Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
96. Confronting Chaos: The Key to Emotional and Spiritual Well-Being
Life can feel overwhelming when chaos reigns in our hearts, homes, and minds. But did you know that your ability to face and navigate that chaos directly impacts your emotional, spiritual, and relational well-being? In this episode, the Vallotton's are diving into why confronting chaos matters and how it aligns with living a life of peace, purpose, and emotional health.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The Biblical Perspective on Chaos:
Explore how scripture addresses chaos and God’s desire for us to live in order and peace. We’ll discuss how confronting disorder is a step toward aligning with His design.- “God is always trying to bring order to chaos."
- "God sets man up for success by creating divine order."
- "God’s structure fosters perfect love, promotes freedom, and creates powerful living."
- How Avoidance Fuels Anxiety:
Learn why avoiding the mess—whether it’s an emotional wound, a strained relationship, or a chaotic schedule—actually makes things worse and undermines your well-being. - Practical Strategies to Confront Chaos:
- Identifying the sources of chaos in your life. "Anything outside of connection is unsustainable."
- Setting boundaries with wisdom and grace.
- "Boundaries are meant to protect love."
- "Re-wiring is our job, not God’s."
- The Link Between Confrontation and Emotional Health:
Understand why emotional health requires courage to face hard truths. We’ll provide tools to manage the discomfort of confrontation while maintaining compassion for yourself and others.- "Our ability to create order is only limited by our unwillingness to confront chaos."
- "Avoiding chaos leads to pain; confronting it brings growth."
- Inviting God Into Your Chaos:
Discover how prayer, surrender, and faith can transform chaos into a catalyst for growth and spiritual maturity. "God believes in our ability to be powerful people who can confront chaos."
We’re often trying to obtain peace around us so that we have peace inside of us. We were designed to BRING peace to chaos, to bring structure to disorder. That requires that we have peace and order inside of us to bring to the world around us.
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We're the valetins and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valetins. I am here with my lovely wife on a beautiful morning, sunny morning.
Speaker 2:Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, today we're going to talk about something that I have recently been thinking about and talking about. I preached on this topic, confronting chaos. Well, actually I called it chaos and order, and I've been thinking about it and talking about it a lot recently. I've been thinking about it and talking about it a lot recently and I wanted to just dive a little bit deeper into how this affects our everyday life and what it looks like in marriage and in parenting, and so, yeah, we just thought we'd go a little bit deeper into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, after Jason preached that message at our church, we actually posted the audio of it to our podcast back in the summertime. So if you guys have been listening for a while, you might feel like it's a familiar topic. We're going to kind of take it a couple levels deeper, like Jay said.
Speaker 1:One of the main thoughts in our life. You know, when I do counseling and coaching, the thing that I'm constantly helping people work through in their life is setting healthy boundaries, setting healthy limits, and it's just one of those things that so few of us have actually learned how to do in a healthy way, and so, therefore, when we fail to confront chaos in our life, it actually breeds more chaos and more disorder and more distrust, and so it's one of those areas that we really can never stop actually going through our life and confronting different areas that have chaos in them, and it's kind of like that have chaos in them, and it's kind of like, when you think about it, like if you think about your physical body or your emotional health or your spiritual health, like any place there that I don't actually confront or set healthy boundaries is maybe an easier way to say it I end up in a lie, living a life that I don't really want to live.
Speaker 2:Can you give a couple examples?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um for sure. So we just think, like physical health we all want to have. I don't know anybody that wants to like have high blood pressure and feel terrible, I don't. And we all not all, but a lot of us start to learn as we get older, like, okay, if I eat too much ice cream, if I overeat, if I don't take care of my body, then I end up not feeling good, I gain weight and we see, you know, in my life personally, like I've had this roller coaster throughout my life of being physically fit and being out of control, and it actually started when I was younger.
