The Spiritual Grind
The Spiritual Grind is a candid, down-to-earth podcast hosted by Dr. Jenni Emery, PhD, RN, CHLC, CH, and Rev. James Emery, MHSB, exploring personal growth, mindset, belief systems, leadership, and real-world transformation.
Drawing from decades of study, lived experience, and practical application, Jenni and James bridge the gap between spirituality, psychology, business, and everyday life. Their conversations move beyond theory, offering honest insight into how beliefs are formed, how patterns repeat, and how intentional awareness can create lasting change.
Rather than promoting labels, dogma, or shortcuts, The Spiritual Grind focuses on clarity, responsibility, and personal agency—meeting listeners exactly where they are and giving them tools to move forward with confidence, depth, and authenticity.
Each episode blends thoughtful dialogue, real stories, and grounded perspective designed to support growth in both personal and professional life—without hype, pressure, or pretense.
Our Website is https://themerccenters.org
The Spiritual Grind
Superbolous Fun: Redefining Joy in Everyday Life
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Dive into a fun-packed episode where we explore how to rediscover joy and laughter in our everyday lives! Finding fun in our common routines can transform our experiences and alleviate the monotony that often creeps in as life gets busy. We share personal anecdotes filled with light-hearted humor and moments that sparked joy, highlighting the importance of turning our attention to the small pleasures.
Join us as we discuss how cultural expectations can influence how we determine what activities are seen as enjoyable. With compelling stories about crickets, nap time, and unexpected childhood memories, we weave in the importance of embracing new experiences that challenge our previous notions of fun.
This episode is a joyful reminder that it’s okay to prioritize fun and that it doesn’t have to be a grand adventure—sometimes, it's simply enjoying a quiet moment or allowing yourself to be playful. We challenge you to identify what happiness means to you and to explore it without guilt.
So go ahead, give yourself permission to try something new, engage with what truly excites you, and most importantly, start logging those joyful moments! Don't forget to share your thoughts with us, and let's make joy a central part of our life's journey! Tune in now!
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Introduction to Superbolous Fun
Speaker 1Good morning Dr Jenny.
Speaker 2Good morning.
Speaker 1How are you today?
Speaker 2I am superbolous.
Speaker 1Superbolous. What Say that again?
Speaker 2Superbolous, superbolus, superbolus, is that a word?
Speaker 1What was that movie? Maleficent, maleficent, maleficent, maleficent. Yeah, that was that movie we watched.
Speaker 2What does that have to do with superbolus? That word reminded me of that. They're not even close in the alphabet. Well, I don't know, it popped in my head, so it came about, because superb and fabulous.
Speaker 1Superbulous In my head.
Speaker 2Superbulous.
Speaker 1Superbulous, superbulous, superbulousificate what I just added fantastic to it.
Speaker 2Superbulous-tic.
Speaker 1No, superbulous yeah.
Speaker 2Somebody look it up, is it a word? Oh my gosh, superbulous.
Speaker 1I'm sure it'll be in the Urban Dictionary somewhere.
Speaker 2If it was, and it is now.
Speaker 1Okay, so I have a good topic today. I want to have some fun today.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1I want to really lighten the load and have a little laughter in this.
Speaker 2Okay, we have lots of laughter.
Speaker 1I feel like yeah, no, I think so too.
Speaker 2Except for when you perceive it that you're getting in trouble and that I am not agreeing with you, yeah, you mean when you give me pow-pows. Like whenever you think I'm beating you up and picking on you and not agreeing with you.
Speaker 1You do that a lot. Wow, I'm just playing.
Speaker 2A lot is a little grandiose in thinking, don't you think?
Speaker 1Well, maybe it's a little over-exaggerated.
Speaker 1I'm just playing. Anyway, I want to have a little fun today. Let's lighten it up. Okay, shall we lighten it up? Let's talk about finding the fun through your journey, recognizing the fun in your journey, because the reality is we create this thing and if we don't stop and identify the fun in it, then life becomes mundane. Stop and identify the fun in it, then life becomes mundane. Identifying the processes that we have completed that create fun things Like, for example, the motor coach, the coach we have lots of, there's no crickets.
Speaker 2I'm just letting you finish your thought process.
