really amazing and beautiful about the winter and it can be navigated and it still needs to be navigated. And it's the embracing of the fact that there's going to be these changes of these waves or these cycles or whatever it is with the example you're giving, that when we accept those things as the reality, we suffer less.13:36I'm thinking of Mexico again, Brandon. And the waves in the ocean, you get out so far and the waves, if you fight the waves, you get tired, you get worn out, you get knocked down into the sand, you get tossed around, and then you're hurting, right. The ocean always wins. In fact, we used to play the game as kids when we go to the ocean of like, take the pain, right. We go out to where the waves are crashing and see who could stand up the longest and let them smack you. I don't know why we did that. Right.14:04But that's in essence what we do as human beings all the time when we don't accept the reality that the ocean is going to have another wave and another wave and another wave. And when we accept that, we can then put ourselves in a position to ride those waves, let them pick us up and set us back down as part of the experience instead of as fighting the reality of what is yes, I love that analogy.14:30That's exactly what we're talking about is you see a big wave and instead of having it smack you in the face and fight against it, you jump with it andyou float up and you experience that wave. And I just think of like a person in recovery, let's say a person struggling with addiction, who has really worked their recovery and done a great job and learned how to accept life as it comes, regulate their emotions, step into pain and deal with life.15:01And let's say that a loved one dies like a really close person to them. How are they going to handle that? Well, if they're living the principles that you talk about, they're going to feel pain. They're going to feel sadness. They're going to allow themselves room to grieve, to feel anger, depression, bargaining, all the stages of grief. And they're going to be skillful in the way that they do it by not acting out, because they will develop the skills of accepting things as they are.15:33Now. Most people, like, when you lose someone you love, especially when it's in a tragic way, we kind of go through this shock period and this unbelievable period and kind of this non acceptance period. That period, although it's normal, is extremely painful because it's like we're trying to hold on to a handful of sand as it trickles through our fingers going like, yeah, but then we end up with, like, nothing in our hand and going, what do I do now?15:59And the person who gets the acceptance of the fact that when I pick up that handful of sand, it is going to trickle through my fingers and I'm going to enjoy the experience of having that handful for as long as I have it and the experience of the trickle as part of what's offering what my life is being offered right now. And so that person in recovery is going to continue to ride through that and stay sober. But the person who lets go of those principles and goes, yeah, but I've worked so hard and this isn't fair.16:30And like, why would God go take my best friend away after I've done all this work to show how good I am? And like, oh, there's going to be more pain, more suffering, and likely that pain and suffering could end up leading to poor decisions because we don't make good decisions when we're flooded emotionally. Absolutely. The tunnel is more of a blessing than the light at the end of it. When you're in the tunnel and pain comes.17:01I really think the key to what we're talking about today, Tyler, is gratitude. There's a Buddhist principle that says accept everything and push away nothing. Right? As everything comes in. No, sorry, I'm getting this totally wrong. Accept everything and cling to nothing.17:31Okay. So what that means is this is reality. I accept that. I see that I can navigate that, and I'm not going to get hung up on it. I'm not going to get depressed, anxious, and all these things because this thing happened. But I am an acceptance that this thing did happen. Right. And somebody in addiction actually uses their addiction to not accept, to avoid somebody in recovery actually uses their recovery to navigate life as it comes and to come to a place of acceptance and navigation through the pain of it.18:08And as you get to that place, you become resilient. It's amazing. You become resilient to what life brings you. I'm in a place of gratitude. God is doing things for me. So whatever happens, Tyler, if you were to die today, I would go through major grief. It would be extremely hard for me. Tons of pain. Right. And I'm saying, I tell you how much I love you, but I hope you would know that I would learn from that.18:40I would grow like I would see God's hand in blessing my life from somethinglike that happening to me. Right. And I'd be able to get myself to that place no matter what happens to me in my life. Easier said than done. I realize some things are extremely difficult to navigate and take a process and take time and are difficult, but anything can be processed and you can get to a place of I understand now I see something.19:16What's the alternative? Let's use your example. I die tomorrow and you sit there and go, this isn't fair, this sucks. And you wrote yourself in there and you're going to live the rest of your life in misery because it was unfair that you lost your brother. You're resisting the reality of the fact it's not going to bring me back. It's not going to change the reality of the situation. The only thing it really impacts, which then in turn impacts a lot of other things and people is your quality of life.19:46Right. And so it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, if I died and it wasn't fair, I'd still be dead. But that sounds hard. That's the reality situation. I'm not saying that to discount the fact that you would still grieve, of course you would grieve, of course you'd go through. But I would want you, as I want anybody to suffer less by accepting that reality, by coming into that single case.20:14And now if we tie that into like principles of recovery, accepting the reality that maybe I can own the fact that I've developed an addiction over the years. Accepting the reality that maybe I'm married to somebody who is capable of betraying me. And I have to make decisions based off of the reality of whether or not I want to stay. But if I stay in denial there, I prolong my suffering, accepting the reality of the fact that I come from a history because I live a human life where there's been trauma in my life.20:46And when I discount that or I avoid it, or I pretend that it's not there or I say it