Speaker 1:I used to have kidney infections, bladder infections, really bad, and I finally figured it out that when I eat sugar, literally I get my kidneys hurt really bad and I get these gnarly bladder infections to where it burns, really bad, when I pee. And so that started this journey in my life of like, oh my gosh, I have to confront what I was raised with. We were raised eating basically whatever lots of sugar and lots of soda and lots of ice cream. But now my body literally can't handle that, and so I had to go on this journey of setting healthy boundaries, even to this day of like. I don't hardly ever cheat. I haven't drank a Coke in I don't know 20-something years. But even with ice cream and stuff like when we were first married, I didn't even eat ice cream at all. And then on our honeymoon I dove in a little bit and then I went overboard.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:And had to rein it back into, like, okay, when I let myself do that, my body actually pays if I don't set healthy boundaries. But that bleeds into. I mean, we can look at our friends that we hang around and we can look at every area of our life and go. If there's an area of my life that has lots of pain in it, the chances that I am not setting, not confronting, not setting a healthy boundary is very high.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think when we say confront, we're not just talking about having a hard conversation with somebody, we're talking about addressing. Addressing, like you want to address the chaos. Yeah, address the pain, address the areas where you don't feel powerful, address the areas where you feel like things are out of control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we look at how God set up creation, if you read through Genesis from the very beginning, he's like so detailed and so ordered. And it's like in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and he separated night from day and dark from light and the water from the land. And he gets all this stuff set up and puts plants on the earth and puts fish in the sea and puts animals on the land, like he's doing it in such a very detailed way. And then he puts man in the garden. And it's interesting when you think through it, like God didn't set up man into the ecosystem until it was perfectly arranged for him to succeed. And then when he got there, when man got planted into the earth, he said hey, here's your job, here's your job, here's your role, here's what you're supposed to do, here's what you're not supposed to do.
Speaker 1:He gave them incredible boundaries, and as long as Adam and, of course, eve followed his direction and his order, they were set up to thrive, to live in this incredible ecosystem. They were set up to thrive, to live in this incredible ecosystem, and it was when Adam and Eve failed to confront the chaos, set healthy boundaries. They're in the garden, eve is talking with the enemy and it says that Adam was standing right next to her.
Speaker 1:Now, what's interesting about this conversation is God's the one that gave Adam the instructions on what to eat and what not to her. Now, what's interesting about this conversation is God's the one that gave Adam the instructions on what to eat and what not to eat. He's the one that gave Adam these instructions on what to do. He didn't give Eve those instructions, and it was Adam's job to relay that to Eve. Here's what we're supposed to do. So when the enemy was talking to Eve in the garden, it's not like Adam was somewhere else and then came into the scene.
Speaker 1:He was literally right there. So you can see the very what propelled mankind into chaos was their inability to confront it in the beginning. Yeah, and that is when you look at our life. That is the picture of mankind.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Our overindulgence in sexuality, our overindulgence in food, our inability to set healthy boundaries in relationships. That is what always creates the chaos in our lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1:And so it's an interesting conversation for us to be able to go. Okay, god is always trying to bring order into our life. He's always trying to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That was His original design for us is to get back to a place of peace. What area in my life do I need to confront?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think when we talk about, okay, god's always trying to bring order in my life, do I need to confront? Yeah, and I think when we talk about, okay, god's always trying to bring order in our life, order's not just some subjective idea, he actually gives us instruction. So whenever we are building structure not according to God's design, we're setting ourselves up not to enjoy the peace that he is trying to bring. Um, it makes me think about you know, he's actually the one that defines what love is. He's actually the one that defines what marriage is. He's actually the one that defines what family looks like. He's actually the one that designed what, um, communion with him and with other people is to look like the fruit that's supposed to come from those kinds of connections.
Speaker 2:Um, he's the one that actually so I'll say it like this like the greatest levels of freedom in life. Freedom is not the absence of order. Freedom is incredible order and peace inside of a structure that God designed, and so doing things God's way is the way to the most freedom and the most peace and the most order that we could enjoy. So I think learning how to press in for order in areas that feel chaotic for us is really, really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so true. It makes me think through like, okay, we know, if we know that any area in our life that doesn't have order in it is instantly going to be chaotic, then how do we confront in a healthy way?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like how do we bring you know um peace to those places? And for me. The first one is thinking through like I have to quit avoiding, like that's a big area of my life. Because there are places in my life that, because I don't feel powerful right, because I don't quite know how to confront that area, I just it's so scary, I just want to leave it alone. I don't want to. I want it to go away on its own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and things don't go away on their own.
Speaker 1:They don't.
Speaker 2:So you know, whether it's like an emotional wound situation or a strained relationship, that really means something a chaotic schedule, gosh, anything in our life that we don't feel powerful over. Like you said, actually, when we avoid it, we make it worse.
Speaker 1:It's the area of our finances, babe, like a couple of years ago. Well, for our whole marriage I didn't really get involved in our finances at all. I didn't hardly look at it. You managed and when I say you managed, it's not like you did something wrong.
