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Forging Bonds in the Forge of Service: The Casteel's Blueprint for Military Marriages and Family Unity · Your Thoughts Your Reality

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to your Thoughts, your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Michael is a dual elite certified neuro encoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post-deployment life.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles procrastination, self-doubt, fear and more.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Hello, hello, hello everybody.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Today I am super excited.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I've been waiting about two weeks for today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So we have repeat guests, Robert and Cathy Casteel, military veterans with combined over 50 years in the military, a married couple, and we're really going to dive into more of that family aspect, which is really important to me, so that we just give some more skills, some more thoughts, some more possibilities for military marriages and transitioning as well.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: So welcome, Cathy and Robert.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Awesome.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Michael, again for having us on your podcast.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: It's always such an honor.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: We're humbled.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And yes, I was in the military for over 30 years.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I served both in the Marine Corps and the Army.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I started out single and retired my career married.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: So in 2013, I delve into the self-development world and in 2017, I became a neurotransformational coach to help our fellow veterans.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you for all that you do and have done truly, Michael, thank you, I love that.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: I'm Robert, so I spent almost just under 24 years in the Army, all active duty and then, when I retired, I transitioned, met my amazing wife, and life has been a blessing ever since then.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: I started into personal development in 2013, the same time she did.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: I became a coach in 2018, about a year later.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Fantastic and again I don't say that lightly Thank you for your service and your family's service and what they contributed as well.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So let's get kind of cool here.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: So how'd you guys meet?
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: so we met through a dating service.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: It wasn't.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Something similar to matchcom is a lot more expensive and it was a lot better than what Matchcom is.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Excellent, so you get what you pay, right Exactly.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely fantastic.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit more about how, because, again, we've talked and we're friends.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: So, robert, you were retired and Kathy, you were still in the military.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So talk to me a little bit more about the transition challenges, if you will, when you, kathy, were coming out of the military, and tell me some of the challenges maybe that you guys face, because I'm sure our listeners and our veterans out there tips and strategies always are amazing, right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So can you share some of those potential challenges that you guys face and, most important, how you overcame them?
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: For me the majority of my career was in the reserves.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: So for me I was in a career that was in corporate America, that was predominantly men, not the typical men that I wanted to meet to have a lifestyle with.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I wanted people that were go getters.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: And then the type of career field I was in I wasn't meeting people that way.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: And in the military fun fact if you're a military officer, senior, you know if you're single then you know you're dating everybody else or there must be something wrong with you.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of why I opted to go the route of the dating service, because I wanted somebody that was interested in in a commitment.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: And when I met my husband I swore I would never date anybody in the military.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: And then it was so funny being an officer I was never going to date anyone enlisted and come to find out on our first date that he was prior enlisted.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: I was an officer, we were both engineers, so that was the common ground and it just clicked in that respect.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: So with me being in the reserves, the challenge I think the first challenge for me was he understood the active duty life but didn't understand the reserve challenges.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So it would cause a little bit of frustration because he's like, why can't you handle it this way?
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I said, well, that's not the way it works in the reserves.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: And then I think the first big challenge for us was my first deployment, because my husband was the one used to deploying all the time and, you know um, his wife at the time would stay home.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Now he was the one staying home and I was the one deploying.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: So I think that was the first challenge for us, excellent, and rob being married and robert, can you thank you um, can you share a little bit about kind of what you went through with that?
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: So I transitioned out of the Army single.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: I just got divorced not too long before that and then we met.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: But going into our first deployment, the reserves and National Guard is completely different from active duty.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: And when she deployed my challenge was is keeping my mouth shut because I was used to saying different things and she's like I can't do that.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: A because I'm an officer and B officer and B I'm a reservist.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: So learning how to navigate the reserve side of it I think it's much easier as active duty because you have that community that's around that unit.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: With the Reserve and National Guard they're spread out all over the state and sometimes in multiple states, so you don't have that nice, nice, nice, nice tight knit community around you all the time.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: So when you're just alone and you're having to navigate and continue everything that that they did while they were home, pick up and do everything that you do too.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: So you had double the work to do.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can totally see that.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So thanks for sharing, guys, by the way.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So what are some of the things that are strategies?
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: How did you work or figure that out at some point?
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming it's communication, but how did you kind of maneuver and say, hell yeah, we got this.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Now, what strategies did you guys put into play?