doesn't affect me. All I'm really doing is prolonging my own suffering instead of being able to accept that and say, yes, that's all part of it. This is all part of the story. This is all part of things as they should be because they are. I can't change them. Right. I think, Tyler, as we're talking, we talk about destination, fixed mindset to get to this perfect place.21:16You know, I think there's some realities. Death and taxes, we're all going to die. We are going to pay taxes and everyone else that we love is going to die as well. Like that's reality. And so you can resist that or you can learn how to navigate the reality that you got to pay your taxes every year or the reality that you're going to die. Right.21:44Another reality is that relationships take work and are difficult. Every relationship in some way is there to teach you and help you grow. And I'm difficult for my wife. She's difficult for me. I love her. She loves me. But there's a friction process there of growth and learning that has to happen in our relationship.22:13If we're going to have a relationship, that's reality. So you can get to this pinnacle, these really good times. I just had a great time in Mexico with my wife. That was great. That's wonderful. And I know that we come home and we still need to navigate. We still have work to do. We're still going to grow together. And I believe that through our navigation, we've gotten more and more healthy in the years that we've been married. Right. But we've gotten better at Navigating is why we're healthier.22:44Not because we've gotten better at Navigating, but the way that you'vegotten better at Navigating as you've learned more and more to pursue the navigation instead of the destination, to say, okay, we have this thing out in the future that we want, call it a good marriage, and this is what it would look like. But really the way that we're going to end up getting there is saying, where are we at today and what are we going to do to navigate today? And now that thing is out in the future.23:11Maybe it's a moving target even, but now I get to enjoy the process of trying to get there. Remember, Brandon, when we were mowing lawns? I think we've talked about this a long time ago in an old episode. But when we started a lawn care business, we were mowing a few lawns and we ended up growing. We got quite a few accounts going, and we set this goal that we were going to hit a certain amount of money for the year. And once we hit that amount of money for the year with our lawn business, remember what we were going to do?23:42Yeah, we were going to go to rodeo. That was going to be the thing to celebrate, right? Yeah. When we hit our goal that summer, we like shattered our goal. We shattered it was like way higher than we even set it for. We thought we just arrived. And you know what? I still to this day, I think I put five grand in the bank right. To this day, I still don't think that you and I have gone to Rhodesio to celebrate.24:14We owe ourselves back that's. The point, though, is that we busted our tails for a whole summer with this carrot dangling in front of us. We were going to go eat at a Brazilian barbecue place that we loved. And by the time we reached the destination, we're like, yeah, we're good. We don't need that anymore. What happened to the whole summer where we were mowing lawns, like, not taking a drink for 20 lawns at a time to see who was tougher and all of the pain that we went through to get to that thing, it was unhealthy talking about control and release in the shame cycle.24:46Right. But we could have just enjoyed the journey that whole summer and still had the target. If we would have seen what we were actually doing, which we were learning how to communicate with people. We were learning how to be disciplined. We were having a chance to spend time with one another where all of our other friends were working at jobs that they didn't get to spend time with their brothers. Well, but Tyler, you kind of bring up a point here, which is I believe that a vision is a good thing.25:16Like, okay, where are we going and why? I want to see it, I want to manifest it. I want to know that that's out there. So coming back to relationships, I think for me and my wife, it's good for us to have a vision of a healthy relationship, a relationship full of adventure and fun and connection and real trust and all those things. It's good to have that vision. Right.25:42But that vision can actually not happen because we're so concerned with exactly how it's going to look. And so we've got to get to this certain destination in order to have that vision comes back to our story with fishing. Like, if we wouldn't have caught any fish, we could be really bummed and say, this is horrible, or we have a great time because we drove out in the boat to the place where the fish usually are.26:12Right. And so you have the vision. Like, we believe that there's good stuff out there. We believe we're going to get these good consequences and things in our life. But if we do or if we don't, I surrender that and let go ofthat. And I'm grateful for the journey. I think that's the key. You're saying I'm in no way saying don't have a vision. Don't even set goals. I'm saying, yes, set goals, set your target. But remember this.26:39Imagine that life is moving like an old time video game where the screen just pushes, and if you don't stay ahead of the screen, it eats you up and you die. Right. When you put that target out in front of you and go, when I get there, when I arrive to this one spot, then I'll be happy. Now I'm going to play the whole level with this thing called time chasing me. And when I finally hit that one spot, I will have a moment of this bliss, and I'll have a lifetime that I've missed living.27:10So what you're saying is that the journey itself is also worth living. So we should intentionally set a vision. We should intentionally set goals. We should intentionally set targets, destinations where we want to go to. But once they're set, we should put them out in the peripheral vision where we can still see them and work towards them. But we've then got to get busy living life in front of us because the only time that we actually have to live our lives is the moment that we're living them.27:40Anytime we're not actually actively living the moment we're in, we've lost that portion of our life. We can look for little dots. It's like working for the weekend, right? Like, okay, I'm going to go to work for five days and then I'll get one full Saturday where I can go do whatever I want. It's like, well, Dang, dude, you just missed 80% of your life. What kind of way is that? Why not live life, enjoy life, meet it with what you said, I think you really used a