Speaker 2:I paid the bills. I was the one that was aware of what was in the account, what we were saving, what we were spending yeah.
Speaker 1:And because I didn't want to look at it because I it's overwhelming and it's scary and I'm not great at reading spreadsheets and all that. And what happened is just over time, that ends up being this garden with just covered in weeds. It's like we're not in major debt, but we don't have hardly any prosperity financially.
Speaker 2:Right, because making ends meet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we're not planting anything, we're not growing anything, we're not trying because it's hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and because it takes a lot of attention. It takes a lot of and it requires partnership. It's not something that I, you know. Me alone, managing our finances, paying our bills, is not going to create wealth. No that's not what creates wealth. What creates wealth is a teamwork dynamic where we make intentional plans and set intentional goals and we build together and we're both really aware of what the plan is. So the absence of a plan is chaos.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's what happens in our yard. It's like the areas where we have vision and we put effort and energy in there. Those areas look great and you can drive up and see them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The areas in our yard where we don't right we don't plan for it, and that's fine.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of area that we don't have to, but our finances, our marriage, is one of those. I think too. From a marriage standpoint or a relationship standpoint, I think the truth is that when we avoid addressing areas that feel out of control in our life, it's not just that we lack order, but it actually fuels anxiety, Like especially in relationships. And if you're married and there's an area of your marriage that you're really not satisfied in, you guys feel disconnected in certain regards. Um, you know our inability to actually give time and attention to an area of our most important relationships. If we can't actually give it time and attention, we're fueling anxiety inside of that relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:It doesn't just stay stagnant right, like what if in in relationships you're either going forward or backwards? Really you never just stay still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, you know. So I think Part of the challenge is, in order to confront something, you have to do what you've Most likely never really done before, and we've talked about this a million, a million times and in a bunch of different ways. So when we started tackling our finances, I brought in my parents to look at it. I brought in some of my best friends to help us. We've had meetings with our best friends about okay, you know how do we get our finances in order? Done. Tons and tons and tons of strategy meetings with our best friends about okay, you know how do we get our finances in order? Done. Tons and tons and tons of strategy meetings with you. Just even around the marriage intensive was one of those. What's something that we love to do, that we're powerful in, that we feel like would bless people, that we can grow?
Speaker 1:And so it's the same thing with people's marriages right, or with their kids, Like that was a big area this last year with our kids is man, there's some areas that we don't actually know how to fix and it's not because, like with Edie, our daughter, who was struggling and still is struggling with, um you know, being dysregulated and her sensory stuff.
Speaker 1:Those are areas that wasn't like we did something wrong. It's like now I have more responsibility in my life and I have to learn how to lead that, bringing people in to help you solve those problems. Coming up with a good plan, sticking to it, is one of the greatest keys to like helping to set back into order things that are dysregulated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So you know there's. I don't want to make this too long or overbearing, but I think it. To me it's take a step back and look at the different categories of your life your emotional health, your spiritual health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, your physical health, your relational health and start to go. Is there a place in my life that isn't working for me, that I'm experiencing like cyclical pain over and over and over again, that I really need to confront, that I really need to bring some health to? Maybe I need to set some boundaries in. Maybe I need to learn a skill set, maybe I need to. You know, whatever it is because that when we start to look at our lives like that's where it begins to show up is we have to.
Speaker 1:Our emotional health is going to suffer. If I'm not confronting my finances and I'm in debt now, I have anxiety. If I'm not building my marriage and we're relationally bankrupt now I'm having anxiety and depression. If my kids are out of control and we're not on the same team and we don't have a plan, now we're having anxiety and depression. If my kids are out of control and we're not on the same team and we don't have a plan, now we're experiencing anxiety, right? Uh, you know, and so it's. It's back to like the. The confronting side is being powerful. How do I step up and take ownership and become powerful at these places in my life and create a real plan for them and become powerful at these places in my life?
Speaker 2:and create a real plan for them. Totally. I love that. I think in all of this, I think it'd be great to I mean, I would want to leave people with this encouragement that when God designed what he designed, he actually believes in our ability to be powerful. He believes in our ability to be powerful people who really can confront chaos, and it goes back to the creation story. He created man and gave man dominion. He believed from the beginning. He believed in our ability to partner with him to bring order to chaos. And so you know, fundamentally believing that God has put inside of us, with his help, what it takes to actually bring order to the environments that we're in, the relationships that we're in, to the environments that we're in the relationships that we're in, the spaces where we actually have been given authority and dominion. It's in us to do it. I think also powerful to remember that none of this we were designed to do alone.
