Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Introvert's Guide to Respectful and Effective Communication
Join us on this eye-opening episode of "Death by Adulting" as we share the intimate details of our own long-distance relationship. Have you ever struggled with the nuances of non-face-to-face communication? We'll reveal how our long-distance engagement was fraught with misunderstandings and even led to a temporary breakup. Get ready to equip yourself with practical tools for better communication like limiting texting, scheduling structured times for talks, and relying on video calls. Our personal experiences aim to help you avoid the pitfalls we faced and make more mindful communication choices.
Ever felt emotionally hijacked by a narcissist? We dig deep into the complexities of true narcissism, distinguishing it from mere self-centeredness and spotlighting manipulative behaviors like gaslighting. Discover the importance of keeping detailed notes to protect yourself from manipulation and explore how empathy and patience can help rebuild broken trust. We also delve into the dual nature of speech, drawing wisdom from James' teachings, to show how your words can either build up or destroy relationships. Learn the demanding yet rewarding effort it takes to communicate positively.
Finally, we tackle the challenges introverts face in maintaining healthy communication boundaries. Overwhelm and irritability can easily creep in without proper space and respect. Hear firsthand how we've navigated these hurdles, offering strategies to reduce sarcasm and shift from self-centered storytelling to engaging others with thoughtful questions. We underscore the power of sharing personal God stories and the transformative impact they can have. Wrapping up, we emphasize the art of gentle speech, active listening, and steering clear of perverse language to ensure your communication remains respectful and effective. Tune in to discover how mindful communication can ease the trials of adulting.
On this episode of Death by Adulting. Just relax, it's no big deal. The big chill pill, why gas on a fire is a really, really bad idea, and how the smallest part of your body can set a forest ablaze. Hot, hot, plus much, much more. Roll the intro.
Speaker 2:I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger. Roll the intro is that we don't have to like it, we just have to do it. And if we have to do it anyway, why not do it? Well, that's what we're here for. We're Dr Steve and Megan Scheibner, your personal on-demand old farts, and we want to help you make good decisions today that you can be proud of tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Okay, what old fart wears a shirt like this? Come on, do you love it?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of old farts wear a shirt like that.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I walked right into that one. You did walk right into that one.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I might have to do an old fart. Purge in your closet.
Speaker 1:Wow, that really hurt. Is that hurtful. I won't have any clothes left.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Well here we are back at the death by adulting table and we've got two more tools for you this week. But I did want to kind of go back to our very first episode on communication and remember we talked about the problem with texting and maybe even phone calls and and the importance of face-to-face communication. And, um, you know, I think sometimes it seems like we pick on young people with the texting and say how kind of detrimental texting can be. But even in our day, way back, um, anytime there's communication that isn't face-to-face, there's just a whole lot of room for error, a whole lot of room for misunderstanding. In fact, I remember when we were engaged and, um, you know, we were long distance for our whole engagement and and, uh, I didn't know what you were going through in AOCS and you didn't know how I was receiving, the way you were speaking to me.
Speaker 1:Explain what long distance meant yeah, how I was receiving the way you were speaking to me. Explain what long distance meant yeah. Aocs.
Speaker 2:Steve was in aviation officer candidate school and I was in college. Still Cause I'm just a spring chicken compared to you.
Speaker 1:I am a cradle robber.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but we were engaged for the whole year that you were in Aviation Officer Candidate School AOCS is what it's called and all we had was phone calls, and not even every day. We had them every maybe five days, but you were going through something really hard and how you were speaking to me was not great, but you couldn't see how I was receiving it and I couldn't see what you were going through, and it ended up breaking our engagement. We had to call off our engagement for a while and kind of push the reset button, and so texting is detrimental, but any kind of long distance lack of face-to-face communication is going to cause those same issues, and so we just have been talking with several different couples about how to kind of manage their time apart and communication. So what are some tips? What are some tips for when you can the top of my list and be very um structured?
Speaker 1:about it, and so time is is part of it. I think it's very tempting to just uh, want to text all night long? Yeah, Right, and just keep it by the you know. And then when the person texts back, then you text again and you don't get any good sleep. Nothing you're going to say after midnight is worth saying. Trust me it, it's just not. It's only going to get you into trouble. And, uh, and? Or if you're having an argument over text, yeah, uh, you know now we all text. It doesn't make a difference what age you are. Everybody texts now. But it's it's two-dimensional, as we said before, it's very flat communication. So those two things work against you in the texting. And then you know, I would, I would suggest have a structured time where you get together and either facetime which is a really wonderful privilege of the technology that we have today back when it was just phone calls, and way, way back when you had to call after 11 o'clock at night because the rates went down.