Speaker 1We have the crickets, ladies and gentlemen. No, I brought in the superfluous crickets.
Speaker 2You know you can eat crickets.
Speaker 1You know it's coming up on April and in Texas the crickets come out like crazy. Yeah, this is true, but you can eat them I remember one time I walked out of one of the restaurants and the whole wall was covered in crickets. It was like craziness, yeah, the whole wall, the whole sidewall, was like covered in crickets because of the lights, I guess, I don't know, but it was like watching. It felt like the wall was moving because all you see is all these. It was literally like covered black, interesting.
Speaker 2I wonder why you created that.
Speaker 1I don't know. It was fun to watch, though, because you could run down through there and they'd all jump off, and then you'd stop and they'd all jump back on. I don't know why.
Speaker 2As long as they didn't jump on you. That would be creepy.
Speaker 1I think it was their mating season or something, because they were too focused on themselves.
Speaker 2Yeah, our daughter Chloe. She hated crickets as a child. She would run from them like they were this big giant monster.
Speaker 1I had a family.
Speaker 2And do the screamy yelly dance.
Speaker 1Some of my family from Alaska came down and visited me in Texas.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Funny story we were out in the yard playing baseball and a grasshopper jumped on one of my little cousins.
Speaker 2Where'd they come from.
Speaker 1From Alaska.
The Importance of Finding Fun in Daily Life
Speaker 2I think that's important.
Speaker 1Yeah, they came from Alaska. Right, well, it's important because they don't have crickets in alaska yeah, right, and so we're. We're out there playing baseball and this grasshopper jumped on one of my little cousins and he threw a wall-eyed bloody fit, running around the room and then he and as he ran he'd made more grasshoppers jump and it just made the whole scenario worse.
Speaker 2And grasshoppers or crickets it was grasshoppers oh, I thought you were going to talk about crickets no, well it was, it was grasshoppers, and and they don't have crick, they don't have grasshoppers there, right, that was the key of the story it was the key and thanks for blowing my punchline oh my bad.
Speaker 1Okay, in case you all didn't catch on yet, they're from Alaska and they've never seen a grasshopper before, and so it scared him. But it was pretty funny.
Speaker 2Well, push your, you know like clappy button or something, so you feel better. That way you can feel better.
Speaker 1Try to tell a story. Hey, let me stop the story and tell you the end of it.
Speaker 2Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1Spoiler alert.
Speaker 2My bad.
Speaker 1Thanks. So identifying the fun in your journeys, you know, finding the everyday laughter, it was fun, yeah well, I was just helping you identify that.
Speaker 1It was fun okay you'll see what I to deal with all the time. Let me go ahead and read Okay, anyway. So identifying the fun in our journeys that we create. We create our journeys. If you don't identify the fun side and the positive side of things, then you don't have the contrast either way. Because contrast is very important in our journeys, because we don't know what we don't want until we have what we want. We don't know what we do want until we don't have what we want, right.
Speaker 2I don't know what you just said here we are again.
Speaker 1One of these days. Dr Jenny is going to join the podcast with us today. I mean, we're already 10 minutes in and I've got nothing but.
Speaker 2No, you got some stuff, I did Somewhere.
Speaker 1Yeah, I got my story punchline spoiled. Where are you, Hello? Paging Dr Jenny. Paging Dr Jenny.
Speaker 2I'm right here, Dr Jenny. Please report to the podcast.
Speaker 1Dr Jenny, please report to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 2I'm running late. No time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Yeah, no, you're exactly right, because, to kind of dig around in it, you've worked with clients who don't have all of the emotions on the emotional scale, and teaching them to identify all of the emotions so that they can experience them is very.
Speaker 1We talked about that a little bit on the last podcast is very important.
Speaker 2Another important component is correctly identifying fun and excitement. And if you're just going around the planet kind of in that robotic zombie state and you're not fine tuning your definition of what is fun, what is joy, what is excitement, I went through this a little bit I say recently it was probably about six or so weeks ago, probably a couple of months ago of realizing that when I go to take a nap, that is very enjoyable to me, but I wasn't taking the time to really categorize that thing, which I do enjoy. I love going and laying down in the middle of the day and putting on my favorite little Disney or whatever, getting under my favorite newfound gray quilt and taking a nap. I love that and I wasn't really giving it a um category to live in, so to speak, but realizing it is sorry she's so choppy because she's having an eyelash malfunction.
