Living Inside Out with John Peek
Welcome to Living Inside Out with John Peek!
Living Inside Out with John Peek
Six Daily Habits For A Warrior Life
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Anxiety isn’t just a thought problem, it’s a whole-body problem, and that changes what “help” actually looks like. John Peake sits down with counselor Amanda Bradley to talk about daily habits that create real happiness, health, and wellness, not the hype kind, the durable kind that holds up when life gets loud. We start with a foundational habit: moving your body daily as stewardship, training, and nervous system regulation.
From a clinical counseling perspective, Amanda explains why people feel overwhelmed and disconnected when they stop moving, and why you can’t outthink a dysregulated system. We get into practical mental health tools you can use today: giving anxiety a task, using a timer to beat procrastination, and stepping outside for early sunlight to support circadian rhythm and emotional stability. We also dig into the difference between waking up reactive versus intentional, including why flexible structure in the morning lowers stress without turning your routine into a rigid trap.
Then we zoom out to the bigger question: purpose. We talk faith, prayer, scripture, and “transcendent activity,” plus the hard truth that chasing happiness is unstable while living with purpose is chosen and steady. If you want a faith-based wellness framework that blends Christian discipleship, brain-body science, and actionable daily discipline, this conversation gives you a clear starting point.
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Six Habits And The Warrior Frame
SPEAKER_05Welcome to the Living Inside Out Radio Show with John Peake.
Move Daily To Regulate Mood
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Living Inside Out Radio on Patriot Talk where we talk about faith, family, and freedom. Today I have a guest again, thank you very much, with Amanda Bradley from Amanda Bradley Counseling, and we're going to talk about something that's very important. That is how to shape your life to have happiness and health and wellness and really be lit up about where you are now and where you're going. So developing six daily habits that shape a warrior's life, involving faith, discipline, and consistency. So let's look at it from a perspective of planning. So win the day before the day wins you. This is really important because most people want to be healthier, happier, and stronger, but truly, very few are willing to live differently every single day. So today we're going to break down six daily habits that research actually shows it creates a healthier, happier people. And but we're not going to stop there. We're also aligning them with God's design and the living inside out lifestyle, which came through a lot of prayer, a lot of hard knocks, a lot of experience with a lot of smart people. Certainly didn't happen just on its own from my little brain. I really got some great mentoring to put these things together and create Living Inside Out Radio. And I want this to be impactful for you. So habit one, move your body daily. You exercise improves mood, energy, and longevity. But let's take it a little deeper. Movement is stewardship. This is the muscle M. So in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, it says your body is the temple. At Defend Fit, where we train in martial arts, fitness, and firearms, we say warriors train daily, not occasionally. Because if you don't train your body, you can't protect what matters. So Amanda, thanks for joining us today and sharing all the knowledge that you've accumulated over the years in this subject.
SPEAKER_06Well, thank you for having me again. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01We may make a habit of it. I don't know if you can stomach it, but um I really enjoy having you on last week when we did our dealing with adult children. Yeah, I passed that to my daughter too. She really loved it. So, Amanda, from a counseling perspective, what happens mentally and emotionally when people neglect physical movement?
SPEAKER_06Well, your body was literally designed to move, and when it doesn't, that's when your mind pays the price. You don't just like start to feel sluggish, you feel overwhelmed, more disconnected, and literally not like yourself. Um, it's not natural to not move your body. We were created to be hunters, gatherers. That has just changed over the generations.
SPEAKER_01I know the life that the culture that we breed, everything's gotten so easy, it seems like we don't have to, well, certainly not forage for food. Although, man, when I go into HEB, that place is like the land of milk and honey. Yes. And I am foraging practically, but it's all perfectly prepared for me. So, you know, I think of it feel good when you're when you're moving your body often and with the boundaries, and then you have recovery, you're managing stress, that really comes together, and you really do feel better when you look better. So, how strongly is physical activity connected to anxiety and depression in your experience?
SPEAKER_06Um, I would say it's deeply connected because your body and your brain are one system. So when you move, you're literally helping regulate your stress response, right? Um, it calms your nervous system and it stabilizes your mood. I don't know if you're familiar with Dave Ramsey, but he's the money guy, right? And he says you have to allocate a place for every dollar to go, or otherwise it gets dwindled away. Well, the same is kind of true of time in your in your body, right? So, like if you are not being intentional, not just with time, but what you choose to do, how you choose to spend your time, um, other things take over, like anxiety. You just create a space for it to come, set up shops, stay a while. And so the next thing you know, you're like, Man, how did I get from feeling normal-ish to oh my gosh, I'm in, you know, flight mode. So it's really important to be aware.