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: if you don't mind, so it was basically communicating, laying out the plan hey look, this is what I plan on doing while you're deployed, and do you see anything?
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: Any different route that we could do or something else I could do differently and just basically laid out the plan and communicated on a daily basis or whenever she was available to communicate.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Sometimes it was only through emails, Sometimes it was through phone calls, text messages, etc.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: But we communicated some way, somehow as much as we could.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Fantastic yeah.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: And if I could just add to that, michael, you know we hadn't done much in the relationship realm as far as learning, and a lot of it was trial by fire, and I don't want other people to learn from my mistakes, please and so I would call to vent to my husband you know my day and just all the frustrations and he wanted to fix it for me, which is that's his purpose in life is to provide and protect me.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: His purpose in life is to provide and protect me, and so it created a lot of friction in the beginning.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Till then, I think I just came across it like accidentally, like I just want to vent.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: He's like, oh, okay, cool, that's all you had to tell me.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Now listen, and I'll stop trying to fix.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and then the other part, I think, which was super cool, understanding is that he would pick a project on the house to do while I was gone and I didn't care.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Like you know, some people like, oh, it's not in the budget, or whatever.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Being away from your partner for a year, they need something to focus on.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: So if it's not in the budget or whatever being away from your partner for a year, they need something to focus on.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: So if, if it's not within the budget, you'll figure it out.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: But he each deployment, he had a project that occurred while I was gone, that kept him occupied and and it kept, I think, for the most part kept us both sane yeah, I think, I think that's super important, guys.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: You know I can't tell you how many veterans, civilians it's very similar when there's that separation right, and there's a reason why.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It's your thoughts, your reality is the podcast name.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: You know, when you're not busy physically is always fantastic, just tips out here, guys, but if you're not in a good headspace or mindset, you know the reality that you're seeing isn't generally actual reality.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: You know, 90 of the time.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: So I think it's fantastic that you guys found that for you know, for for robert to do those kinds of things and I'm going to share something.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't do this.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to share something.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't do this.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I still see Robert running around doing stuff when we're just talking.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: He does.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: It's just it comes from a different space now, like I understand, whereas in the beginning it was a little bit like why is this project turning into such this massive thing?
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: And you know, my daughter would basically say dad's just really missing you and he misses you a lot and he may not say it to you, but I can see it when he walks around the house.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: So all those were just pointing signs that you know who am I to take that away?
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean I think and forgive me, I'm I if I'm overstepping here but I think also when, when you find solace and you find a thing to to quiet your mind and balance you, that habit doesn't go away or maybe shouldn't go away, you know.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So I think I and I'm just, I was just making a joke, but I love how Robert's still, you know, going around- trying to get into my house but Once he finishes all my projects.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: He can go your way.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll come over and help.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: All right, that's fair, I'll pay for the plane tickets, fantastic guys.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you how has the culture of the military shaped your relationship and family dynamics?
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I know right.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: So for me, coming off being on active duty when I was married, when I was on active duty I had to see my wife when I was at home.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Sometimes I would go to work at four o'clock in the morning and I might make it home at eight o'clock at night, so it was a very short time.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Some days I was like, hey, we have a long weekend and then she's like get out of the house.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: So it's a unique dynamic because we have short amount of time and then we also have a long amount of time and then we all of a sudden have a long amount of time.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: And learning how to balance it throughout that is a priority.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And if you want to keep the relationship and going and going out and partying every night with people you see in your unit every day don't always work you have to make them a part of your family.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So I think for me it was understanding that when I'm around him, understanding that he's my priority, communicating with him on a regular basis, there are some days, especially in deployment days, that I'd be going all day and the last thing I honestly wanted to do was get on a phone call.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: And you know, talking about busy days, my day started early in the morning and it typically went till 10 o'clock at night, typically on a deployment.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: So I'd start at six in the morning and go till 10 o'clock at night.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: So my day was busy and occupied, but his day wasn't busy from six in the morning till till 10 o'clock at night, and so just I see the dynamic difference.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: So if he goes away we volunteer a lot with a veteran organization and he'll go away for a week or two at a time and I'm like, oh my God, how did you do this for a whole year?