word earlier called gratitude that meet like today.28:13Do I wish I was on Mexico with you right now? Again, yes, 100%. But you know what? The truth is that we're here talking, doing our podcast. And because of that, if we want to live our lives, we can enjoy our conversation with one another because that's what's in front of us right now. Right. And so we accept that. We embrace it, and we get to have gratitude for the fact that we've got this opportunity to come and create an episode and talk with one another. And now all of a sudden, life can be good and sweet, even though it's not what we would want it to be right now.28:43Right. And that's okay, right. If I go home and my kids yell at me and disrespect me, I can navigate that, or I can be resistant and say, you shouldn't be that way because you should be good kids because I've raised you this way. And again, it comes back to am I able to accept what is in this moment and connect to myself and connect to those around me in this moment?29:14And yeah, it let's embrace Mondays and navigate them instead of work for Friday. Friday is going to be awesome. Saturday will be great, too. And today will be great. And it'll offer some learning Monday. Right. So I can meet it with this and learn. You used some kind of Buddhist terms earlier. I want to add one more and kind of actually read you a parable based off of it. I know you love that stuff. Oh, nice.29:42The term is called equanimity. And in the Buddhist kind of like tradition, equanimity basically means being able to keep it even mindedness. So you're seeing things not as good or bad. You're just seeing things as they are and meeting things as they come with even mindedness. And there's this parable that I'm going to read, and it kind of illustrates this idea ofequanimity or even mindedness. Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.30:13One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. Such bad luck, they said sympathetically. You must be so sad. We'll see, the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses. How wonderful, the neighbors exclaimed. Not only did your horse return, but you received two more. What a great fortune you have, we'll see, answered the farmer. The following day, his son tried to ride. One of the untamed horses was thrown and broke his leg.30:42The neighbors came again to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. Now your son can't help you with your farming, they said. What terrible luck. We'll see, said the farmer. The following week, the military officials came to the village to conscript young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. Such great news. You must be so happy. The man smiled to himself and said once again, we'll see.31:16And then you can kind of get where it goes and it goes on and on and on. But that's life, right? Yeah. It's like we'll see. I love it and embrace it as it is. This is what it is. This is the life that's in front of me. This is the life that's happening right now. I'm going to meet it because it is right.31:39And I think, Tyler, I do think there's navigation tools that we could maybe not get into on this episode, but there's good navigation tools, like practicing mindfulness, like really having daily set up so that you're healthy enough to really be able to notice and feel each moment in each day, reducing vulnerability to emotional mind, allowing yourself to be very healthy.32:08And so when things come at you, you can get back to your wise mind, learning good communication skills with a partner so that you can learn how to hold space and empathize and be there with them in those moments. That's navigation tools where if you don't have those navigation tools, you're going to should on your partner, you're going to fight, you're going to go into drama, you're going to resist. All these things are going to happen.32:38So in therapy and in life, you can really learn good things that help you get back to that place of acceptance and gratitude and really become resilient. Yeah. I think one of the things that is kind of counterintuitive to what we do in our practice is that most people are trying to bulletproof themselves from the pain of life. And so most people try to avoid all pain. And by avoiding all pain, they create their own prison cell and they end up being alone and isolated and not have any pain.33:11But at least now they've created their own pain of isolation, right? But the person who can actually bulletproof themselves the best Is the one who embraces the ability to develop that skill set of navigation that equanimity, that gratitude, the acceptance of reality, emotional coping skills, Connection with other people, a wrestle with God, the person who's willing to do those things and learns how to do those things and embrace that that's part of life is the one who bulletproofs themselves the most in a lot of ways.33:43And I have a quote hanging on my wall in my bathroom that just says, it's areally simple one that everyone's heard before, But I really like it. And it says we cannot control the wind, but we can adjust the sales. And a good sailor doesn't spend all the time yelling at God about whether the wind is blowing the right way or not blowing at all or the storm that's coming. A good sailor says, this is the weather that I've got and I know how to adjust the sales.34:12And so I'll do my job adjusting the sales as the weather does what it's going to do. And I think that's a really powerful way to think about living our lives is that instead of dictating everything and controlling everything, we take what we've learned, the set of principles, and we navigate according to what comes into our lives.34:42You know, I love that analogy that you're giving. Pima shodron says, it's not the groundlessness of our situation that causes our suffering. It's us trying to put stuff underneath us all the time that causes our suffering. And how we find peace is by accepting the groundlessness of our situation and knowing that it's there.35:07There's a lot of things outside of our control. But I really like your analogy with the sales of being able to navigate whatever the situation is coming into our lives. Put your sales up, you guys, and go down to Mexico and go fishing and be happy. Go ahead, random. All right, you guys. Oh, go ahead.35:35I just want to say I really appreciate Tyler and all his analogies and poetry and all this stuff, But I appreciate this talk, Tyler, we're having this discussion Because we know that this takes suffering away from people and it helps them to be able to actually step into feelings of peace and power. All right, guys, if you liked this episode, Then please share it.36:03And don't forget to go and rate and review our podcast.