SPEAKER_01I start first started training because of that very thing, the mental stuff, the mental battles and emotional battles I was going through and being very unhealthy, but also, you know, the circumstances that I would create myself uh relationally started making me physically ill. And so I thought I've always believed in physical movement helps the mental state. But I'm a little biased. Owning a fitness and martial arts firearm business, it's easy for me to preach that so so to speak, and not have the science that you have as a professional counselor. So that's a powerful thing to bring the science into it.
SPEAKER_06So I to add to that then, thank you. I would say that because anxiety and depression both um require energy on some level, like depression, you don't have it, right? And with anxiety, we tend to have too much of it. That's your system's response, right? That's your nervous system, that's your limbic system, and it's all connected biologically. So if you're being prompted or you you feel anxious, like that's information, it's not always accurate, but it's information.
SPEAKER_01Looking deeper into why you have anxiety, there's oftentimes it's just you've left things incomplete, a conversation, you know, a chore.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01And they can build up and create a lot a lot of anxiety. That happened to me recently. It's why it's right at the tip of my mind. So I had a big change and I had to get all this done, it this stuff done, in a very compressed amount of time, and I was just mad at myself because I created a lot of and I wasn't sure I could get it all done. But so let's ask this question Do you see people trying to think their way out of problems that actually require physical discipline?
SPEAKER_06All the time. I do. Yeah, all the time. Because people go right up into their heads. This is a skill they learn in childhood, but they go right up into their heads to try and logic it or think it out. But anxiety resides in the body. It's literally stuck there, if that makes sense. Um, you can't outthink a dysregulated system. What would you have to do? You you have to regulate it. You have to create a sense of safety, right? Because it's in a system's response at this point. You can't tell it, I see everything's fine around me. It doesn't matter because that's not how your system feels, right? The mind follows the body, not the other way around. So once you're calm and once you feel safe, then your brain will come back online. Oh, everything is fine. I am safe.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's very contrary counter to my intuition, even how I teach, because I always talk about there's an old country saying, Is the tail wagging the dog or is the dog wagging the tail? Meaning who's in charge, the body of the brain. Right. And when I teach, it's always, and if I'm teaching spiritually or if I'm teaching physically on the mat, I always tell tell people, man, the mind is determines what the body's gonna do, right? And so I tell people, say what I say, you're hearing me say it, then you're thinking it, then you're saying it, and then you're doing it. So if you can think it, you can say it, you can say it, you can do it. And that's a great way to stimulate your brain to remember things, right?
SPEAKER_06Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And so I say the brain's in charge, but at some point the body now becomes in charge, right? And then you're like thinking, okay, well, which one's in charge? When you're learning something and it's new, the mind has to be in charge. And have you ever heard heard people tell you when you're learning something and you're struggling a little bit, don't overthink it, man. Oh, yeah. You're going to show you. Just let it happen. You know, feel it, you know, especially in music, you know, just feel the groove. Well, you know what? If you don't have a deep enough understanding of musical language, you have to think it. Sure. You have to think, where am I in this, you know, note choice and chord progression and timing. And so but once you do it a lot, you get those reps in, it's not that you're not thinking. It's just you're thinking so fast, it's as if you're not thinking. But you're you're already thinking.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so getting up and moving, right? So if you're having struggle with, say I'm struggling with anxiety, getting up and moving is gonna help me.
SPEAKER_06For sure, for sure. It it gives, it's kind of like a kid who comes to you during the summer, the anxiety would be the child, right? Who comes to you during the summer and they're like, I'm bored. Oh, are you really? I have something for your board, and you give them a task to do. So when you purpose that with anxiety, if you tell anxiety, oh, you're feeling, you know, like like you need to move, that is your amygdala telling you, oh, I need to do something. So give it a task. Like that's really important that you honor that. Um it's it's important to note that your your brain does it's a system, right? I wouldn't say either are in charge, but I think that they have to take turns and they work together, right?
Grounding Sunlight And Time Blocks
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, that's good. It's really quite fascinating. And it almost is back to that question the tail wagging the dogs, a dog wagging the tail, you know, which is in charge, your brain or your body. Well, they work in unison and conjunction for sure. Um what's one simple step someone struggling mentally can take today to begin moving forward literally?
