LOVE IS FEARLESS

We almost titled this episode, "Is there any such thing as 'good grief?'"

Rowdy was the best dog ever.  He was a rescue dog that rescued us more than 14 years ago.  He has been a part of every day in our "Living in Freedom" Airstream story--traveling with us from coast to coast.  We said, "Good-bye" to Rowdy, just a few days ago--and we are so very sad.

Join us on this episode as we talk about sadness and grief--and some of the ways we're dealing with our sadness.  You'll discover some practical ideas that are helping us heal our broken hearts.

This episode offers these TAKE AWAYS:

• Our behavior is not supposed to be led by our emotions.  This is one symptom of mental illness.  This is also a symptom of a society being led by the people triggering our emotions.
• We get to help our children fully experience their emotions--and resolve them.  One invitation we can offer our children is to take a walk in nature.  Nature teaches us that life by design is a cycle--and death brings life.  This is our great hope.
• Emotional fluency is a key indicator of mental health.  Emotional fluency means learning to return to joy from every unpleasant emotion--and when I can, I can help someone else return to joy from every unpleasant emotion.

We define joy as "it's good to be me, here with you."  In times of delight--it's good to be me, here with you.  In times of real sadness--it's good to be me, here with you.  Your love is part of our healing process.  Experiencing each other's love is a vital part of emotional healing.  We are so very thankful for the love of our friends during our experience of sadness.  

Follow this link to listen now--or subscribe on your favorite podcast provider.  Share this episode with your friends.  Together, there is great hope.  

Loving bravely,

Janet and Doug

Our children thrive when they are given the dignity that they innately want to work--and work hard.  Do you believe this to be true?

In this episode, Janet and Doug unpack the vital differences between "working" and "performing."  They wrestle with the impact of manipulation in relationships, and the truth that our children are created to contribute--and find deep satisfaction.

Janet and Doug believe we can teach our kids the truth about work, so they are well equipped to dream about a big life.  They offer these TAKE AWAYS:

• A work ethic is the fruit of cultivation, not manipulation.
• Cultivation happens in trusting relationships--when the strong help the weak see something that's true in themselves. When we have a trusting relationship with our children, we get to cultivate a work ethic in our children.
• Our homes can be greenhouses instead of factories.  We can pull the weeds out of our own thinking--about work and our identity as workers--and we can model the satisfaction of working hard in freedom instead of bondage.

Follow this link to listen now--and share the hope of BRAVE LOVE with your friends.

Have you subscribed yet?  Thank you!  

Together, there is great hope.

Self care is a buzz phrase in 2019--and an important part of a healthy life.  Do our kids know the truth about self care?  In this episode, Doug and Janet offer these 5 questions to help start a conversation with your kids...and maybe even yourself!

1. What story am I telling myself right now?  Is it true?
2. What is my real need?
3. Am I choosing something that will meet my real need in a legitimate (or illegitimate) way?
4. Does what I'm choosing care about my well being?  (Who's my supplier?)
5. If I keep choosing ________ for one year, what impact and influence will it have on my life--and those closest to me?

These take aways will help you lead your children into a summer of non-toxic self care:

• Write down these five questions--or print out the show notes and hang them on your refrigerator.
• With your family (or your spouse, or a close friend) begin to make a list of your REAL needs.  Acknowledging real needs is an important first step to trusting the love that meets our needs.
• Model humility.  In a safe relationship, admit the ways you try to meet your real needs in illegitimate ways.  And--ask for help.

Follow this link to listen now--and to subscribe.  Share this episode with your friends--and begin building a community of grace for you and your family.  We'd love to hear your questions.  Email us at [email protected]  There is great hope.

By design, life with our children is about meeting their legitimate needs in the ways of love.  Life is not about our children perfectly meeting standards--because we need their goodness to establish their identity...or our own.  

Identity is from God.  Identity is something we live from--not something we live to earn or deserve.

Join Doug and Janet in this episode as they practically unpack four more specific ways we can meet our children's real needs.  Take a break from a performance-obsessed worldview, and linger in these takeaways:

• We get to intentionally build habits of engagement with our children--and let these habits take the place of shaming, blaming, fear, and control.
• In relationships we can trust, love keeps us connected to truth.  Lies get lost.  Reconciliation is real.  Fruitful lives take the place of simply successful lives.
• Life with our children is about meeting their legitimate needs in the ways of love.  We don't meet needs by manipulating and evaluating.  We meet needs by sharing the love that has met our real needs--because now we can.

Follow this link to listen now--and share the BRAVE LOVE podcast with your friends.  Let us know your real questions--and we'll include them in an upcoming episode. Email us at [email protected]  There is great hope! 

What if we're living life following an old game plan?  What if we're requiring our children to learn a game plan for life that has expired?  What if life by design is better than we ever imagined?

Join Doug and Janet in this episode as they vulnerably share the story of spending much of their Easter Sunday in the parking lot of a casino--sorting truth from lies about life by default and life by design. Find challenge and inspiration in these take aways from episode #43: 

• Conformity is not the plan for childhood; transformation is the plan.  Maturity is a transformational experience.  We can't manipulate maturity.
• We only have so much time with our children.  Will we spend it manipulating our kids to get them to conform? or will we, even clumsily, begin to discover what it means to meet their legitimate needs in the ways of love?
• Will we risk finding others who are willing to do this life, too--and offer our kids an honest childhood--with conversations instead of simply compliance and conformity?