Speaker 2I am. There's something in my eye that it's either an eyelash or a hair. That got that crawled down in my eye.
Personal Stories of Fun and Unexpected Moments
Speaker 1Well, you know, I think the part we should talk about is is you know, you said it right when you start identifying the emotions in your ladder that you don't have, that you haven't been using or utilizing all of your life, and, uh, your, your perception of your reality and the fun within your reality changes. Like I get texts at three o'clock in the morning from from clients that says, oh my God, I just spent all night studying what we talked about and how fun is that, how cool is this? You know they get excited about it and so their perception of what they used to view as fun changes because now they have a balance in their emotions and so they start identifying it differently. You know, like you, taking a nap was society thought was lazy.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, I mean several, I would say several years ago, I did identify stopping and taking a nap. As I had this, I had to. I feel like I had to have this whole storyline justification to give myself my permission to stop and take a nap, Like I had to just be incredibly exhausted or sick or something to give myself permission. Finally, I worked through that part of it and got rid of the guilt of it and said I'm going to go take a nap, but I didn't take it far enough to that place of saying, hey, this thing could be categorized as the next joyful thing to do, or the next exciting thing to do.
Speaker 2Yeah, or the next exciting thing to do, even on a small scale, because, like we remind people, joy and excitement following that keeps you in that higher vibrational state, but it doesn't have to mean that it is so ostentatiously exciting that you want to do backflips.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It can be something tiny, small, that's even just a notch, a tiny little notch above what you're doing at the moment, is still categorized as. The next joyful thing, I think, is what I want to convey.
Speaker 1Right. Your beliefs on it change when you identify everything you know, like I used to go. Right, you kind of your. Your beliefs on it change over when you identify everything you know. Like I used to go when I was NCAA football official.
Speaker 1I would go prior to the meeting with my whole crew and I would go to the parking lot and take a nap in the parking lot and I would lay down in the truck, put their conditioners blown on my face. It was nice and my one of my crew members he was our, our back judge, but he would always come and pound on my window and say, come on, naps are for old people. And I'd be like whatever you know cause I enjoyed it. It was my break time with it because I'd finished work and I was, you know, in that time of just enjoying my moment of peace and having a good time with it.
Speaker 1And as we identify those things and log them appropriately and it is just better, it's just life gets better you start logging things that are not perceived well by society or even by yourself. You know you were never perceived well. You know like I like to just sit in the morning morning, drink my coffee and watch aimless, stupid videos on the internet, just because I enjoy it, it's fun, I just sit there and do nothing yeah I have nothing to think about other than what's on that video screen right and that's defined as enjoyable to you.
Speaker 1It is it's very enjoyable, you know, I and I, I enjoy lots of things and that I didn't used to enjoy, you know, and when we identify them.
Speaker 2It's fun Because you've changed definitions of them. I've changed a lot of things.
Speaker 1Yeah, like I used to log work. It's not fun, it was about being dominant. You know, when I was self-employed, I always wanted to dominate the industry and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it wasn't about fun, it was more about ego. And now I actually find parts of my job fun and so I log them. That way I enjoy my sculpting class that I teach.
Speaker 2Yeah, really enjoy that. Yeah, surprisingly enough, I enjoy it as well. I didn't think I would.
Speaker 1Yeah, you just sit over a little quietly and make clay toys. We won't talk about their latest one.
Speaker 2Wow. You just threw me under the bus. I'm playing, so we're going to take a detour. You can't leave that out there and not go into detail. So in sculpting class, we are working with clay and we're learning how to do a technique called takeaway, which is where you oh subtraction.
Speaker 1It's called subtraction sculpting. That's where you oh, subtraction, it's called subtract subtraction sculpting.
Speaker 2That's where you start, and so you take a big lump of clay that you've put around your little um what it's called an aperture, which is like armature you make an armature and you wrap the armature in clay.
Speaker 1Armature is what supports the statue in the clay.