SPEAKER_06So I think this kind of feeds off what I was just saying about like giving anxiety a task. One of the first things that I highly recommend, whether it's anxiety or depression or procrastination, whatever it is, I would start first thing in the morning, literally stepping outside and putting your feet on the ground and waking up your circadian rhythm with sunlight, right? Because it helps reset your clock, it helps regulate emotions, it helps you get a fresh start to the day. And there's research that shows when your feet are on the ground, they call it grounding, and there's a reason for it because it it just brings an awareness of your presence on the earth, right? So it's extremely helpful just to step outside. I know that's super simple, but that's the truth. Like it's just as easy as you taking those steps outside, and maybe that's where you start to plan your day, or even just maybe what breakfast looks like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good stuff. That's interesting. You know, I have a um a tendency to um when I'm feeling like something's incomplete and it's creating uh concern, maybe it's not reached anxiety quite yet, but it's certainly right at the touching that direction. Um a lot of times I have to balance this idea of I really want to go for a bike ride with my dog and get that sunlight, get fresh air. He needs it, I need it. But I've got this stuff that's creating anxiety that I need to do, and I'm almost using this physical movement as avoidance, right? So it's like it takes a lot of discipline to go, you know what? I know I do need to do exactly what you said, but maybe I need to like have a little bit better planning to take care of my business that's the root of the cause, as well as get my physical movement in. And so it depends on what your bent is, your personality. But some people love movement and they're just moving all the time, and I'm one of those.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But now I'm not taking care of that intellectual, mental stimulation of planning to take care of that purposely, especially like running my business. Man, there's so many pieces to it. And I'll sometimes avoid doing something I need to do, whether it's shooting an email, making a phone call, reaching out to a customer, doing something on the platform on Google search or whatever. There's a million pieces, right? Sure. So, how do you balance that, the task you need to do versus, oh yeah, let's get that physical movement?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so I would say honor both, right? So for the movement, sometimes that can help settle the mind and give you some clarity. So if it were me, I would probably do the movement first. However, having said that, I would hold myself accountable to what also needs to be done. And if you find that you are avoiding tasks, what we would call a non-preferred task, the bike riding, preferred, spending time with the dog, preferred task, right? The non-preferred task would be pretty much anything office oriented for me, right? I'm like, ugh. But I set small blocks of time and I work within the timer. And once the timer's done, I get up and I walk away. Whatever that amount of time is for you, what's reasonable? It's 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. I couldn't sit for an hour and do office work. I would throw up. Like I I I can't do that. So, but I mean, setting a timer and holding yourself accountable to I can go bike ride for an hour, and then I'm gonna come back in and I'm gonna work for 20 minutes straight.
SPEAKER_01I did that yesterday. It's funny you mentioned that. I set my timer and Jet and I we went for a bike ride, and right on the clock, it's my alarm goes off, and I'd already circled back to be close to the house, and I did get my stuff done.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
Win The Morning With Intention
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, that's good stuff, man. The creating these habits is so important. Well, we have the second habit, and it's really about you know, starting your day with intention. Uh, high performers win the morning first. So this is really in my ministry and mind alignment moment. So Jesus rose early to pray. In Mark 135, it says, Jesus rose early to pray, and he did this all the time. So let's make it practical. Prayer, scripture, planning your mission. You know, you don't drift into purpose, you have to decide it.
unknownThat's right.
Sponsor Break And Practical Offers
SPEAKER_01So we're gonna talk about that a lot more with Amando. We're gonna talk about how to apply these thinking principles, the understanding of balancing the 7Ms, and then all that goes into these set six habits that we're wanting to establish so we can have an extraordinary life. And of course, we want to support and I want to promote Defend Fit because we're helping you do that. We're actually uh teaching you how to move. We do all kinds of physical drills with footwork, hands uh that correlate to martial art problem solving, but we also have physical movement that's all about physical performance. There's a lot of rehabilitation going on in our bodies when we do these kind of drills. So don't go away, we'll be right back. We're gonna talk to Amanda about winning the morning. Stay with us.
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SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Living Inside Out Radio, where we talk about the 7M's. We talk about what's important in life and how to create a lifestyle that's extraordinary. So we've got Amanda Bradley Counseling with us. Thank you for being here, Amanda. Thanks for having me. So we're talking about winning the morning. How important is structure at the start of the day for emotional stability?