Speaker 1:That was a really long time ago. Uh, that was even talking over the phone. You can hear the other person's voice, but it's still kind of flat communication. Facetime is nice because you can see somebody, even if you can't be with them.
Speaker 2:So I would say, limit the amount of time, don't text yeah facetime and if you can get together with the other person, but that we're talking about distance anyway but I'd say, limit the facetime too, because just because one person is has, is free and it's like I just really want to talk, there's going to be miscommunication and misunderstanding. When the other person is busy, I've got things I'm doing and and just because you're gone doesn't mean life here stopped, right, we've had to, we've had to talk about that, right. You know when, when you've been like, well, I'm just bored here in a hotel room and I'm like like, well, life is still going on here.
Speaker 1:There's extremes of that, because when you talked about Aviation Officer Canada School, that was for both of us a major life event, and a major life event is any large change in your life a marriage, a divorce, the birth of a child, the change of a job In which, in my case, it was my first really big job and it was boot camp all at the same time. So it's an incredible pressure cooker. We didn't have the ability to do FaceTime back then didn't exist, but the once a week phone call I got to make for 10 minutes it was kind of like talking to somebody. If you've ever seen one of those hostage videos where a guy's in front of the camera and he's reading a forced statement because there's somebody with a gun at his head.
Speaker 1:Well, the drill instructor was standing right next to me while I was talking to you on the phone, so you didn't know or see any of that. And so I'm in this like locked up mode, talking to you and you're thinking who is this person?
Speaker 2:I still don't know why you were afraid of him. He was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:He was not awesome, I don't want you to.
Speaker 2:He was pretty awesome. He was not awesome. I don't want you to. He was the devil in in the flesh.
Speaker 1:Don't talk like this, like scar down his cheek yeah, yeah, okay, so we gotta tell that story. So after I I got commissioned, I earned my, I became an ensign. I was a commissioned officer, I was still scared to death of my marine corps drill instructor, master sergeant flagger. He was this guy that was like etched out of stone.
Speaker 2:He was and he had this big old scar down his cheek.
Speaker 1:Well, she comes down now. Uh, to you know, we were engaged, we were working on the wedding and so forth, and so you'd come down to visit me once or twice. Uh, and we were at a function where he was there in the same room and as soon as he walked in the room, even though I was a commissioned officer at the time, I was still like, oh, oh, where do I hide? Right? And so she's chumming it up with him.
Speaker 2:Hey, he's telling me where all the good beaches are he's just being a flirty dude.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know, but she was enjoying talking to him. Like why are you talking to that?
Speaker 2:man I said I don't know why you're so scared of him. He's just so sweet, so charming, no, he's not.
Speaker 1:He'll eat your liver. Yeah, he's a bad man, all right.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to long distance communication, I, I think kind of the general rule is just because you can doesn't mean you always should, yes, and so perhaps come up with some good parameters, absolutely right, and and don't use your time to just dump on each other, right, right, okay, so that's our segue back to an old one, but I felt like that was important to say. It's not that texting in the younger generation is terrible. We had it in our generation.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right On to the two tools for this Two tools, two tools out of our eight rules of communication for successful marriages. And again this book is available at characterhealthcom. And again this book is available at characterhealthcom, yep. Or if you want to go right straight to the store you can do characterhealthstore. But right over in Megan's head you can see the characterhealthcom website.
Speaker 2:I feel like Vanna.
Speaker 1:Where all of our resources are available. Yes, many, many resources.
Speaker 2:All right. So our first tool this week and this is a really important one is consider one another's spirit, and Steve said in the teaser hey, relax, it's no big deal. And anytime you catch yourself saying that to your spouse, your children, a friend, your parents, you're in trouble. Right, you're in murky waters, because we need to base the importance of something on the importance that the person we're communicating with puts on it. And so if it's important to them now, it's important to you, and it doesn't matter. If you think there's merit in it, it doesn't matter. If you think it's silly, it doesn't matter if it's the dumbest thing you've ever heard. If it's important to them, it's important to you.