Speaker 2Yeah. Okay, anyway, you're going to need to be a little bit better people Right. It's a good thing I'm not getting a grade for graduation. So I piled all this clay on very strategically, got it all smooth and I ran out of time. So the teacher takes and puts it in a little box and holds it for us until next week.
Speaker 1That would be me.
Speaker 2So next week came and I showed up to class with my clay-covered armature sitting at my desk ready for me to begin to do the takeaway, because we're doing a little man. So if you can envision, you know like I have this bulbous part for his head Bulbous Then I have this skinny part for his neck and I made it a little broader for, like his shoulders and so on and so forth For his little jacket and his boots and his hips and all that is a little wider. So I walk into class and this is laying on my desk and it looks like a male sex organ and I didn't realize that I had built that.
Speaker 1No, the funny part was everybody in the class was there before she was and I was setting up all the little. I was giving everybody back their statues and set them up in front of him and I set this up right there. I was like that.
Speaker 2And everybody's conversating about how my piece looks like a male sex organ, and they were all wondering what was on my mind last week whenever I was blopping clay on this.
Speaker 1I set yours up and stood it up and one of them said well, I guess we know what Jenny's making.
Speaker 2Because my head is a little oval-shaped and stood around.
Speaker 1And the real sensitive one of the group. She was like she went over and she went, oh my, and looked down.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's the funny conversation about sculpting class.
Speaker 1Well, you know, it actually adds to our topic because there's a when we, you know we have I don't know how many times throughout the years when, as I was growing up, I would look at something and say, man, that'd be fun to try. But I didn't ever do it. And it could in most of the time it was my own belief systems behind it. Why didn't I try doing that? Why didn't I do that?
Speaker 1yeah and then the sculpting class. We've had numerous people say you know I always wanted to go to one of these classes because I'd see them on, you know, in social media or at art, that the art displays or whatever, offering sculpting classes.
Speaker 1I always wanted to do it but I didn't think I'd be good at it yeah and and it wasn't until I talked to a few of them prior to the class I'm like you know. Art is your translation, your definition of what you see. It's you making something of what you see? There is no, there is no right or wrong, good or bad, and and that's kind of how it, how life is and when we can identify the fun spot and put ourself out there.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And and just work through the processes and change our perception of our reality. You know, like one of the topics that I've been covering in my seminar was the cognitive perceptions.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it's very important to stop and say is what I'm doing fun on some level? There's different levels of fun and enjoyment.
Speaker 1Yeah, totally. And start making yourself aware of what it is you're doing, and can it be redefined or re-logged as potential joy and excitement on some sort of scale, because we know what I've always learned is that when I put myself out there and actually do the thing I thought was fun, I find out that it was fun and I should have done it years ago. I regret not doing it years ago.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, but even still finite fine-tuning, that yeah finite fine-tuning that. Yeah, even to the place where I went was like the logging of a nap, yeah I enjoy that and I get to live in that category because I do enjoy it.
Identifying Joy in Our Experiences
Speaker 2I just didn't give it that title. It had it represented. Uh, it was like a reward after I'd done all my chores, or it was a reward after I had worked a lot of long hours, like it was a reward. And so taking it out of the reward category and me only getting it as a reward and putting in there that you know what, it's one of my many things that I enjoy doing and letting that be okay was what allowed me to redefine it. Right, and then I was able to do it more often.
Speaker 1Kind of in that same category as people putting themselves out there. Because even if you put yourself out there and try to do something that you view that could be fun, or you see other people having fun doing, and if you go and do it, even if you didn't have fun doing it you, you should be having fun in the process of hey, I put myself out there, it's going to give you positivity and right and and uh the fun and exploring yes, the exploration your bucket of things?
Speaker 2are that live in there that are categorized as fun? Yes, yes, totally the exploration of that is fun as well.
Speaker 1I know some people that just love fishing and they love fishing, they love playing golf. You hear all the typical stuff and it never fails. Every time we do a class on something, people will say you know, I thought about doing that years ago but I just never did and I don't want to be that but I just never did yeah, and I don't want to be that guy. I want to. I want to do all the fun stuff. Do all the fun stuff that I can.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean don't not. I think the key is don't forget to explore what is fun.