SPEAKER_06I would say it's really important, but let me start by saying some people are super big on setting up their tomorrow the night before, right? So like let's prep everything we possibly can prep. Um I would say prep away, but be ready to pivot, right? It can't be rigid because that's where people get into chaos and a high-speed wobble when things don't go the way they planned. And I'm doing my little air quotes. So certainly there's things you can control in the morning to reduce stress, like don't read your emails, don't start getting on Facebook, um, don't watch the news, don't cram food down your face. Hopefully, your mornings are nice and slow and methodical, right? I think being prepared and having structure reduces anxiety. So I would shoot for like a flexible, militant regulated morning. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01It makes a lot of sense. I have a very specific procedure I follow in the morning. And even though when I walk into the kitchen, I have this sequence I do cabinets, coffee, cup, coffee maker, you know, even changing the coffee, you know, in my curric, I have a sequence, man. And then sometimes when I get out of sequence, I go, uh, what happened? You know, I start losing uh efficiency and time, and sometimes I can make other mistakes, knock something off, or who knows what. So I'm like real attached to like this flow. Yes, and so it feels pretty good to have a flow, right? And so, you know, if I'm waking up in the morning and I just have to jump out of bed at the last second, hit the ground running, it's never really as good for my heart rate to go up. I feel anxiety pick up. Uh sometimes like you know, you can pull it off, certainly. You just have to do what you have to do. But what happens psychologically when people wake up reactive instead of intentional?
SPEAKER_06So I'm gonna kind of piggyback off what you were saying when you get up and sometimes your heart rate is elevated. And so that's actually biological within us. About 30 to 45 minutes after you wake up, that's when your cortisol peaks in the morning. So, and that's what gets you up in the morning. That's what's like, hey John, it's whatever time, it's time to get up, and you get a surge of, oh, let's go, right? It'll calm back down, but then we dump coffee on top of it, right? Because, well, that's necessary for thought process, right? Anyway, I would say um when people wake up reactive, I would say that it's chaos, right? So I recommend taking a few deep breaths even before you put your feet on the floor. I have clients who really struggle with high anxiety first thing in the morning. So just taking a few good deep breaths before you get out of bed is helpful because it starts to regulate your system right out of the gate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have a very specific procedure that I learned from a combination of people about that first thing in the morning. Um let's talk about this. Do you see a difference in your clients who have a morning routine versus those who don't?
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's like a no-brainer is for sure, for sure, a hundred percent. The family members, I can see a difference in my kids. The one who's well prepared, prepped, versus the one who's getting up at 6 59, got to be out the door at seven, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's total pandelium and and uh chaos, but a client who runs around in in panic mode and chaos, like there's so much more grace for those who have a routine who get up, give themselves time to wait. Up and come to right, have some coffee or whatever. There's a grace in that where you can enjoy the quiet and set intentions and begin your day. The way you choose it, not the way that it's thrown at you.
Prayer Quiet Time And Surrender
SPEAKER_01It reminds me of the old saying, stop and smell the roses, man. Don't go try to move so fast that you can't enjoy really the moments that especially the quiet time in the morning. That's right. So how does in your experience dealing with customers, uh I know you come to your bring to your customers your spiritual understanding? So how does prayer, reflection, or quiet time impact emotional regulation?
SPEAKER_06So um that's such a game changer to to have that time in the morning, at least for me. I like to get up before my household, I read my Bible, I have my prayer time and my coffee. And when you sit before God and you're with your prayer time and your Bible, you're interrupting the chaos. Whatever chaos is going to come your way, that is your time. And it's just for the two of you. And I always tell people, um, so uh feelings are not truth. I don't disregard them, right? It's still a source of information. Instead of reacting to emotions like anxiety, you have the space, like when you have that morning time to have the ability to think through things rather than react to them, which is where the emotions come in. Just because it feels chaotic, it doesn't mean that that's true. It means that if you would hang on a second, take a step back, reassess rather than letting the chaos run right down that rabbit hole, things could go differently for you.