Speaker 2:So I think we talk a lot about connection. We talk a ton about connection here, and I think one of the truths that we live by is that whatever we do outside of connection is unsustainable. So you know the areas of our life where we want to see order come where we want to feel like thriving is happening, where we want to be comfortable inside of these different spaces. Like you've said, in our financial life, we had to invite people in. We actually needed to be connected together, you and me on the same team and we needed to broaden our team of people who were able to bring connection to that space for us. And only in that, only inside of that connection, was it sustainable. I think you know, on a practical level, making sure that that connection piece is in place, making sure that you know how to set good rhythms of intentionality that you have in these different areas, that you feel like you're trying to bring peace and order to chaotic areas.
Speaker 1:I think it's really important to also mention that something being hard doesn't mean that it's chaotic or that you're doing it wrong, because I just know a lot of times we start doing something and we feel resistance, it feels really challenging, and then it's easy to start questioning like wait a minute, am I doing the right thing? Should I keep doing this? And I think that there's a big misconception between something being chaotic and something being hard. It's back to you know, we were built to do really hard things.
Speaker 1:Psalms 23 is a picture of God taking someone who's been broken, who is beyond themself, and he lays them down and he restores their soul and then, when he puts that person back into their rightful place in divine order which is what we're talking about he sends them back into the valley of the shadow of death. The only difference is this time the man says even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The only difference is this time the man says even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil. He's literally prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies. And I think a lot of times in life what we think is divine order or perfect peace looks like I don't have the chaos.
Speaker 1:I don't have chaos around me, right, but God goes no, no, perfect peace and divine order is you. Don't have chaos inside of you that's so good and there's a massive difference.
Speaker 1:You're not going to confront the chaos in your marriage in one day and not have any chaos. You're going to lead your marriage in the way that God designed us to lead, which creates order. It's the fruit of the Spirit. It's love, patience, long-suffering. The fruit of the Spirit. It's love, patience, long-suffering, kindness, gentleness. It's the same with our kids. The Bible doesn't say raise a child in the way that they should go and you won't experience hardship.
Speaker 1:It says raise a child in the way that you should go and when they grow older, they won't depart from it, and I think that this is a very they won't depart from it.
Speaker 1:And I think that this is a very, very important, foundational part of being a believer is that we are taking a divine peace, a divine hope, a divine vision into our relationships and into our lives, and from the inside out with God, partnering with God, confronting the areas in our lives that don't look like he designed them to live Right. And I mean that's why we have James, chapter one. Consider it pure joy, hilarious laughter when you come into unexpected trials For the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and when perseverance runs its course, you will lack nothing. So we are going to partner with God and come into these places of our life where they're lacking, where they're tough, where they're hard. I'll give you one more scripture.
Speaker 1:It's Philippians 4. It's rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Let your gentleness and kindness be evident to all. God is near. And then he says if you need anything, feel free to ask. And then it goes on to say and the God of peace, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind. Okay, what's he saying? He's saying, man, life's tough, life is challenging, everyday life is really hard, and so you're going to need to rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always, and when we do our part and we come into our marriage, we go. Man, my marriage is tough. Okay, let's start to give thanks, let's start to rejoice, let's start to look at what is going well or what I can do. Philippians 4 goes on to say if anything's lovely, holy, praiseworthy, joyful, think on these things and the God of peace which surpasses all understanding, will guard our heart and our minds.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of areas in our life that feel scary, that don't feel peaceful, a lot of trauma from the past, A lot of fear from trying it and not doing it. Well, god's antidote is not that that thing would change. It's that we would change from the inside out, that we would bring a joy, a peace, a healthy confrontation to it and change it from the inside out. So our job in the invitation is to confront the hard places in our life from a place of hope, from a place of vision, from a place of joy, from a place of perseverance and long suffering, and transform these areas of our life to get back into line with how God's created us to live.
Speaker 2:It's really good yeah, excellent job.
Speaker 1:Guys, I hope this episode has blessed you. If it has, please share it with a friend. Go ahead and leave a comment as well on our podcast. That helps so much. Otherwise, have an incredible week. We will see you next week on Dates, mates and Babies with the Validates. Bye.