Speaker 1Yeah, find out what's fun, identify what's fun. Don't let societal society what, what? What I have discovered too is there was times that I didn't go do fun things because I was worried about what other people would think when I was kicked into the them esteem. Yeah, and when you're worried about them instead of yourself, then your perception is very distorted but you can also be limited based on your own perspective of yourself.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, I'll never be good at that. I'm not even going to try it. Why bother? Yes, oh, I can't do that. I've never been artistic or creative. But then, whenever you interview the person or ask more questions, you find out that they've never even tried yeah, so then how do you know? Oh, because my friend tried it and it didn't work for them or because oh, I was told as a child, I'm not a very creative child.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And then they take that and they run their program their entire life, because some goofball made that statement to them, because maybe they were two years old, decorating a Christmas cookie Right and colored outside the lines. Well, you're just not a very creative kiddo. And they took that and held on to it and ran with it, and now, at 80 years old, they're still repeating that story to theirself Like chunk those stories out, man, throw them in the garbage.
Speaker 1So, like in the positive thought class, one of the pupils, so to speak, in there was saying yeah, I've always wanted to go scuba diving because I got brought up about scuba diving and how we learned how to do it. What three years ago now or four. And I said well, why don't you just go try it? I know a guy right over here that'll teach you, and it's in a pool, it's safe, you know, go try it. No, well, you just said you wanted to. What did you say? What? I'm confused here. And her response was I physically can't do it. My doctor says so. Well, that's a lack of education, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1My response was do you not swim? I see you walk like probably two, three miles a day. Do you not swim? Because all you're doing is swimming just with a breathing apparatus on in a pool. You can try it and see what happens. I'm not saying you have to go to the ocean, but go try it, See if you can do it. And I was like you're weightless underwater because you have this bracket around your chest that makes you float or you create your buoyancy, and so you're weightless.
Speaker 2I felt like it was probably just another excuse not to do it. It was Giving. I felt like it was probably just another excuse to do it.
Speaker 1It was and that's where I took it to is giving permission slips. I was like, if you want to listen to everybody else, that's up to you, because nobody knows you better than you, and if you don't give yourself the permission slips to do things, you're going to go through life like a pinball in a pinball machine, bouncing off things that you wish you were doing instead of doing them.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, mean, go try them and have fun doing it. Man, have a, have a blast, just live life. You know, experience things. You create this reality. You're here to experience. You may, who knows? You may find something that you like, like that guy on tv, the dude that travels the world eating all the weird foods yeah, oh my gosh he eats some weird things. He eats I mean he yells a man somebody said one time can you imagine traveling the world just to eat all that crappy food?
Speaker 1I'm like you don't know, it's crappy it could be you have no, it could be good you have no idea, it might be for sure when he was at that and the one place I can't remember what country was in, but he actually was eating horse meat.
Speaker 1And he, he, he stated you know, we can saw my what. I've been taught that this is wrong to do and the reality is is horses were wild animals at one time and humans domesticated them and turned them into working things for them. Right, and he said over here, it's been a way of life for years yeah, I mean there's some cultures that won't eat cow yeah, there's something that won't there, it's they're sacred.
Speaker 2They're sacred animals that won't eat pork right and and so for them.
Speaker 1They're. They're looking at us eating pork like y'all got to be crazy over there, right and but you're just doing what you do and you enjoy and not allowing that cultural, the societal, the any of that stuff hinder you, because you've created this reality and put yourself out there and do it. Identify when you have fun doing something, even if it's just a minor thing, and log it is identified right and have fun doing something, even if it's just a minor thing. As long as it is identified, right and have fun.
Speaker 2I think the other important thing to consider when you're redefining what is fun and enjoyable and exciting is no insistence on how long it has to stay enjoyable.
Speaker 1Yeah, or exciting or fun, or precisely what it looks like like is be open to it.
Speaker 2Like it can just be fun for today, and then tomorrow you may lose interest in it.
Speaker 1Totally.
Speaker 2Or it can be something that you find fun for months or years to come. Either way needs to be logged as perfectly okay, because I know that as a child, I have memories of being taught that if I get a toy, I'm supposed to play with it forever until the plastic falls off.