SPEAKER_01Man, that is so true. And I was uh given this this Holy Spirit prayer, is what I call it. And I was given it uh to me by a pastor who's really more like a master of he's really like a pastor's pastor in my mind. He's just such a great teacher. Uh but he brings things um, it's such a profound way to present things that are so simple but so impactful. You know what I mean? And so he has this idea, and it's it's biblical, it's you know, surrendering, right? It's the word of surrender. So most of the time we don't think about winning a battle by surrendering. We think about fighting, you know. Yeah. But starting your morning with the Holy Spirit prayer is you're surrendering to the will of God. So the idea is to Lord, I humbly submit to before you. I give you and welcome your complete authority over all areas of my life. I surrender to you in the areas listed, my protection, spiritual, emotional, and physical, my imagination, my heart, soul, spirit, mind, thoughts, will, planning, calling, character, emotions, feelings, temperaments, my reactions, my instincts and affections, my inclinations, my motives. And you go through this list, and it's a lot longer than this. It's still going on and on. And so verbally speaking those words that you're surrendering these areas of your life to the Lord so that He can have this freedom to work, right? Because if you don't give that to the Lord and you take full responsibility, and I would rather say, you know, you're just letting your flesh be in charge. You're letting you think you know it all. And the word says, lean not onto your own understanding, but to every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And so it's really been a game changer as I surrender it's and many times I have to do this in a late morning, not just in the morning, but late morning, maybe afternoon, maybe mid-after all day long. Depending on what I'm dealing with, certainly it could be all day long, especially when you're under a lot of pressure. And most of the pressure, I think, at least for me, comes through dealing with problem relationships. And so I've learned to create boundaries with those relationships and not let those relationships rule the day. If they're problematic, deal with them with the way you have to and then put them in their proper place and move on. Right? Because people can destroy you. And it usually comes because your own thoughts have run away from you. You didn't control your thoughts, you know, like it's a tail wagging the dog or dog wagging the tail. So you let those emotions rule instead of taking control of the science of the brain-body connection. And I think that physical exercise can help deal with that stress, but it also needs to be dealt with spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
SPEAKER_06The whole person. And I think that's when we take just one of those pieces, we're gonna rely on just what our brain tells us versus just what our emotions want in that moment versus you know, anything else that can pop up. When you're working with just one component of the self, that's not the whole person. That's like you know, trying to to um solve a a mystery without all of the information. Like it's not you need all of the pieces to make an informed decision. And when we're reacting and not responding, um, reacting is impulsive. Responding means I have information and this is what I choose.
SPEAKER_01I think about how I grew up and we didn't have at one point we were having a faith-driven life, but my parents moved away from that and just wanted to do like what I see the culture, you know, doing around me, even now, you know, where people are not going to church, they're not thinking about the spiritual life. It's very much, you know, chasing their dreams and visions of whatever that might look like for them. A lot of times it's money or physical stuff, but there's not a three-dimensional connection. I see that a lot where there's really not a developed, and even talking about it. I can talk about it, say I'm teaching on the mat and I'm closing out class and I do a debrief about what was the primary threat and how did you deal with what type of striking and clinching? What was the finishing move so you could deal with another threat or get away and you go into a post-engagement protocol? And so as I wrap that up, a lot of times I'll start talking about how that relates to our everyday life, through relationships, our spiritual understanding, and I can see the shift happen in body language. People that are receptive and then people that aren't receptive. So I I'm reading and being sensitive to it because they're not here for that. But I I oftentimes I always want to give them a complete package. So the spirit, mind, and body package, but not everybody's receptive to that. And it's really pretty sad when people won't receive that, they refuse. And um it's really pretty amazing when you see people that really respond to it.
SPEAKER_06Well, you and I, we were just talking about someone who wasn't receptive to seeds that are planted, and now he's going to church and loving life and loving doesn't really make sense why he really likes it, but it's working for him. The truth is that you were planting the seeds, and that matters. And then maybe they'll take root and maybe they won't.
SPEAKER_01I have a captive audience on the math, so I had to be careful not to overstep. Uh, not that anybody else doesn't, you know, that a lot of people out here, they're not worried about stepping over boundaries. There's a whole group out there that could care less about your boundaries, right? Um, but yeah, I actually heard Joe Rogan talking about he's living in Texas now and he's got this faith that he's developing. We even had uh Jordan Peterson on his show talking about that Jesus, you know. And Jordan actually talks himself in circles about Jesus. I'm not sure he's a believer or not, honestly, but I know his wife and his daughter both go to church, and that's been a big thing. And he's done speaking tours around the country about the gospel and about the impact on society of Jesus, right? And Rogan says, I'm going to church, and it just works. Like he doesn't necessarily take a stand for Jesus and um do any kind of ministry opportunities show. He just signed a new contract with Spotify for$250 million. I'm sure he doesn't want to upset the cart in his audience.
SPEAKER_06One of the things he has going for him, though, is that curiosity, and that curiosity will carry you, right? And so that makes him open and the most receptive. If you're truly curious, that will make you the most receptive. It can be in a very good spiritual way or in a very scary spiritual way, right? Like you open yourself up to a lot of things sometimes.
SPEAKER_01I think that's happened to most of us is we open doors, I call them portals to demonic activity through lust and power and money and you know, me, me, me, you know, or open lets it let a narcissist come into your life and see what happens. Oh, geez. You know, especially if you marry one.
