Magical Thinking (Episode 6)

Brent and Janis discuss how magical thinking in our culture impacts our lives and relationships.

Transcript:

[Brent]: Welcome, friends. We're glad that you're back with us again for another moment together with Brent and Janis Sharpe, Life & Love Nuggets.

[Janis]: Today we're going to talk about magical thinking, how it's pervaded our culture and the impact that it has on our daily lives, our marriages and all of our relationships.

[Brent]: Yeah. You know, we've seen this have quite an effect on people, particularly we’ve seen it in marriage. You know, of course, as marriage counselors we see this idea of this kind of special thing that happens to us, this magical moment. You know, we've all grown up with this from-- Everything from Cinderella to Snow White to Beauty and the Beast and--

[Janis]: Sleeping Beauty

[Brent]: Yes, there's all these moments where-- It's kind of like we get zapped, you know? And these things happen to us and then, the love is really kind of a happening. It's this very particular thing that takes place-- Every romance movie we've ever seen lasts about 90 minutes and you know, they fall in love, of course, a glance across the room, a certain kind of thing where they just feel this chemistry that happens.

[Janis]: And that may even be in arguing.

[Brent]: Might be, yeah.

[Janis]: They really dislike each other, but you could tell there's some kind of chemistry that's going on there.

[Brent]: Some kind of chemistry. So, it all starts there and then they start the relationship and then, of course, they always have to break up at least once.

[Janis]: Oh, sure.

[Brent]: And then, how many scenes someone chasing the other one to the airport? I mean, how many movies have we seen that in? And then the final scene is the wedding and at the wedding, everybody looks happy, you know? The dancing and the celebration and the credits roll. It's assuming--

[Janis]: It’s over.

[Brent]: That now that we've met the right person, now that we've had this magical thing happen to us, that the next 50 to 60 to 70 years is pretty much a slam dunk. I mean, it's as long as you have that initial thing, as long as you've got the magic, then the rest of life is going to be pretty easy and obviously, as marriage counselors we realize that's not exactly how this works and even a couple has been married for 44 years, we realize that this is not exactly how this works. I mean, in the beginning it looks like at the wedding and the pictures that they took, they're all smiles.

[Janis]: Well, the wedding pictures I've seen everybody looks happy.

[Brent]: They look happy and they don't anticipate that there's going to be challenges, because again, we found the right one.

[Janis]: How many times have we heard in premarital counseling “yeah, I know other people have problems, but our love is different, we won't encounter any of that”?

[Brent]: Yes, and because they're still caught up in that sense of chemistry and I tell you what, that has affected us, a lot of our culture and I think we've been soaked in that since we were little people and we think then magically, that if we have this experience, then life's going to be easy from that point forward and now, I would say when we met almost 50 years ago.

[Janis]: I really prefer to say 40 some years ago.

[Brent]: 40 some years.

[Janis]: Even though I did figure up it was like 48 and a half years that we met.

[Brent]: Yes

[Janis]: I still want to stick with it as 40 some years until we get to 50.

[Brent]: Okay, we’ll just-- We’ll just keep going there. Let’s keep going there.

[Janis]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Brent]: But it did feel kind of magical to me.

[Janis]: So, shall I tell the story of how we met?

[Brent]: Sure

[Janis]: Okay. So, we met waiting in line to get our pictures taken for the yearbook in our freshman year of college and I flirted with him and he did not pick up on it at all. It like, went way over his head. So, I decided at that point “okay, forget him, there's a lot of other people out there”. Now, I have come to appreciate that quality in a husband, that he doesn't pick up on the fact that somebody is flirting with him, but we ended up going separate ways obviously and dating other people. Until eventually, he saw the light and we got together.

[Brent]: I remember that day sitting in the cafeteria, looking out the window. Saw you coming out of the post office. I knew you, of course, but I just saw you differently and I saw you kind of bouncing, you know? Walking across the sidewalk there and I thought “Oh. Oh my”.

[Janis]: You were smitten.

[Brent]: I was-- I was smitten and so, once I finally got it-- Again, it did feel kind of magical and yet, we realized that that-- Just magical doesn't last. You know, studies tell us that we all get about 18 months of a natural high and again, we do a lot of premarital counseling, so couples are usually still in that 18 months.

[Brent]: We always say that, you know, as a marriage counselor I have a couch and a love seat, you know? Because sometimes married couples don’t want--

[Janis]: Don’t want to sit on this--

[Brent]: They don’t want to sit on the same couch. But if we were just doing premarital counseling, all we need is kind of an oversized chair.