Speaker 2and if you're not, playing with it, some other kid some derogatory, and if you're not playing with it, some other kid wants it. Some derogatory thing gets made about it. As a child, you can't have that toy. You didn't even play with the last toy I bought you.
Speaker 1You haven't touched those toys in years.
Speaker 2Right, or you do the whole spring cleaning and it's like you haven't played with this in forever. We're going to get rid of it.
Speaker 1Yeah, what didn't make sense to me was in November we'd always have to clean out our toy boxes for Christmas and throw away the stuff that we got last Christmas Right. Never made any sense to me. Yeah, did you have to do that? Yeah, huh, that makes zero sense.
Speaker 2We not with one grandmother, with the other one not so much. She didn't care one way or the other. But what would be used against us in that format wasn't necessarily the whole annual cleaning the toy box out. But when we went to go and go to town, so to speak, to buy something and we found a toy that we wanted, the my response that we would get, especially from my father, was you didn't even play with the other toy that we bought.
Speaker 1We bought last week.
Speaker 2And so why should I buy you another one? Yeah, that was his go-to of. Instead of saying no or no, not right now, he would, I guess, kind of in a way narcissistically, twist it back around and say you didn't play with the last one long enough based on my determination, so I'm not going to buy you another one because you've not performed an action that justifies being worthy of having another toy.
Speaker 1You're not worthy of play.
Speaker 2Because you didn't play with the other one for 459 days and 10 seconds.
Speaker 1And reality was he was just using that as a way to justify saying no in his own belief system.
Speaker 2Right, so that he didn't have to feel bad for saying no.
Speaker 1Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Speaker 2Goes kind of deep.
Speaker 1It does, can, can definitely go deep, because you can.
Speaker 2Then take that into your adult life and you will run that same program of justification, of allowing yourself to make purchases if you have used them up so to speak.
Speaker 1I'm not going to buy new shoes, because the ones I've bought have been sitting in the closet for a year.
Speaker 2Or they still have plenty of sole left on them.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's like my Kirk Geigers. I only wear them, they don't have any holes in them.
Speaker 2They're not down to the bottom bare whatever, so I'm not going to give myself permission to buy a new pair of shoes.
Speaker 1I remember when you said why don't you buy those Kirk Geiger's? I'm like I'm not buying designer shoes, and then I would have put them on. I was like, damn, these are nice.
Exploring New Activities and Overcoming Fears
Speaker 2I do that to him because I know that he so a lot of times. What will happen with us is, if I'm being shown that he has a belief in place, it's time to come up, and it'll come up very easily by the purchase of something or whatever. I will.
Speaker 1Like a motor coach.
Speaker 2Did you have a bunch of crap come up about that?
Speaker 1I did Working through it, wow, I did Working through it, wow I did yeah, so Because. I owned one before and you're like it's like nobody wanted to have fun with me in it.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1And so it just sat there.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And this one where you we've already used this one more than I did the other one many years ago.
Speaker 2I mean, it's just a good opportunity to redefine it as fun and have a pendulum balancing of experience. What fun it is.
Speaker 1I mean, I'm really enjoying this and the anticipation of it. I'm enjoying us taking it out.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1And we literally go sleep in it every night. We can. Yeah, it's fun and it's comfortable.
Speaker 2It's like a little peaceful cave where you walk through the little door portal and it's like the rest of the world just disappears.
Speaker 1It's crazy. It's like it's when you're inside of it you can't hear anything it's so quiet in there and just so peaceful and enjoying it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to taking it to the beach.
Speaker 2Yeah, me too, for sure, for sure Getting ready. Yeah, it's going to be fun, I get my shopping list, ready for what needs to go in it.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And so yeah, identifying the fun things in life and and having ownership in them and and giving yourself permission. Man, just have fun. Give yourself the permission to go skydive.
Speaker 2Go, learn to scuba dive, go whatever that is it doesn't even have to be big ticket items like that, but, yeah, giving yourself permission to go and try them. So what if you go and try it and you didn't care for it? At least now you know Right you can log that as a contract. You put that in the list of things. I never want to do that again. I hated it and that's okay. That's. The only way you're going to find out is by going and doing it.
Speaker 1Like one of our.
Speaker 2No matter how big or how small.