SPEAKER_06And I mean, he has opened himself up to a church. So uh he didn't I don't know what church affiliation, but you know, if he's just open to that type of um I think, you know, that's a start, you know, some seeds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, being curious is really good. And uh then using good wisdom to discern it, you know, about that curiosity and what's healthy and what's not. It's no, as believers in Jesus, we have a lot of liberty. Doesn't mean we should always take it and act on that liberty because you know it can be detrimental, if not to ourselves, it might be detrimental to somebody that's with us. You know, for example, if somebody's uh with alcoholism, uh definitely don't want to drink in front of you know, it's just a something, or if somebody's struggled with whatever it is, I don't want to add to that, right? So even if I have the liberty to do so. Yeah, you know, 100%. So I think that's important. That's really more about being compassionate about humanity, right? Which I hear groups talking about, you know, being so sensitive to humanity, and then they like you to just believe like they believe, or you know, you're the enemy. I have some great customers that are on all different perspi, you know, perspectives on the political spectrum, and we can have con this older guys I can have conversations with, and we're not enemies. Right. This is just the way life used to be in America, right? There's two things that my grandfather and father said that you don't really talk about, and that's religion and politics. But that's the first thing we talked about in our family is religion and politics. And it was a conversation around the house, and you could uh different viewpoints, and it was okay. And it was a great learning environment, man.
SPEAKER_06You know, that's also the whole generation where you know, like they could get into a fist fight and shake hands after, and nobody's parents are suing anybody else's parents, right?
SPEAKER_01That's true.
SPEAKER_06I mean, it was just a different time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it really was. Uh, and that's not lost. I see a lot of young people crave that, and so I have a lot of hope for uh the younger generation. That's Gen Z. I'm reaching out with uh to Turning Point USA and doing some work with them. And it's been real refreshing to see them like the truth. They're tired of being indoctrinated and people making rules for them and like they have to comply.
SPEAKER_06You mean people who above them are saying good for you, but not for me.
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SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, we're gonna come back to segment three uh in my show, Living Inside Out Radio, connecting to something higher to you. Um, call it transcendent activity, we call it truth. This is my uh ministry M of the 7M's. So we'll be right back with Amanda Bradley Counseling and John Peak, your host. Don't go away, we'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Living Inside Out Radio. I have a guest today that we've been enjoying on segment one and two. And now our segment three with Amanda Bradley and Amanda BradleyCounseling.com. I'm to plug for her. We're going to cover connecting to something higher than you. Experts call it transcendent activity. That's a little mystical for me. I call it truth in the Word of the God, Holy Bible. This is my ministry, M, and I like to give scripture because, well, Hebrews 4 12 says the word of God is alive and powerful and sharpener than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and bone and marrow. And I like how it ends. It says, and is a revealer of the intents of the heart. Man, that's powerful. And I can speak from experience how the word speaks to me in ways that help me to wake up. Sometimes the same scripture might just go right through me and not touch me. And then I hear it again and it's like it hit me in the face. And so this is what it means to be sharper than any two-edged sword, because it can give a corrective action, it can give insight, it can give wisdom. Let me say this clearly: happiness without God is temporary, but purpose with God is unshakable. So, Amanda, even from a clinical standpoint, how important is having a sense of purpose or something bigger than yourself?
SPEAKER_06Um, I would say that it's what this is one of life's great existential questions, right? Like, what am I here for? And believe it or not, um, whether you're into psychology or not, the a psychoanalyst from very early on, um, Erickson, he found this in children as young as three to six. Like he developed developmental stages. He created this theory of developmental stages. Um, what he studied was how children as young as three, four, and five will take initiative. Um, they can achieve a sense of purpose through play, through connecting with other kids, initiating activities, right? And so we continue that goal of seeking purpose through each developmental stage all through our lives until the end, until the very end. Um, this is how we're wired as humans to find purpose. And I often see in therapy when people are struggling to put their finger on that thing, like maybe their purpose has changed, like we talked about a couple of weeks ago with you know redefining your role as a parent, right? Now your kids are grown and they're out of the house. What now? That just means that we need a different purpose, right? What now? And that's it's a developmental question that changes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good. That's good. There was uh an article I read the other day talked about how to know if you're gonna live how long you're gonna live after the age 72. It's like interesting. Grip strength, walking speed. Can you get up off the ground without using your hands? But it closes out with do you have a purpose? Do you have a purpose? That's how important having a purpose is. It can shorten your lifespan if you don't have a purpose.