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Like I need something to keep me busy, so being able to have that on both sides, like I didn't have to experience him being gone for a whole year, but just being gone for a week or two.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I experienced that lack of connection.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: You know, because he's busy I'm not his priority to call throughout the day.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: If he can, he will, but his priority is the mission.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: So I got a small snippet of that.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: So I think the biggest thing that I have learned through this is communicating what I want and what I need, so he can provide that to me and, as well as you know, be there to support.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I love that and thank you guys.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: You know I haven't mentioned it yet, but thank you for being vulnerable and really you know diving into this, because how many people are we going to help?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Are you guys going to help by having these conversations that they don't?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Just they don't realize how important communication is.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: And I want to just give you any, any help on effective relationships.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And I want to add something when you guys, when you, when you realize not you guys specifically, but listeners and future audience that'll see this later or listen to this later, you know, when you get these realizations, celebrate it.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I mean literally.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: I call it astatube, shake it up, shake your ass.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It releases a bunch of hormones there you go, that's it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: But it releases hormones.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: When you smile and you do that, that your body and your brain are saying, hey, I want more of that and the more of that happiness.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: See the smile, see, she hasn't stopped smiling yet.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: So when you can do that and you can get that smile and get those good cocktail of hormones, it just helps to reinforce these kinds of things, you know, neurologically.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So I just want to throw that little tip out there.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So awesome, so parenting in a military family.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So I know there's a daughter.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: So can we talk about that a little bit and maybe again some of the struggles and how you overcame those?
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's so important, especially in a military family, because it can break apart a family too.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You know, obviously, when you're coming back from the military deployed active duty reserves, it all plays a role.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So give us some challenges and some things that you guys worked through on that, if you would please.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: So for Hannah, which I don't mind saying her name she's the reason why I retired um, I just came off a deployment from Iraq.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: She's like hey, I haven't seen you since I was since 2004.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: This was 2000,.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: Uh, end of 2007.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen you since then.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: When are you coming home?
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: And she's going on, seven years old at the time, almost eight, and I was like, hmm, you know what?
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: No time better now, because I was actually had been reassigned to Germany to go right back to Iraq for a fourth tour, and so that was challenging.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: And after I retired I wanted to spend as much time as I could with her.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: Hard, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with her.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: And then going through that learning how to raise a little girl when you're used to being around a bunch of men is challenging for a guy to understand.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: And then I met Kathy.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: Kathy understood what she was going through, but there was still a conflict.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: She added Hannah was actually mad at me because I was no longer married to her mom and she didn't understand.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: And it wasn't until she was 15, 16 years old that we managed to break down what was going on and understand what, why she was so angry with me because there was a constant battle going on, and understand what.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Why she was so angry with me?
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Because there was a constant battle going on.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: Every weekend she came up and then I watched Kathy talk about her relationship with her.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Fantastic.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and thank you.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It's so normal, military or not military, when there's, you know, a step-parent or whatever that comes in.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: So I'm, you know, civilian or or military.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: This is everybody.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Perky ears, though, because here comes some gold.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So, Kathy, how did you guys work through that?
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Well, first I want to bring a perspective, if I could.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Michael, you know the military was the majority of our life, and so our household was kind of ran like the military, and you know, I'm sure there's some blessings and some learnings that my daughter received from that.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And you know she wasn't a soldier, she didn't sign up to be a soldier.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: So how to do chores and all of that to military standard, that was some challenges.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: You know rules and regulations.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: You got to follow the rules.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: So just understanding that she is not a soldier she didn't sign up to be a soldier and how can we treat her, you know, as a daughter and a lot of that we learned through our relationship, training, through a program called Warriors and Queens, and so I had this conversation with her, and we really created a dynamic where all the parents were involved, so all the blended parents were involved.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Let's all communicate together, let's all figure it out and create that space for her to be able to talk without judgment.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I will say, the one challenge I think for her, though, was she was so young when her dad deployed, when Robert deployed, so she didn't really remember the transitioning coming back off deployment.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: So the blessing I think this go around.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: My first deployment, when I left and Hannah was here, is that when I came back she's like she would say to Robert dad, why is mom acting so weird?