Speaker 1One of our clients is planning a train trip and he was telling me about it. They're going up the East Coast, across Canada, down the West Coast and then back across the United States, all on Amtrak, and I think he said it's a 38-day trip or something.
Speaker 2Ooh, I'd like to go. And he said there's— and you have a little bedroom and all that yeah you have a bedroom. And they stop all the way, and it's surprisingly cheap.
Speaker 1It was like $6,100 a person.
Speaker 2And so did they stop for a day or two along the way, yeah, yeah. Kind of like on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1I think he said something about there's like 18 stops or something.
Speaker 2Wow, I'd be curious to know who you went through to do to set that up. It's all.
Speaker 1Amtrak. Now it's not. I mean he's booked it almost a year out.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I would a year out, yeah, but it would be interested in doing something like that. He said generally, like when he first looked at him, it was like seventeen thousand dollars a person, but the farther out you book it, the cheaper it gets yeah and uh, he's, they got an entire um cabin inside the train and they have restaurant. He was like showing me all the stuff on.
Speaker 2I was like dang, that's nice yeah, the train rides are really, really we enjoyed them. The kids and I would take the train um to san antonio, yeah, as a means of something different, rather than flying or driving. And golly we, we got one of those little um, not the full cabin, but the little baby cabin instead of the seat. That way we could take a nap or whatever. Yeah, and we had loads of fun doing it.
Speaker 1The only one I ever took was the bullet train from Philadelphia to New York, and man was that thing fast. It was nuts.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean like I don't think that we ever so it was. It happened so fast. I don't think that we it was so it was happened so fast. I don't know, don't know that we ever actually got up to full speed.
Speaker 2Did your face like?
Speaker 1it didn't feel that way, you know, you would think it would sink back and no, it went. They take off slow and then they get to a certain point and that's when they really lay the lay it back. It's not like a quarter-mile drag car.
Speaker 2Where the G-Force changes your face. That's what I imagined in my head.
Speaker 1But that's only what I've ever taken and that was just a bunch of seats like an airplane.
Speaker 2Yeah, Maybe I'll plant that, Because you know I've been talking to you about doing the train thing for a while.
Speaker 1I thought it was cool because they go all the way up to Niagara and then going across into Canada and you're in Canada for I think he said eight days or something or nine days, and then you take two or three stops in Canada. He said the whole trip is either 38 days or 58 days. I don't remember how long he said it was.
Speaker 2Can we temporarily retire, so we can do that and then come back.
Speaker 1Maybe If we get enough sponsors, sports the show. Please Crickets. No, that does sound like a fun trip, though yeah, I don't know if I would want to do it that many days. I don't even know if I like trains. The first time I don't think I'd want to. I mean, I just want to be real about it. I mean it sounds fun.
Speaker 2You're sitting here, telling people go try something fun. And then you say I don't know if I want to do it that many days. I don't know.
Speaker 1Well, because I don't know. I've never done one like that, but it does sound fun and I'm going to be adventurous and I want to go do it. I just don't know if I want to do it for 38 days.
Speaker 2Okay, well, I'm going for 38 days, so you can either go with me or you can stay home. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1Do I get halfway there and you slingshot me back home somehow like in a big slingshot?
Speaker 2We can see if they have an eject button on your seat.
Speaker 1I don't know. I'll get the information from him. I'll see him today, but it sounds like it'll be a fun trip. They're leaving in November, I think is what he said. Yeah, and I'll have to get clarification. It is through Amtrak. It's all booked through Amtrak.
Speaker 2Very cool.
Speaker 1He said, the train that goes through Canada. They have a limited number of stops because of the Canadian government, because they were trying to do more stops in Canada.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And he said that you're only allowed each person you can, because the train itself stops at like seven or eight cities, but you're only allowed to get off in three. I see, and they'll log it and you can. You can only so you stay on the train for that day or whatever right, while the rest of people get off. And so they, they like, I mean. But there's plenty to do, he said. There's. There's even a freaking casino on this train yeah and there's a beauty salon or a spa.
Speaker 1Yeah and uh, he said I think it. I think he said it holds 1200 passengers.