Speaker 2:And you recognize people who don't live out this precept, because what they are is self-centered. Right, they're self-focused instead of others focused, caring about what another person's spirit is, others focused, and it is the opposite of self-centered. So I'm I'm sure, uh, our watchers on YouTube, our listeners on the audio podcast, you can think of times that there's been something very important to you that a person you cared about mocked or just didn't care about at all, and how hurtful that was. And we don't want to be those people. Um, and there are. There are silly things that are important to each of us, for for you and I, there's things that I in the beginning thought were silly, that were important to you. There's things you thought were silly Like, um, for me, any type of light drives me crazy, any type of ambient light, right In the bedroom at night.
Speaker 2:You're talking about trying to sleep trying to sleep and so, um, I mean, it was so bad for me that when our seventh child was born, I had a broken leg and it was an emergency C-section with lots, of, lots of complications. I was hooked to lots of machines and the nurses kept leaving a nightlight on and I would put my IV bag on the rolling thing, get my crutches, go over and turn it off, because it's so important to me to sleep in the dark. And in the beginning Steve did. You used to make fun of that, but now you consider it important because it's important to me, and so we stay in a lot of hotels and there are lights everywhere in hotels. There's microwaves, there's TV lights, there's nightlights, you name it and I see him go around and put things over the lights and it's because it was important to me. So now it's important to him and it doesn't cost us anything except our own kind of coolness, you know, our own kind of right to say boy, that's.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we're well beyond that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not important to be cool anymore. Yeah, because well, mostly because we're not there is, there's no cool left anymore.
Speaker 2:So there's another area I want to talk about where we consider one another's spirit, and it's in how we communicate, because people communicate differently and if we're short tempered, if we're impatient, uh, if we aren't, if we aren't careful of how other people communicate with us, we're sending a message to them that we think their communication is worthless.
Speaker 2:So, for example, I really have trouble focusing and I always have about 800 tabs open in my head and too many, just too many applications running, and so I speak out loud things I need to remember, not because I need anyone else to remember them for me, but if I say them out loud, it's like a placeholder and I'm going to remember it. And that is not how you process. And so for a long time you'd say you know nice talk, or and you're sharing this with me, why? But when I said to you, it's just a placeholder, I just need to placehold it, you could consider it the way I consider it. Um, in your case, you're a rehasher, and so when you have a hard communication or an injustice, especially, you rehash it. I don't do that and I used to be like yeah, I know, second verse same as the first right.
Speaker 1:It's like an old guy loses his mind.
Speaker 2:I repeat the same story, but I have to say it over and over again to to let it sink in, yeah. And to and to kind of get over it Sometimes. Sometimes it's therapy, and so, because I love you, I have to consider your spirit and go. He just needs someone to share it with, and I'm a safe place to share it.
Speaker 1:Right, and this goes back to your old saying different is different, not necessarily wrong. Yeah, different isn't wrong, it's just different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we just communicate differently. And there's other people that communicate with. I mean, we have lots of friends that share really long stories about people we don't know and it would be tempting to be like, oh, I don't want to talk to them, but if we consider their spirit, we go. That's how they communicate. So, Steve, are there any communication types that you're like? Nope, Nope, I'm not going to consider their spirit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because we, you and I are in the communication business and so we communicate with a lot of different people on a lot of different levels, relationships and. But I think about counseling and we do counseling and you gotta be a good listener when you counsel and you want to be engaged with people. The only person that I have a really short fuse with is a is a true narcissist. And now let me just put a caution in here, because narcissism is way over used.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it is a buzz phrase.
Speaker 1:Everybody. If somebody disagrees with you, they're a narcissist, or or if they use the word I, they're a narcissist. That's. That's not what narcissism is. Narcissism is a real thing. A true narcissist is somebody who gets fueled, energized by stirring the pot, by keeping everybody around them off balance all the time. So the, the modern expression is gaslighting that. When they gaslight you, what they're doing is they're stirring the pot. They will say something very clearly and plainly and then, when you repeat that, they'll look at you in all sincerity and go. I didn't say that, I've never said that, and we've run into a few of those in counseling and I have no patience for that at all.
Speaker 2:It makes us really good note takers. Very good note takers, because I'll write down word for word what you just said.