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: And she actually had conversations with her biological mom and she said your dad was the same way.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: You were just too young, you didn't realize.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: So a lot of times I would just, you know, say at a hand, I'm just not feeling well, because it's so easy to say that than to try and explain what's going through your head.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: So, even though you think you got it handled and you're handling it all, the kids know you got it handled and you're handling it all the kids now and they see that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: So just having conversations with them, um, I think that's the biggest thing for us being military and deployments and blended family and everything, talking, communication without judgment, just letting everybody be heard.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: A mentor of mine, vinu Keller.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: She always says be curious, not critical.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And when you have those types of that type of communication or those types of conversations, it changes the game.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I love what you're saying truly.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: Another thing that truly bridged the gap was when it came to decisions.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: We had her make the decision and we would listen to it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Unless it was going to hurt her or kill her, we didn't stop it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: She had to go out and learn those lessons herself.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And especially with finances.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: We started her young on our budget.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Hey look, this, how much money you got.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: You got to make it last six months and then it was gone in a month the first time.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: It took three iterations before she finally got where she could budget that that money for six months wow.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: But she's gotten there and imagine, I mean I'm proud of her and I'm not her parent, but good for you guys.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I mean because so many people don't do that.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: You know they are doing it this way because they're trying to protect, right.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: But you know we know being coaches and so on, you don't learn from doing things right.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You learn from mistakes, that's how you get real growth, so that's so fantastic.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that Truly.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And my mistake you know that I learned from was so many years in the military.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: You learn about being critical because people are critical of you and so you leave that environment and you take it into your civilian life and it's such a different dynamic.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: I had to learn that, because who's going to want to hang out or talk with someone who's like so wound up tight, I guess is the best way I can explain it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely Fantastic.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: So let's see Advice for new military couples.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: You know, because it's near and dear to my heart, because the military doesn't teach you this stuff.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: That's why I do what I do, Kathy 100%.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Every time you reach out 100%, I'll say yes, because if we don't take care of our veterans, who's going to right?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Who's going to?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so a couple things.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Understand some modes that we operate in.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Understand there's a hunting mode and there's a gathering mode.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: There's a gathering mode.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: And if you master those two modes and you understand masculine and feminine energy and master those two and, communicating, you'll bridge that gap real quick.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Can you explain a little more?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: If you can go a little deeper into what that means or what that feels or looks like, even more so.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: So imagine a prehistoric time hunting the deer.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: The guys went out and hunted the deer.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: If they broke their focus and got sidetracked on something in the meadow, like flowers or something like that, they didn't feed the family that night.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: But a lot of times the women in prehistoric time, they would go gather the stuff in the meadows, the flowers, where the fresh water was.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: They knew all that.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: And then in society today the women flip-flop back and forth so quickly.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Guys, I have to ask sometimes, to be honest, can I get your attention for a second?
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: When she's in hunting mode, when she's focused on something, I interrupt her and all of a sudden I'm having words thrown at me in anger and not in pleasantries.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: So thank you for explaining that.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: So there's and I don't remember the guy's name.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: If someone in the comments could pop up the name, my wife may know and I'm sure she's on here.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, she is the Tale of Two Brains.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: There's a gentleman and he's funny as heck and fantastic and really puts it in perspective.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: So I encourage everybody to check it out and again, it's entertaining, but it changes the game for understanding the difference between men and women and how they generally think.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And I'm just saying in general.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So thank you for explaining that, robert, I appreciate it.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: So what would be advice?
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think Kathy's went yet, but some more advice, potentially of new married couples transitioning out, whether they're both transitioning or however that plays out.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: But some other potential tips, if you will.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: So for me, I think what was a game changer is reading a book called Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Reading a book called Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong and how you communicate with men and with men are different, like the two brain book.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And so Alison gives you that correlation because if you're in the military as a woman, transitioning out how you talk to men in the military, just in general, I feel like my whole dynamic has changed.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Is has been a game changer for me.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: And on top of that, realizing I kind of joked with Michael before we went live about my safety center women have a safety center that's three times larger than that of a male.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: So when we're commenting on driving or whatever that's, that's just because that's how God made us Like, that's how we're built.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: And I feel like, um, depending if you were the male or the female, you know this could go either way in a relationship.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: If we're both military and you're both military and you deploy and you come back, your PTSD is going to be different than that of a male.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: So, understanding that dynamic, to me, if you did nothing else but read those two books, your communication with your partner would be totally different.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I'm not discounting the little seminars you go to before you exit the military.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: It doesn't go to the down and dirty of what we are dealing with, with the traumas that we have dealt with our whole life, that we just kind of suppress and then it comes up ugly in different ways.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Thank you.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you so, and if you could, when we're done here, if you could put those books into the comments, that'd be fantastic.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: So we're getting close to the end here Telling you we need like three hours on this one.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: So, mental health resilience can you discuss some of the importance or a mental, a good mental mindset, because there's good and bad right, and how you've cultivated resilience within your family?