[Brent]: They sit so close to each other and they would probably be happy with one's legs up over the other ones, you know? It’s just--

[Janis]: Yes, sometimes you want to pry them apart. “Okay, let's talk here”.

[Brent]: And so, what is this? I mean, for some reason we were designed this way, to have this sense of chemistry. I mean, there has to be something there.

[Janis]: I think one of the real dangers in that, is that we see love or being smitten like a cloud. Like the cloud comes in like, “you were sitting in the cafeteria, you saw me and the cloud came over you and suddenly, you were smitten”.

[Janis]: And so, it gives us this idea of “I have the in-love cloud” and what we hear a lot of times in marriage counseling then, is people go “well, I'm just not in love with them anymore”, like that cloud has gone away. But that's not what love is really about.

[Brent]: Yeah, and so, it's a thing-- I think, again, we had to be designed this way or we would be attracted to every single person that walks down the street and that would be cumbersome.

[Janis]: Yeah, awkward.

[Brent]: Okay. I mean, awkward and difficult and yet, that initial chemistry which we found, studies tell us we all get about 18 months of that again, where it seems easy, love seems easy, it seems magical. But everybody's going to come off of that high and unfortunately, we've made a whole philosophy of marriage and life and relationships based on that initial chemistry. Again, it had to be. It was a thing and we have to acknowledge that, but it's how do we take that thing and move beyond that and not get caught up in that? Because in my experience, again, as doing premarital counseling, we're just trying to get them to face some kind of reality, you know? It's to look at life is going to be-- Have its challenges and we need to face that and when I talk to them, some of the couples just kind of roll their eyes, you know? Like “yeah”. Well, again, we've heard that and some people deal with that.

[Janis]: Other people have that.

[Brent]: Other people have that and I always wish I had a time machine. I wish I could send couples in a time machine and send them ahead like, two years and get out of the time machine for like, five minutes.

[Brent]: And premarital counseling would be a snap.

[Janis]: It would.

[Brent]: You just, you know, once they come back in the room and today, they're like “oh my gosh, they're just gonna start asking questions”, you know?

[Brent]: And they would be like little sponges that would just kind of absorb some. So, what is that thing? How has it affected us? What in the world do we do about that?

[Janis]: Yeah. Well, I think that magical thinking is in all of our culture. I mean, we talked about this someone we talked about the holidays, being with your family for the holidays. We had this idea that we should make everything magical, that everything should be magical and wonderful and it puts a lot of pressure on us in all ways and honestly, when we haven't experienced something, we're not very realistic. I mean, I think about before I had kids, thinking about having a baby and sitting in a room rocking a baby with the sun shining in the window and everything was peaceful and perfect and reality, yeah, I had a little bit of that, but there's also the sleepless nights. But I think we have this idea that we have to have life magical or it's not okay.

[Brent]: Right, right.

[Janis]: And speaking of which, we do have Valentine's Day coming up. 

[Brent]: Oh, yes, yes, it’s almost time, right?

[Janis]: It is coming up very soon, and some of you will probably be breaking out in a cold sweat or feel some anxiety.

[Brent]: I always feel anxious during this time. It's like “how do I do something that it's going to be really meaningful?” and anyway.

[Janis]: We're marriage counselors, pretzel, anything you do will be wonderful, right?

[Brent]: Yeah, right. No, exactl,y exactly.

[Janis]: But we do, we have those expectations we want to make things so special and oftentimes, the people in our lives build up expectations and then they're disappointed, because they're not exactly what they had in mind and we'll talk on some other session about communication, but we have gone so over the top in holidays and I think Valentine's Day is one of those. It's like you have to have all of the perfect things and it's not just for your kids, it's like “oh, should I do something for people at the office? Should I have a Galentine's Day? Should I do something for my mom? Or what about somebody else?”. It goes along with that.

[Janis]: Several sessions ago I talked about the perfect list or the good list.

[Brent]: Yes, the good list.

[Janis]: The good list, you know, “A good mom would do this. A good wife would do this. A good friend would do this” and so, we have all of those expectations that are on us that causes stress and Valentine's Day didn't used to be that way. Like, when you had a Valentine's party when you were at school, what was it like?

[Brent]: Oh my gosh, I still-- Well, this is going back. Oh my goodness, how far this is gonna--?

[Janis]: Not quite covered wagon days, but kind of close.

[Brent]: It's really close.

