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Family Traditions vs. Rites of Passage: Why Grandkids Need Both · Calm the Chaos with Rich Christiansen

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first time you sell into the Arctic Ocean, the tradition is to dump ice cold water over your head and uh then paint your nose blue.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point you are a blue nose.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So why do we do this?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this so ingrained?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we as humans, we we really, really it is hard programmed, hardwired into us.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not kid ourselves.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just children that deeply need this.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We as adults deeply need it.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of a symbolize to the Nordic people, no, no, I'm now truly a warrior, I've come of age, I've explored and well, good morning.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Calm the Chaos.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today is going to be a fun conversation.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about blue nose.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a blue nose and specifically rites of passage?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I spent some time up in the Arctic.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We actually uh this summer took a trip up into uh Iceland.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was spectacular.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you that uh the saunas and how the mountain meets the sea and just everything that they say about uh Iceland is accurate.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what I wasn't expecting is as we were on a cruise ship and uh we as we sailed into the Arctic, the cruise director got super excited and started talking about everyone who would like to be a blue nose, please come join us.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wife and I went up there because well, who doesn't want to know what a blue nose is?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess there's a tradition that uh the first time you sail into the Arctic Ocean, the uh the tradition is to dump ice cold water, preferably a plunge, but dump ice cold water over your head and uh then paint your nose blue.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point you are a blue nose.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whoever believed that a bunch of grown adults would be like giddy little children waiting to have a bucket of ice dumped over their heads.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I'd say about half of the men on this cruise ship would have boffed you in the nose and you would had a red nose if you had done it other than a tradition.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tradition, tradition.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, how we love our traditions.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think oftentimes we do confuse our traditions with our rites of passage, but indeed the Nordic sellers, the mighty Vikings, came up with some very interesting, squabbly little rite of passage that when you sell into the Arctic Ocean, you get to paint your nose blue.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So why do we do this?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this so ingrained?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we as humans, we we really, really it is hard programmed, hardwired into us, and I want to spend just a minute or two delineating between traditions and between rites of passage.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Traditions have cadences to them.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's something we do regularly and consistently actually to give us comfort.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the the fire, the caveman at the end of the night, they would first of all identify, oh me, part of this tribe.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't kill me.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was number one.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh the your doctrine or rules is I behave this way so I fit in.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the tradition is the returning to the campfire at night and the things we do to make us feel comforted and consistent and feel like we're part of our tribe.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's vitally important that we have traditions, cadences of tradition, as young children are reading the bedtime story.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love the one that one of my sons does is he asks his little uh year and a half old daughter and his wife, every night they've gotten to this cadence of tell us about your happy of the day, tell us about your funny of the day, tell us about your sad of the day, and tell us about your spiritual of the day.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they respond for her, but she's actually doing little sign language into it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a tradition that will deeply root and provide this little girl incredible stability.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not kid ourselves.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not just children that deeply need this.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We as adults deeply need it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why else would we be rubbing the shoe of some statue or or doing some stupid uh chant at a football game?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's tradition and it helps us bond and be part of our tribe.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the key thing is having our traditions directly and deeply root to the core values so we're not becoming incongruent and then just becoming wobbly tobbly and all fall down.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're enjoying this episode of Calm the Chaos.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to receive more tools, frameworks, support, and resources, go to rich Christiansen.com and they're all there available for your free use.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, rites of passage on the other hand are key learning, precipice key learning events, definitive marking events that transition you from one event to the next.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We had such an interesting uh question coming in, oh I guess this last couple of weeks, and and I I so loved it that I'm gonna actually repeat it verbatim.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question was uh basically, so you have these rites of passage for your children, but I want to do them as an adult.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And can we put rites of passage in place as adults?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know the answer to that, the definitive answer is yes, heck yes.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: However, don't confuse what a tradition is with a rite of passage.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: A rite of passage is something rare, unique, and transitioning from one phase into the next.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think actually as adults, as you transition from one job into the next, or from a for example, uh if you're newly married and then you have a child, then uh very appropriate to set a rite of passage in place and to do it deliberately and with great fun for yourself and for those around you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um indeed the blue nose that I talked about was a rite of passage event because it was a significant thing.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, raise your hand.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been settling into the Arctic Ocean every other week.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, you're not doing that.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of symbolize to the Nordic people, no, no, I'm now truly a warrior, I've come of age, I've explored.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, keeping in mind, in in the days when this first came out, it was a life-harrowing, life-threatening experience.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and you weren't really purely a man, or I guess the women too, but you were not fully of age until you'd selled into that Nordic and and got your blue nose.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a really big deal.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I think that as we transitioned even later in life, my wife and I, we we now are calling ourselves teenagers with a checkbook.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And consciously and subconsciously, I think we put a few of these uh rites of passage in place.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big ones for us recently is as our as our cabin burned down.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: We memoralized both going and seeing the cabin, and then as we take that crest, and true it's a symbol, but as I took it and actually patted it and then sent it on its way and now have it being rebuilt.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: In essence, that was a transition period that we're we're rebuilding, and and that indeed becomes in an essence a rite of passage kind of situation.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um we as humans, you know, uh if we go back to the the the core foundation of legato, and I love this framework, and I know there's a lot of frameworks out there, but I think this one particularly, maybe I'm partial because I created it, but uh the the stability of it is so immense as we get our platform of values and then what we throw away, then placing upon it the symbols, the traditions, the doctrine, and then the rites of passage, we have this really contextually deep, rich metaphor that we can actually stabilize and live our lives with.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you just never should underestimate the the power of a rite of passage.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think anytime adult children or uh even now we as uh older adults get these uh opportunities to transition and mark our life, I'm now actually gonna formally, and it was a thank you to that question that was asked for me, I'm now formally going to start marking rites of passage as adult and formally calling them out.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I I really love this question and thank you so much for joining me today.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you ever get the chance to go be a blue nose, uh make sure that you do that and look for these fun, entertaining little ways that makes life just more vibrant, more real, more alive, is these surprising broken moments that we have where we actually just, oh my gosh, that's so unnormal.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: That just really is the salt and savor of life.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just I'd invite you to live the big, magnified, uh vibrant, full life and and join me in that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh just thank you so much for joining me on today's uh episode of Calm the Chaos.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to uh visiting with you again next week.