Speaker 2Something's gonna be long yeah, so to recap, yeah, I would say that's probably a very good project to take on, looking at what you categorize as fun joyful or exciting, and tweaking that maybe adding to it the big things are obviously can be considered scary or whatever.
Speaker 2but then there's things that you maybe have in your view that I'm not that good at it, but yet I've never even tried it. Find those and maybe just take and go and try one just to see if the story that you're telling yourself is true or if it's just a big fat lie. Like I've always wanted to go ride a camel and then yeah, we can do that when we go to Egyptgypt.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm looking forward to that yeah.
Speaker 2And then looking at the smallest little things and do they? Is it time to upgrade those in a way that gets to live in the category of I'm doing this because it's fun and joyful, not for any other reason. It's not a reward, it's not anything, except I find enjoyment out of laying on the couch eating potato chips, being a couch potato.
Speaker 1I enjoy it.
Embracing Adventure and Giving Yourself Permission
Speaker 2Especially if you've got it categorized currently as being lazy and you reward yourself with it after you've had a hard day at work or got all your chores done. Maybe it's time to upgrade and take that out of that category and put it in the hey, you know what I'm doing it just because I can, because it's fun or it's enjoyable. Yes, I like, I like homework homework for the for the week or the day or the month or the year.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's sitting down. Just write it all down. Identify what your joys your excitements are. Write down your, your dream list and this is actually an assignment in my class of teaching is everybody has to rewrite their life story going forward, yeah, and how they, how they write their story is based upon what they've never done and what they want to do that they have never done.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And so and write down the process going forward with no limitations, why not? If you can rewrite your life and redesign your life on paper and into whatever you want it to be, why not try once?
Speaker 2Why not? No inhibition, no limitations.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's no blocks, nothing in the way.
Speaker 2Yeah, doing that homework thing will actually bring about some profound self-learning too, If you do take on that project as the next self-exploration project, you'll find that it might. If you tell the story and you stick something in there and you find yourself saying, oh here, let me erase that because I don't have the money to do it, that should be a red flag right there that you take another piece of paper and write down oh, you know what this belief or this program popped up. Let me go look at that when I'm done writing my story. Or, oh, I don't really deserve that, so let me take that out, because because I don't deserve it, it probably won't happen anyways, right yep.
Speaker 2Like when you start having those thoughts or whatever and processing information. It can be a really, really amazing indicator of beliefs that are ready to be further explored.
Speaker 1Yes, no, I like it. I liked it. Well, I actually feel pretty good about this podcast. I feel pretty complete.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1What do you think? Are you complete? I'm always complete, but are you complete with this podcast?
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1Alrighty then. Well, I guess like follow and share, ring that bell and you get all the notifications. Don't forget to look us up on social media at the Merck Centers, and our website is wwwthemerckcentersorg. And don't forget to drop us a comment, an email, whatever. If there's a topic you want us to talk about, send it to us.
Speaker 1For sure, hey don't send us an email though, because, put us a comment, we're having some issue with our email. We'll let you know when it's fixed. Yeah, send us an email though, because, put us a comment, we're having some issue with our email.
Speaker 2We'll let you know when it's fixed. Yeah, so I was going to say the phone number that's on there is actually a cell phone. Yeah, it's attached to a cell phone.
Speaker 1Drop us a text message.
Speaker 2We can be more mobile.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's probably better to text us. You can even text that number. Yeah, it's 813-285-9961. 9151. Okay, wait, maybe I should know the number before I say it.
Speaker 2Anyway, Are you going to clarify what the number was, because you just put two out there?
Speaker 1813-285-9951.
Speaker 2You sure?
Speaker 1Yeah, pretty sure, listen to me look.
Speaker 2Well, thank God. Okay, pretty sure, listen to me look. Well, thank God, you're not ugly, sure?
Speaker 1The card's right there.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's across the room. Okay, technical difficulty Stand by.
Speaker 1I'm looking Hang on. Hang on. No, it's 813-285-9951. Bye, I'm looking Hang on. No, it's 813-285-9951. Give us a call. Hey, we appreciate you guys. Thank you for listening today. We really enjoy these podcasts and continue listening, like, follow, share with your friends and don't forget to ring that bell have an awesome day.
Speaker 2Love you, bye.