Follow this link to listen now--or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or your source for podcasts.  Reply to this email with a question you'd like us to talk about on a future episode--and share BRAVE LOVE with your friends.  Together, there is great hope!

PART 1 started a discussion about giving our children an honest childhood--which is more than simply a good chance at success.  We can manipulate our children to work and perform, but manipulation damages trust instead of builds it.  Trusting relationships are necessary if our children are going to grow up, instead of simply meet traditional performance standards for college admissions.

Join Janet and Doug in PART 2 as they continue to offer practical ways to relate with our children--instead of manipulating them.  PART 2 offers these take aways:

• Experiencing life as a parent is more than simply having a toolbox full of good parenting strategies.  There is no formula for loving bravely--and there are sound principles we can trust.
• We can find time for real conversations about our habits of responding to cultural influences instead of personal convictions.  These conversations can be more powerful when we are vulnerable enough to say, "Me, too."
• This kind of honest conversation is happening in homes where families are building habits of engagement--rather than simply habits of evaluation.

Follow this link to listen now--and share BRAVE LOVE with your community.  Let us know what questions you'd like us to address on a future episode.  We'd love to hear from you.  There is great hope.

In a culture of busy-ness, efficiency is strangling our parenting strategies.  Because we are so often short on time, we manipulate our children instead of raise them.  We're not the first generation that has defaulted to manipulation--so when we want to learn new parenting strategies, we must look for truth instead of tradition.  We need the wisdom that comes from healthy relationships, instead of new tricks developed in our performance-obsessed culture.

Join Janet and Doug in this episode as they offer parents a bucket of courage to raise their children for the full human experience, instead of simply for success.  They offer these take aways:

• Manipulation is often the choice we make as parents when we are running short on time—or patience.  How we spend our time has more impact on our children’s lives than how we spend our money.  
• Our children need to learn what it means to be fully human—not simply what it means to be busy or what it means to be the best.  We get to teach them. 
• The human experience, by design, happens in community—not primarily in a peer group or on a screen.  Our children need a source of wisdom and empathy and mature connection.

Follow this link to join Doug and Janet on this episode--and please share BRAVE LOVE with your friends.  There is great hope.

Janet promised to include links to two prior episodes.  Have you heard these?

https://janetnewberry.com/what-do-we-do-with-emotions-at-home-part-1/

https://janetnewberry.com/how-do-we-help-our-children-with-emotions-part-2/

In a performance-obsessed culture, we get what we deserve.  We must be perfect in order to earn the best prize.  Messing up means missing out--so the temptation is huge for our children to lie, cheat, or steal whatever they think they may never earn all by themselves.

Brave love reminds our children that childhood is about growing up--not measuring up.  Brave love reminds us all that asking for help from a trusted source isn't cheating--it's vulnerability.  

Join Doug and Janet as they distinguish between transactional and transformational parenting, and offer these take-aways:

• Short term solutions and long road relationships are both hard.  The long road of building relationships of trust is the only path to maturity.
• Lying, stealing, and cheating all happen because we are afraid the truth about ourselves is not enough.  Love reminds us who God says we are--and that it's ok to ask for help.
• Transformational parenting helps children sort lies from truth--and offers to help our kids live a life of integrity rather than a life of fear and hiding.

Follow this link to listen now--and share this episode with your friends. Let us know your thoughts and questions.  Together, there is great hope.

The struggles are real.  It seems every day we end up bribing our children to eat good food, and manipulating them to do their homework.  Bribing and manipulating works.  And these short term solutions teach our children habits of relating that aren't healthy--in the long run.

Doug and Janet start a conversation today that includes these vital questions:

1. What are we inviting our children to trust?  What is the source of strength we are offering?
2. What are we protecting our children from?  (long term pain or short term pain?)
3. What are we risking?  What are we willing to risk? Parenting is an epic novel, not a short story.  This episode offers these take-aways to lend you strength in your important relationships:

• Parenting on the long road invites our children to live in freedom from their convictions--instead of the under the bondage of our control.
• Parenting on the long road invites us to look for causes and unmet needs--instead of quick fixes and short term solutions.
• Long road relationships invite us all to be safe--and known, instead of requiring us to be perfect--and afraid or empty.

Have you shared the BRAVE LOVE podcast with your friends?  Sharing your parenting journey with friends will lend you strength.  There is great hope.

We almost can't believe we risked recording this episode.  If we are trustworthy at all on this topic, it's because of what we've learned through our struggle--as much as what we're enjoying in our ongoing healing.

This episode is for the benefit of the next generation.  We moved immaturely into marriage #1...and marriage #2.  We took all we knew--and all our immature habits of relating.  It wasn't enough.

Doug and Janet humbly offer these take-aways in their first ever BRAVE LOVE episode on the topic of marriage:

• Only in trusting, transformational relationships can we experience each other's love.  Transactional relationships may be part of a good business model, but they build a weak and fragile foundation for marriage.
• Only when we experience each other's love can we find the safety to be seen and heard--and discover our God-given identity, including our dreams.
• Only when we experience love--can we grow up and enjoy maturity in the world God designs, instead of hijack maturity in the world we might build for ourselves.

Listen now--and subscribe.  Thank you for sharing the BRAVE LOVE podcast with friends and family--and for leaving a review. There is great hope.