SPEAKER_06I have research to back that up too. Yes, I can speak to that. That's absolutely true. They did a study, um, the American Psychological Association published a study, and I want to say it was like in 2015, but um actually is the equivalent. If you don't have a purpose or you can't identify what that purpose is, it's the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day for the rest of your life. So you're looking at um time on earth reduced, your quality of life reduced, it's significant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, impact on your generations. Yes. Yeah. So that's really the answer to the la next question. What happens to people emotionally when they lose or lack purpose?
SPEAKER_06So I would say that you know, if they're if there's no purpose or connection to something bigger, they tend to drift into anxiety, they tend to drift into depression, like we talked earlier. It's like without intention, you're not telling your mind where to go. You're not directing your life on the path, whatever that path is. It's just kind of happening, unfolding. Often I hear from people they feel stuck or they feel numb when they're seeking purpose. They're like, I have it's a nothingness.
SPEAKER_01It's sad, isn't it? It's sad to see that. I had a gentleman uh talk to me at the last gun show I had a booth at, and um he was um and a believer, and he said in this stage of his life he feels like he has no purpose, right? And he's like saying right now with moving forward on what's next. And I told him, I said, Well, come see me at DefendFit. There's lots of purpose, there's lots of people that need to hear from your life experience, you know?
SPEAKER_06Absolutely. And I can say one of the things that I absolutely love about DefendFit is the community, and there's something about being connected, right? Because again, that's how we're wired. We are wired, you need connection for survival. That's how we've met made it generations, generations, right?
SPEAKER_01So true.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you you have to have each other. So if you don't have any other reason to come here, it's because your people are waiting for you. They want to spar with you, they want to work out with you, they want you to teach them, and they want to teach you. And there's such a sense of community here, and I absolutely love that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I if I have one word, if you don't have purpose, then you're unstable. That's really what I've seen over the years that there's a lot of instability in people's lives because they don't know their identity and they don't know how to put that into place with a purpose. So you do you see a difference? Uh this is really a no-brainer. Do you see a difference between people choosing happiness versus living with purpose?
SPEAKER_06Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's interesting to say that again. Do you see a difference between people chasing happiness versus living with purpose?
SPEAKER_06Because happiness is it's you know, it's an emotion. So that tells me it's circumstantial. It's gonna be in the moment, which is great. That means hopefully that means you're present and you're you're enjoying it. Happiness also means that you know it's self focused and unstable because if it can show up, it can also leave. Right. But when you have purpose. Um that means it's chosen, not felt. It's intentional, right? And it goes back to that intention. Um it's others focused, not self-focused. And I would say it's foundational, it's not fleeting. So because happiness can change. If it again, if it can it can show up, it can leave. So if you build your life on what feels good, it'll collapse when it feels bad. Right? But if you build your life on purpose, it'll carry you through both happiness and collapse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And having that higher perspective, looking to something beyond you, like the creator of the universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it really helps to have that foundation when things are falling apart, that this too will pass, the word says, you know, and just to stay stable. There's a uh phrase that I experienced recently that it says that God will give you the peace that passes all understanding. And I saw this earlier on to my neighbors that were living for the Lord in my family. There's a lot of chaos and instability. And I saw a stability in the parents that even through difficult circumstances, there's various things that happened, you know, car wrecks or health problems here or there, or you know, one of the kids making, you know, less than best choices. And the parents were still very stable. You know, the dad was a marine, you know, so he talk about discipline, you know. Now he had retired, but he has ended up being a police captain, and that's you know, his job was all and he was that consummate marine. You're looking at a marine, yeah, cut out and that was his persona. And um the discipline that I saw, I think, is uh connected, of course, to the foundational stability. And that stability was very attractive, you know? Yeah. Through the chaos, when you have people that are living powerfully, they're taking care of their spiritual life, their mental emotional life, their physical life, and really that's kind of how I came up with the seven M's, right? This ministry aspect, all about your faith. You know, the um the marriage category, as I call it, it's really about every relationship. Because I know from a personal experience, and I've seen lots of people as they come in and train over 41 years now, and so I'm dealing with a lot of people in the public, and poor choices in relationships can undermine all that you've worked for and create this like from the path that you were on. You know, you can influence people, but it there's one of my friends said his parents told him, Don't I don't want you to hang around that person, they're not a good person. Well, how about me influencing good? Because I'm bringing good. Can't that happen? Well, you know, that's it would be nice, but you know, the longer you hang around somebody that's not going to doing good things, they're doing bad things, the more likely it's going to influence you. You know, even if you are bringing some good things, you'll get corrupted. It's very easy to get corrupted.
SPEAKER_06I only know one one being, one person on this earth who was able to do that, right? And he ate with sinners and he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes and you name it, uh, and was criticized for it. But they changed. He didn't change, right?