[Brent]: Wow. Yes, we had-- I remember we would go to the store and we'd get-- I mean, you get a pack of them, you get all these little Valentine cards, because they're little bitty things and I think we would write out one for everybody in our class and I do remember something about a shoe box.

[Brent]: So, we would get a little shoebox and I don't know how we did it. We cut a little hole in the top of it or something and so, when you collected them from your classmates and you know, they would just sign their name to it, you know, some little catchphrase or something on these little cards and you’d collect all of these and we'd come home that day with a little shoe box full of Valentine's Day cards.

[Janis]: And it was always like a shoe box that you kind of scrounged up around the house and you decorated it that day.

[Brent]: You decorated it, you put paper on it. Yes, yes.

[Janis]: Or the day before with just stuff that you had, you didn’t go over the top and maybe one or two people would like, put a sucker on their Valentine, sometimes it was just the teacher. It was nothing like what it is now.

[Janis]: I found myself yesterday when I was running errands, I went by a kid's store and I thought “oh, I should go ahead and get Valentine's shirts or outfits or something for each of the grandkids, so that their moms would have to do that much less”. I mean, it's over the top, they have Valentine pajamas now. You could do a matching-family Valentine's pajamas. So, it's just gone over the top and expectations have gotten higher and higher, all because of this idea of “we need to make it magical for everyone”.

[Brent]: We all kind of wait on that magical feeling, don't we? And we're longing for that, we're striving for that. Again, a lot of our culture is focused on that, how do we have these magical feelings. Now, I do remember-- I don't know if I ever told you this. Do you remember when--?

[Brent]: The very first actual literal little gift I bought somebody? I believe it was fifth grade. Now, I don't remember her name, but I do remember going to the store and getting one of those little heart-shaped boxes that had candy.

[Brent]: And oh my gosh, talk about awkward, fifth grade. I think I had a friend take it to her and she never said anything. We were so freaked out over that. But again, all of-- The point is--

[Janis]: So, you're saying this was not your soul mate.

[Brent]: This was not my soulmate, yes. Oh, speaking of soul mate. Oh my gosh. This idea of soulmate has become a big deal in our culture.

[Janis]: It really has.

[Brent]: And you know, we were-- Have nothing against the organization that kind of uses that, you know? The dating organization and doing good things there, I'm sure. But that idea of soul mate is that “we have this one and only person in our life”. Talk about magical thinking. It's kind of like we're born and we have a little serial number behind our ear and we're just like, trying to find the matching serial number. We have a lot of people that we see that in them, they're just “I need to find this person”, you know? In our faith training and our Christian world, we kind of spiritualize this and this is God's person for our life.

[Brent]: And so, we just add that kind of language to it, but it's “I've been waiting all of my life to find this person because there's only one match”. Incredibly magical thinking.

[Brent]: The problem is the whole idea of soul mate does not have any kind of Christian foundation to, it actually comes out of Greek mythology. It's a kind of strange thought, is that-- Now, in Greek mythology humans were kind of two people back to back, so kind of like a male or female back to back and they had two faces and four arms and four legs and they did say that they could move really fast, because they kind of move like a wheel.

[Brent]: They kind of spun, and Zeus, who was kind of the big God, the main guy, thought that humans were becoming too powerful. He was afraid that they were going to start invading the world of the Gods and kind of start trying to take over and so forth. So, he had this idea that he would slice them down the middle. So, he would slice them into two and because again, they're part of each other, they are going to spend the rest of their life walking around trying to find the other match.

[Brent]: And that would keep them busy. It's the God's thought that “if we can just keep them busy doing that, if they're going to do everything in their life to try to find that one person, then they're not gonna bug us anymore and it'll take the energy out of what they're doing and we don't have to worry about them anymore”. So, it actually comes out of Greek mythology.

[Brent]: It's not a thing that's a legitimate thing of truth and so-- But I think we've all been caught up in that thinking. Now, I have to say again, when I first met you-- So, what this is suggesting is that there may be more than one person in our life, that even is brought by our life, that we encounter, that could be good mates.

[Janis]: I remember when this first came up in grad school.

[Janis]: And we were debating, we were talking about it. We were young, we were 21 or something and you were talking about “yeah, you know, there could be several people in the world or a number of people in the world that you could be happily married to” or you said “I could be happily married too” and I'm like “well, I believe you're the only one for me. I don't know if you believe that or not, you may have several other people”

[Brent]: Took all the romance out of the whole experience,

[Janis]: Yeah, took all of that right then. But then, of course, I've gotten older and as I'm-- I've done counseling for so many years, it's like “yeah, there are a number of people that I could possibly be happy with”

[Janis]: Once we choose each other, we are the one.