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: So I think for me it started when I came back and Robert had said that you know I was off a little bit, in a more loving way.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: But he said I was off a little bit and I went to the VA to see a psychologist and I will share that if you go to the VA and it doesn't work, just go out on your own, like it's so worth it.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: I went for one or two appointments and then after that I called to reschedule and I never got a rescheduled appointment.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: So then I decided I would seek, you know, therapy out on my own and I think for me having somebody to be able to talk through what I was going through without it being my partner you know, hindsight, 2020, if I knew about coaching back then this was back in 2011, you know I would have definitely gone the coaching realm.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: But speaking to somebody, speaking to somebody that can help you navigate those traumas that we tend to hide or that we forget about, that shows up in our partner and in our relationships.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: We call them triggers in our world.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: So, with the emotions that you're suffering from, the PTSD or from the mental health of the events you went through, um, In the military, you're taught just to shove them down and shove them down Absolutely.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: I like using this analogy.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Imagine holding a beach ball underwater and eventually your arms get tired.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: What happens to that beach ball?
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: That beach ball comes up and shoots out of the water like a skyrocket.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Well, our emotions are the same way.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: So either it's going to come out in illness, it's going to come out in some sort of sickness, or it's going to come out in the form of anger and rage and things like that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: So talking with somebody about what you went through is vitally important.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Get it out there so that you are not so numb to it because that's part of your story.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: There's nothing you can do to change it.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: So numb to it because that's part of your story, there's nothing you can do to change it.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: You got traumatized that one time.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: Every time after that you've re -traumatized yourself.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Amen so just get it out there, get it out of your body and let somebody else hold the trash can and so they can go dump it out for you.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely fantastic.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I literally there's the analogy and I have chills, man, thank you.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I mean that's as good as it gets God.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you two.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: No, we love you too, Michael.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Love you guys truly.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So time's up.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: We're actually flying past, as usual.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: So when we talk about resources and things, robert, I just want to bring to light here hey, go to Empower Performance Strategies.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: There are free e-books for veterans, there are Facebook groups.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: There are all kinds of resources to reach out.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Don't just go silent, don't go to solitude.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Reach out to someone.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Talk to somebody, just like you guys just said.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I just thank you for bringing that up so I could bring it up.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: There's a QR code as well.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: If you're watching this, you can scan the QR code.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Takes you automatically to all that stuff.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: So again, use those resources, use any resources you need.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Reach out and let's lead into the next one.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: How do people reach you, guys?
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Well, we have a couple of different ways.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: There's I would like to mention, if you don't mind, michael, if you want to learn the most, you can learn about relationships, warriors and Queens dot com.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: There's so much free information on there.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: There's a free e-course that at least get the ball started.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: If you want to speak to us one on one, you can reach us at MSM coaching group dot com, and, and we're on Facebook, so we're friends with you and they can find us that way.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: We are here to support you.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So you know, you know me well.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: My mouse just died, so that's a little bit of a problem.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: But so why I changed my mouse batteries?
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Three tips for military marriages.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Love your queen like there's no tomorrow and support her and her growth.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: I would say appreciate and respect your king.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: You may not always agree with everything that he is doing.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: However, he's doing what, in his mind, he thinks is best for the family.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: And no matter what, keep going, just keep going.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Figure out what, where the trigger's coming from from your past and deal with it to have a better life in the future, because your relationship is worth it.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Ah, love you guys.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: You guys are fantastic.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You guys are awesome and we'll get you scheduled to come back on again, absolutely.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Ah, love you guys.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You guys are fantastic.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You guys are awesome and we'll get you scheduled to come back on again.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Absolutely We'd love to.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And just with closing, uh, you know, these are some of the best tips and just real people sharing because they love you and they want to help.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: You know, this is why we all are out here doing this.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: So anything we can all do, you know, reach out, obviously, and I think, guys, I think we're out of here.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Take care.