Speaker 1:And then when you say I didn't say that, I'll go hold on word for word and I'll repeat it back to you in the exact same tone that you, and then the narcissist gets stuck because they're like well, I didn't mean it that way. No, no, you just told me. You didn't even say that. Right, and you said it. So we're not going to play that game. So anybody that's trying to get fueled off of playing a game where they're keeping you upset all the time, I have no patience for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I think this is a really important thing to learn, to have that considering one another's spirit in our communication, because the truth is all of us are aging right. I mean, even even if you're 27, you're aging right. Um, and you're going to deal with someone in your life, whether it's a parent, maybe it's a spouse at some point, who has dementia or Alzheimer's or is just losing their memory and repeats things over and over, and kind of the muscles you build now in how you deal with people who communicate differently than you do is going to give you the strength and the compassion you need to be there for that person and to be a good listener to them and to go. You know what? I've heard this story a hundred times. Make it 101. Right, because I care about you.
Speaker 2:Now Proverbs again, we're back to Proverbs, and if you want to learn how to communicate well, go to Proverbs. It is just everywhere in Proverbs. But Proverbs 18, 19 says A brother offended is harder to win than the. Uh, let me get it right it's harder to win than a strong city. Contentions are like the bars of a Citadel and, like Steve said, we do a lot of counseling and we have seen couples that literally are locked out of one another's lives because they don't consider the other spirit. They mock their spouse or they or they say get over it, that's no big deal. Why do you have to make such a big deal about that? That's silly, that's foolishness. And those types of words are hurtful. They're like the thrusts of a sword. The scripture would say yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's that illustration that scripture is great, Cause it's like they're.
Speaker 2:they've locked each other in jail and they can't get out, and they can't get to each other.
Speaker 1:Right, they're absolutely trapped. All right, good yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. Next rule to help us All right.
Speaker 1:So the next rule is guard your tongue. And it might seem as though that goes without saying because all of these eight rules of communication we've talked about so far have something to do with the tongue. But the tongue James in the book of James says it's such a small part of the body and that was part of my tease in the beginning such a small part of the body can set an entire forest ablaze. And think about that. You can say something in 30 seconds that might take you the next 30 years to undo, and I'm not exaggerating about that. We can say some of the harshest, meanest, most awful, inconsiderate things in a rash way, and then it takes forever to undo it. It tears down the bonds of trust and everything else, and so that little part of the body, that tongue, needs to be controlled or guarded or tamed, or however you want to put it. There's lots of stuff that goes into that.
Speaker 1:And uh, I think about uh, one of my favorite Bible verses is uh, proverbs 15, one uh, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger, and that that whole concept of there's two sides to the tongue. There is the side of the tongue honey, that can build up, and it can be gentle, and it can be encouraging, uplifting. And then there's the side of the tongue that can just destroy somebody. Yeah, and how easy it is. And which side are we wired to? Well, the easier one is the one that tears down and destroys. It's much easier to tear something down than it is to build something up Well, and the book of James talks about that.
Speaker 2:With the same mouth we bless God and curse felon men.
Speaker 1:We absolutely do. And in this world that we live in, if you've gotten into a cause or a movement or something that is tearing things down, you're in a very bad spot, because it's so easy to tear things down. It's much more work to build something up. If you think about September 11th right, and I lived through that as an airline pilot If you think about that, it took a few minutes to tear down those buildings. It took years to build them. It took more than a decade to rebuild them.
Speaker 1:So anything that's worthwhile, anything that's good, takes a while, and you've got to learn. So the same thing is true of the tongue. If you're going to build a good relationship, it's not going to happen overnight. You can tear down that relationship overnight, but it's going to take time to build it up. Why? Because trust takes time, and so, with the tongue, you have to build those things up. So now let me give you an example of how a gentle answer turns away wrath. We, megan and I, like to go to our annual date, and we've done this for years, but our annual date is to the Boston Pops over Christmas.
Speaker 1:Shout out to the Boston Pops To watch the holiday pops and they do a wonderful Christmas show. It starts around the 1st of December, all the way through christmas, and we will travel to boston. We'll get all dressed up. This is a dress-up affair for us. We go out to a nice restaurant for dinner and then we sit there with our little gloves and our little you know binoculars and we listen to the thing and it's just a wonderful evening, and so we've done it for about 25 years now.