SPEAKER_01This was the only perfect person, right, to be able to do that and stand the heat. Yeah, sometimes we can do it temporarily, and it's good to open yourself up to people that are in need and to uh outreach, right? Evangelism. So sometimes um found myself in a situation, certainly in the work environment, you're around people that are behaving and speaking in all kinds of ways. And you just have to endure that and um time I remember how conversations would sometimes would oftentimes change when I came into a room, right? And I didn't say anything, I'm not judging them, but they think I'm judging them. But really, what's happening, they're just convicted from their own understanding, right? And uh little by little things would change. Sometimes people even apologize after the group left. Hey man, sorry, you know, I was cussing and doing this. I go, bro, I said, listen, my ears have heard that before, but I appreciate you saying that. It's better for me if I don't hear that all the time because I come from that world and I don't want to go back to that. You know, so creating those kind of boundaries, I think, is real it's important to protect your eyes and your ears. And of course, that's my ministry, my media category, guarding what goes into my eyes and ears, and conversely what comes out of my mouth, because I could be a problem for somebody, you know. Absolutely. And that's of course I skipped over my mentoring category, but we are mentoring each other even right now. You know, I wrote this uh article for my daughters uh just to share with my daughters called Drainers, Maintainers, and Gainers, right? And man, be real careful who you pick as your friend. Don't let a drainer into your life. You know, you might be able to help them for a while, but if they're gonna continue being a drainer, you've got to cut off ties. But most of us need to be focused on maintainers, good peers, healthy peers, not perfect, but willing to admit when they're wrong, moving forward, you know, and are good going a good direction like you should be. And a gainer. That is a true mentor, right? A true mentor, somebody that specializes, mastered a certain area of life, and you can learn from them. And it's so important to learn. You know, my shirt for DefendFit now, the logo, and above it it's on the back, it says iron sharpens iron. And that's a biblical principle that a lot of people don't even know it comes from the Bible. In fact, I ask that often, you know where this comes from? No, it seems like I heard it before. And then I'll say, you know, where it comes from, and they're like, Oh wow. I have a neighbor, in fact, that um reads the Bible the book of Proverbs every day. He's an atheist. Yeah. And I was a little surprised. But he said, No, man. I said I said, You just read it for the knowledge and wisdom, huh? He goes, Absolutely, there's so much knowledge in the Bible, but Proverbs especially speaks to me. You know, King Solomon wrote it, and he was the wisest man that ever walked the face of the earth, you know. And so the Bible also speaks about that too. It says that we can gain knowledge, but still have no power. If you don't have the Holy Spirit indwelt, then you're not operating with the same power. That's right. That supernatural power. It's almost like cheating, right? And it requires you simply to surrender your will to the Lord's will, and all kinds of things start happening that Providence steps in and he allows you to start growing in ways that could never grow, never attain. People come to your life you would have never been exposed to had you not chosen to be a believer. It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. It's a small little choice to say, you know what, I'm gonna give this a chance. I'm gonna believe in Jesus. And little by little your understanding increases.
SPEAKER_06It does, especially that list that you were reading off the prayer list earlier, the areas that you give God. Because I noticed me personally, I'm like, here you can have this one, not that one, this one, not that one. And I'm a little having a list like that actually is kind of helpful because when you say, Oh, I give it all over to God, and then you don't really think on a day-to-day basis in the decisions that you make every single day, what you really didn't give over to God.
Daily Discipline And Closing Charge
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Yeah, that's an awesome introspective thinking to look at that. Well, we're coming to a close today, so let me leave you with some thoughts. So, information doesn't change your life, application does. Discipline is doing what needs to be done even when you don't feel like it. You don't need a new life, you need new habits. Yep. Would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_06Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01So your future is not decided by luck, it's decided by what you do daily. So thanks for being here today, Amanda. And I'd like to bring you back next week to finish off this show. Not that we're ever finished, but we're gonna talk about the other habits.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_01And you want to come back?
SPEAKER_06I do. This has been great.
SPEAKER_01We'll bring you back next week to Living In Side Eye Radio Show. So take a look at us on Spotify or Pod uh Podcast or Apple Podcasts. Um we're of course also on 9 20 a.m. Talk radio uh at 12 o'clock noon on Saturday. And then come see me uh at DefendFit 17317 Elcamina Real in Webster, Texas, and get online and find Amanda BradleyCounseling.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great day.
SPEAKER_05Tune in next week for another edition of the Living Inside Out Radio Show.
SPEAKER_03Living inside out is a spoken. It's about training leaders on the inside out.