[Brent]: We become the one and only and after 44 years of marriage, I can't imagine-- I mean, I've spent all of my life encountering in some way, coming across the paths of other women. I can't imagine anybody-- Nobody holds a candle to you, you're amazing! And I can't imagine--

[Janis]: Let’s just talk talked about that for a long time.

[Brent]: I can't imagine anybody that I could have been with, but the reality is it was a choice and that idea I think is so important. That-- That love is a choice, that it's not just this thing that happens to me and boy, I see this affected couples in premarital counseling all the time and I kind of see them come from these two different kinds of philosophies. One, again, is “I've found the one and it's magical and I've been waiting all my life to find the one” and the other is “you know, this is a really amazing person that I'm thinking about choosing them as a spouse”.

[Brent]: And I see that the way that they operate in their relationship is totally different. Those that are magical thinkers, when they bump into problems, oftentimes I see this-- Oh my gosh, how many times? Oftentimes the response is “oh my gosh, I don't feel the same feelings, therefore I've must have picked the wrong one”.

[Brent]: I thought that's on the serial number, I thought that was a Z and it was an E. I missed it, I got the wrong person and then they go wandering off trying to find their other one again.

[Janis]: Find somebody else.

[Brent]: And they don't put as much effort into it. But those that realize that love is a choice, that this is something that God gives us a choice to choose someone, then they start bumping into problems and it's like “hey, I chose this. Oh, we got to figure this out. Let's bear into this, let's roll our sleeves up, let's figure this out”. So, we wrote a book several years ago called “The Making of a Marriage”. We did that on purpose because we believe it's something that's made.

[Janis]: That's right.

[Brent]: It's not something that just poof! God zap us and out of that, then because you're zapped, you're gonna love each other naturally in this amazing way for the next 70 years.

[Janis]: I think the other thing it sets us up for, if we think there is one “you are my perfect one”, then it sets us up for this idea of “well, if you love me, if you're the perfect one, you should know what I need without me having to tell you”. I mean, how many times have we heard that in marriage counseling? “Well, I'm not going to tell him, because he should know what I need or she should know what I need”. But really, marriage takes communication and it takes work. It's not, A: because we found the right one, everything is going to be perfect forever. It takes intention and we have to work through the process to keep that closeness and to keep that excitement alive in our relationship and it doesn't mean that, you know, “oh, marriage is such a hard work”. It is work, we do have to make some choices, but it can be a positive thing too. I mean, remember I'm the one that talked last week about awe.

[Janis]: So, it's not like “ugh, life is terrible because now I'm married”, there's a lot of good things and there's a lot of ways that we can enjoy our relationship and have a really positive exciting relationship. But just like with awe, we have to be intentional to do that. You can't just wait for that to happen, you have to make some choices and put some things in place that can make life better and more exciting and that can make your relationships better and more exciting.

[Brent]: Yeah, because the reality is and we're going to talk about this in the next few weeks, is feelings follow behavior, they are a byproduct of behavior. Now, we don't realize this in the beginning. We kind of get faked out, to be honest, because it feels like we got zapped. Again, I remember that initial chemistry with you that I felt “oh my gosh, I found everything I've been looking for and it's amazing”. It was easy in those first few months; it was easy to do nice things. But the reality is, I tell couples “If you-- Even if you had that initial chemistry with that person, if you had a first date and you had a knock down drag out fight over politics or something, you wouldn't have had a second date. The reason you had a second day is because the first one went really nice”. It really was the behavior, that was easy and God seems to give us this easiness in the beginning and I think we get lulled to sleep in that, I think that's the problem, is we go-- We go numb, we get paralyzed by that, because we just “oh my gosh, this is amazing!” and we don't put the effort in and we don't realize it really is those behaviors that create these feelings.

[Brent]: And so, couples come off of that 18 months of this natural high and they start going through some desert times or times where “I just don't feel quite the same strength” or whatever and then, again, they come to the wrong conclusions, which is “I guess I've just fallen out of love” or “I picked the wrong person” or whatever, which has nothing to do with any of that. No, your behaviors have changed. You've probably gotten distracted, you've probably gotten busy, you've probably-- All of your effort is probably going to your job or your kids or your house or whatever it is and we aren't nurturing the relationship and so, the feelings start dropping off.