Speaker 1:Two years ago we went to the Pops and they always play the exact same song at the end and it's not my favorite song. So I'm thinking, you know, let's beat the crowd. Are you with me, dads on this, right? Husbands, are you with me on this? You're going to leave, like in the beginning of the ninth inning, right to get out early. So there it is. It's the beginning of 19th. Let's get out of here before the crowd and the song I don't like anyway.
Speaker 1:So we left early, we get out on the street. I called the uber and we're waiting for the uber and as we're standing out there on the street corner, this gentleman somewhere over in the distance starts yelling at us. I don't know this guy, but he's real aggressive and he's, he's yelling at the two of us and he's saying you're zapping me, man, stop zapping me. And I'm like I'm not zapping anybody and he thinks I'm zapping him. So I don't know if this guy's on drugs, I don't know what it is, but it was a young guy. He looked real strong and he's coming right for us. And as he's coming for us, I instinctively get into that mode of protector and so I'm thinking I got to protect her. And so I said to her in that voice now, guys, you know the voice and, ladies, you may have heard this voice once or twice in your lifetime when your husband or your boyfriend or your dad turns to you and says get out of here and get out. Now that voice. I turned to her. I said get run now, do not take two steps back and go. Oh OK, because now I've got a second problem. I not only have to maybe fight this guy, but I also got to defend you and I need you to get out of here so I can handle this. But the whole time that episode is developing, the Lord's whispering to me. He's going. Steve, a gentle answer turns away wrath. A gentle answer turns away wrath, and it's. It's not like the movies, and in the movies it's all orchestrated. The good guy always wins, right. And I'm not that guy.
Speaker 1:And this young guy, he's strong as a bull. I don't know if he has a weapon or not. I'm thinking, you know what? Let's be pastoral with this guy. I used to be a pastor. Let's be pastoral with him. How about a gentle answer? So I instinctively stuck out my hand to him and, uh, and and that's an instinctive thing on people's part, they will do that too. And so he took my hand to shake it. And then, as soon as he I was starting to shake his hand, he pulled it back like this, like he realized that he had fallen into something right and he didn't like that. So he pulled his hand back and I said hey man. I said what's your name? And, uh, he said Robert. I said, well, my name is Steve. And I said, robert, I pray for people. I said how can I pray for you right now? And a gentle answer has totally diffused the situation. He's no longer thinking I'm zapping him.
Speaker 1:He doesn't know where he is right now I mean he's thinking, wow, this guy just told me he prays for people and he wants to know how he can pray for me. I was, I was ready to fight this guy a minute ago, and now he wants to know how he can pray for me. And so he kind of muddled something, muttered something. The whole time I'm thinking I hope the Uber shows up, I hope the Uber shows up, and and. But you know what he did? He shared with me something. I said, robert, you know what I said. I'm going to make a pledge to you. I said I don't know if we'll ever meet again. I said, but I promise I'm going to continue to pray for you. And I have.
Speaker 1:I've prayed for Robert um, several times, um, you know, a couple of times a month. I remember Robert in in my prayer time. I don't know if I'll ever run into him again, but the point is, a gentle answer turns away wrath, and so that little tongue inside of you can start a whole forest ablaze, or it can dampen out the whole thing right there on the spot. And so learn how to be that person that gives a gentle answer, that person that diffuses the situation. Everything's going to work out much better if you do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, some of the tools that we've shared are you have to look for an opportunity to use them right. You have to think oh, when am I going to consider someone else's spirit? And when I'm? When am I going to learn to else's spirit? When am I going to learn to listen? This is a daily thing. Every day we're given the opportunity to choose a gentle answer or a harsh answer, and the choice is right here. It's how's our heart?
Speaker 1:If you've been having issues in communication with your spouse or anybody in your family and the temperature just gets raised every time and you're in a fight and you're arguing, self-evaluate, are you diffusing? Are you using words that diffuse? Are you using words that throw fuel on the fire? If you're giving harsh answers and harshness can be not only the words but the tone If you're giving harsh answers and harshness can be not only the words but the tone rolling your eyes, seeming upset all the time, or if people have to walk on eggshells around you all those things are things that will elevate the situation, not in a good way, but put fuel on it. You need to use words that diffuse. Gentle words will do that Many times.
Speaker 1:The dialogue question, which we've talked about in previous episodes, very helpful with diffusing a situation. So I think, honey, it's. It's easy to um to stir the pot right. It's not so easy to diffuse it, but it's something that can be learned. Now let me ask you this question um, over the years now, we've been married for 40 years, now 40 years um, how have you learned to guard your tongue?
Speaker 2:uh well, I am of the two of us, the introvert and um, and I do get overloaded quickly, or maybe not quickly. I get overloaded too much touching, too much talking, too much, just people. It gets way too people-y for me and I think I used to respond irritably when it was too peopley. And now I try to. It's not that I'm going silent, but I try to keep my mouth shut. And you still know. You still know when it's too people-y for me and you'll say, do you need some space? But I'm not. I'm not responding irritably with my tongue, as much Would I hope you would agree.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I see you. You've, you've definitely mastered that. But I can also tell when you're, when you're feeling overwhelmed. I'm like, hey, it's time to get Meg out. Of here we go you know and you're, you get in the car and I sit you down and you're like, thank you yeah, yeah it does, it gets real peopley out there. It gets very peopley out there.
Speaker 2:How about you?
Speaker 1:Ask me the question again have I learned to guard my tongue? Yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 2:No, you have.
Speaker 1:I have, but I feel like I haven't. I feel like I I've got so much more progress to make in this area. I'm not nearly as sarcastic as I used to be, but I still wrestle and struggle with that. That's going to be a about me. It's easy for me to tell my stories. I love telling stories. So it's easy to get in the mode of oh, let me tell you another story. But when you're around somebody like that, sometimes you like the stories, but sometimes it's like hey, buddy, a little bit less about you, and it's. You have a better relationship with people. When you ask them, you know, like thought provoking questions like you know, tell me about yourself or tell me about your story instead of the old you know well enough about me. What do you think about me, right? Yeah, I used to be that guy. I'm less like that now, but I still struggle with that.
Speaker 2:A kind of a side segue from that is when we help other people begin to tell their stories. God is glorified because we all have God's stories and I think sometimes we think, oh, it's my salvation, it's my testimony of salvation, and certainly that is a God story, it is your God story. But all day, every day, god gives us stories and sometimes they're never given to us just to kind of hold on to. I mean, that's part of the reason we share stories and we tell audiences this we share stories because, not because our stories are the best or funniest although I think we're pretty funny but because we hope that audiences will see themselves in our stories and see how God works in their life. Because when God brings those stories to us, so we use them in other people.
Speaker 2:Your 9-11 story was used in thousands of people's lives, but I have stories that have been used in two people's lives Just as important, right. And so I want to mention one type of speech that I think often we don't think of it as harsh. You know we said a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Accusatory speech it can be said nicely, but if you're accusing someone of something, you're going to stir up anger and and it's going to give them that feeling of walking on eggshells because they, if someone has earned your trust, they deserve your trust Right.
Speaker 1:Well, when you accuse them, you're assigning a motive to their behavior. They'll get defensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then then you're assigning a motive to their behavior. They'll get defensive, yeah, and then then you're in a fight, right? So if you've made it this far with us, do us a favor and click the like button, and if we've earned it only if we've earned it subscribe. We want to share with you all of our content, and if you like what you're getting, click that notification bell and you won't miss a single episode yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so week, consider one another spirit, whether it's your spouse, your mother, your child, your grandmother, whoever it is, consider their spirit and guard your tongue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me add one final thought to guarding your tongue, because there's three things. I jotted down a couple of notes on this, but you know people will say well, how do I guard my tongue? I think choose gentle words, number one. And gentle words are words that diffuse rather than ignite. Learn to listen. That was actually our first rule, learn to listen. And number three would be avoid perversion in your speech. It's easy these days to get perverted in what we talk about. I'm just shocked by the use of foul language all the time, and even with people that do public speaking. I'm in the public speaking realm and I've gone to some military functions, I've gone to some civilian functions and people will just throw out the F bomb and the S bomb in the middle of a speech and it doesn't add emphasis to what you're saying it just takes away from what you're saying.
Speaker 1:You can say it much more eloquently. Avoid the foul language, but perversion is something that doesn't help.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure we've talked about this before, but you always do what you want to do, and so, if gentle words are hard for you, then write down a list of gentle words, figure out what they are, stick them in your pocket on a 3x5 card, look at them before you go to be with people. Train yourself to be gentle. Yes, absolutely yeah. Well, this has been another episode of Death by Adulting, and remember, when it comes to adulting, what doesn't kill you.
Speaker 1:Just makes you tired.