[Brent]: Now, when we realize that feelings follow behavior, that's actually a good thing, because we get to determine and choose behavior and if we can learn to choose the right kind of loving/nurturing kind of behaviors in our marriages and really in all relationships.

[Brent]: Then those feelings come alive, because God blesses us with these really nice wonderful feelings as a byproduct. But I think we get all that backwards, I think we get it confused and we come up with wrong conclusions.

[Janis]: And that's true of all of our relationships. I mean, we have to be intentional in all of our relationships, whether it's friends, whether it's neighbors. Whoever it is, we make a choice to reach out to people. I found during and after the pandemic, especially lately, I've had number of people say “gosh, we just don't have any friends. I think we lost our friends in the pandemic or something. We don't have any” and one of our friends recently said “it's because we're all home watching Netflix or Prime. We're on that series, so we don't want to go out with anybody”. But we really have to be intentional and so, I find myself telling clients more and more “you've got to be the one that calls your friends”. You've got to send people text, you've got to say “hey, do you want to meet me for coffee?” and be persistent to really reconnect in those relationships, because they're not going to just happen to fall in place. It's not going to be a cloud that comes over someone that they want to be friends with you, you've got to make the effort to do that and effort doesn't mean bad, it just means we have to be intentional in our lives.

[Brent]: Yes, yeah. So, love is an action word and we'll talk about this a lot. It's a choice, it's an action regardless of how we feel and that is the key, is regardless of how we feel. If we can make choices-- If you look at the whole scriptural story, when it talks about love, it does not talk about feeling, it talks about action. It's something that you do for others, it's the way that you care for others. It doesn't talk about when you get all warm and fuzzy and you feel these great chemistry feelings, then you do these things. No, it's you do these things.

[Brent]: C.S Lewis has a really great quote and he's talking about how to deal with your neighbor, so-- But I think it's so appropriate.

[Janis]: Or a work colleague or a friend or a spouse.

[Brent]: Yeah, absolutely and it's so important I think in all relationships. But he said “don't worry about whether you love your neighbor or not, treat them as if you do and then presently, you will come to love them”. Oh, that’s huge, what a statement is that.

[Brent]: And so, it is a choice, it is an action. Now, again, God blesses us with really nice warm close connected feelings when we get into this rhythm and so, for the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about how can we make intentional what was naturally inspirational. I mean, we were all inspired by this. If you fall in love, you know that initial inspiration and what seemed easy there, how do we take that and the way that we cared for each other, because we-- I mean, we're just-- In those beginning months we were just falling all over ourselves doing nice things for each other. I mean, it was just easy.

[Janis]: Sure. I'll leave a note on your car because you're working late.

[Brent]: Oh my gosh, yes. I'll drop a coffee drink off to you and you know, go out of my way to do that and we didn't have to try to do that, we didn't have to determine to do that, we didn't have to let-- Have-- Even then, let us know we needed that, we we're just kind of inspired to do that.

[Brent]: But how do we now take what was naturally inspirational and make it purposeful, so that we can build this sense of love and depth and strength and camaraderie and partnership and all of those things that we all long for? But how can we be intentional about that?

[Brent]: So, we're going to talk about that in the next few weeks. We're going to give you some very practical strategies, that if you can begin to purposely choose these kinds of behaviors and how you care for people, then it's going to be a blessing. You're going to find strength and energy and life and vitality in all those relationships.

[Janis]: We will always talk about tools because we need practical things. It'd be nice to say “no, we know how to do all of this” and that's kind of like me saying, you know, “I can play golf because I have golf clubs”. No, I just have the clubs or you know, “I'm in shape because I've gotten into the gym”. No, we need those specific tools and how to do them and that's what we really want to work on, is giving you practical tools to help enhance your own life and all of your relationships.

[Brent]: So, we've always had these two roles in our life, we pastored for many years and then, we've also been counselors for many years and it was kind of nice to be able to stand up on a Sunday and kind of be inspirational. I didn't worry about whether they got it or not or what they did with it. But as counselors, we learned real quick that if what we share with people doesn't really work tomorrow, then they come back next week and go “well, that didn't work, you got any other ideas?” and so, you're gonna see that we're going to give some very practical steps of things that you can choose to do, again, regardless of how you feel. Things that you can choose to do that can make a difference going forward.

[Brent]: So, as you go into your week, we encourage God's blessing and speak that over you and we trust that you'll go in peace.