Still Becoming One
Still Becoming One
Searching for Joy: A Guided Advent Journey
Join us, as we embark on a fascinating exploration of an often misunderstood emotion - Joy. We're not talking about the fleeting happiness that comes with a new toy or a promotion, but rather a profound inner joy that is unshaken by life's ups and downs. Let's journey together!
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
Kate Aldrich:We are Brad and Kate and our more than 20 years of marriage. We've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Brad Aldrich:Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Kate Aldrich:We invite you to journey with us, as we are Still Becoming One.
Brad Aldrich:Let's start the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Still Becoming One. Hi we're glad that you're here and you're excited to continue to journey with you through this season of Advent and if you're listening to this, not at Christmas time, well, this is a little bit of a Christmas episode, where we're continuing just to discuss how the emotions of Advent yes, the emotions, right. So each week of Advent is set up by a emotion hope, peace, joy and love and we're talking about how they impact us and impact our marriage as well.
Kate Aldrich:So but you say, like if you're tuning in another time, this is a you know Season 1, which to some extent it is, but as believers, we are anticipating the second coming as well. That is literally Advent.
Brad Aldrich:That's true.
Kate Aldrich:So we kind of live these things out all the time. It's just the church typically gives some focus to them during the Christmas season. But if you think about, these are things that we are engaging with, wrestling with all the time because we are all anticipating the second coming, because actually we didn't live in a time where we were anticipating the first coming.
Brad Aldrich:Right, and you know, I think part of our message, you know, with each one of these emotions is that there's more to them than the, you know, Christmas songs would have you believe.
Kate Aldrich:Sure, the flat, one dimensional bit of it. Right. I don't think that is how we define emotions. Anyways, they're not flat and one dimensional.
Brad Aldrich:No, not at all. And yet I think, with these things, when somebody says joy especially, you know it's like it's supposed to be, this intense excitement, it's extreme gladness, it's like, whatever you want to say, that it feels like you either have or you don't.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, that's an interesting way of putting it either have it or you don't. And yet I think joy is something that is within us and is a mindset and a lifestyle, not an emotion or something that, yeah, you either have or you don't.
Brad Aldrich:And I think that's some of the point this is, with a complexity of joy right and how many times have you talked to somebody, especially like a new couple that's starting out, and we hear them say something like I just don't have any joy in my life anymore? Right. Like it's just kind of everything's gone gray and they're not actually meaning like excitement. They're, you know they're not meaning like that, you know, fun glad thing that happens. They're really meaning a larger mindset where it just feels very heavy.
Kate Aldrich:Sure, and I think that's valid and that needs a space to be honored. I also think that joy is somewhat of your choosing and I think it's important to recognize joy and happiness are not the same thing. Happiness is events, smaller things that are fun and make you happy, but joy is a deeper, more rooted emotion than fleeting things that are fun and come and go, those kinds of things. But I do think that our mindset of joy really can be a choice. Now, that is not to say that when you're going through something really hard or it's been a bad season, that joy can feel elusive and far away. But I do think there becomes a point in that hard journey where we decide to look at things and see joy in them.
Brad Aldrich:Well, we decide to look at things and see joy in them. That's a pretty interesting statement. No, I agree with you.
Kate Aldrich:I like to make interesting statements.
Brad Aldrich:Because I think we need to find joy in the hard places, in the things that we're doing. Because it's not actually usually the easy things that bring joy. Sometimes easy things bring happiness, right, but that's pretty fleeting. But it is the hard things that, long term, bring joy.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, I was just talking to one of our teenagers about this and it is particularly hard for one of them due to their story and trauma, and I do think it's very hard at times, but it's hard at times. But I also know, as we've gone through one of the hardest seasons in our lives. I can either look around me and everything can be drudgery, or I can choose to see the moments that are filled with the joy that lives inside of me.
Brad Aldrich:Right.
Kate Aldrich:That? Yes, I don't feel it every moment. Yes, it's hard to navigate trauma and mental health in your home, but I still choose to see the joyful moments in the other spaces. If that makes sense, I don't know. Does that make sense?
Brad Aldrich:No, it does make sense and there is a act of looking for it, right?
Kate Aldrich:Maybe that's the way, instead of a mind like you're choosing it, but you're actually looking for it and recognizing it. Maybe that's even better.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, I mean, I think we do have to do that right. Something's hard right now. It's like okay, what am I going to find joy in?
Kate Aldrich:what am I?
Brad Aldrich:going to enjoy, and this goes with. You know, one of the Verses that I had picked out about this topic Is James one. Right at the beginning of the letter of James he says count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds. Well, that's absolutely ridiculous. Like nobody is excited.
Brad Aldrich:He's calling the Bible ridiculous but Nobody's excited with extreme gladness when they go through a trial. But I think what James is trying to say is exactly what you were just saying, of like we have to go kind of dig for it. We have to find it, in order to remind ourselves why we're doing something, in order to remind ourselves we're not just stuck there, right? That goes back to the hope episode that we have a little while ago, yeah, and that we have to choose it again.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, exactly, and I think that we can get in a in a place where things are just very sort of dry and flat, and that is totally normal at times, but it's when do you get to a point where you're like, okay, I need to look for joy again?
Brad Aldrich:Yeah.
Kate Aldrich:I need to Find it. What does that look like? And it's not just looking forward in the external, but, but that is what we experience, right, the things around us. It's choosing to laugh with your kid over something silly when really Doesn't feel you don't feel it right, yeah and this kind of does remind me oh only what.
Brad Aldrich:Two months ago we did an episode of the podcast called the intimacy of joy, where we were encouraging couples to look for you know ways to experience fun and laughter and happiness. And it somewhat was that fleeting like mindset that you were just saying like the the happiness thing. But I think our point was that if we can go and look for those, if we can go and choose, you know what? Tonight. Yes, they're stressful things, but we're gonna go and have some fun. We're gonna watch a fun movie.
Kate Aldrich:We're gonna go out and see Christmas lights or whatever Like games right, just really find happiness and joy, like it does stir this deeper thing inside us and trying to bring light-hearted to the heavy, like I think Much of life is heavy for most of us and I know for us we're still in that season of it feels very weighty and heavy and how can we bring light-hearted moments? So for you and I that is laughter and being silly over something I had seen recently where people like hide little ducks different places and so.
Kate Aldrich:But I said to myself, like wouldn't that be fun? And I. So we bought some, brad and I. He hopped on board with my idea, which he's really great about, and there's these little micro ducks.
Brad Aldrich:So we ordered some guys, there's like 100 micro ducks all over our house.
Kate Aldrich:Well, we've shared with some other houses.
Brad Aldrich:That's true. Some of them have started to migrate.
Kate Aldrich:Yes, yeah, well, they should they do. And you know, we told our girls, who are still home, and then we texted our boys and said when you come home, just so you know, there might be micro ducks showing up places. And I think I said something like because your parents are just that amazing, and that got a lot of laughter, and you know, and it's, it's something silly, does it fix everything Of course not that we are going through as a family and Some people are struggling with our home, with their trauma and mental health.
Kate Aldrich:No, it doesn't, but it's something silly and Something we can engage together and brings a light-hearted moment, and so I do think it's bringing lightness sometimes to the heavy. It doesn't discount the heavy, doesn't make it go away, but it really does bring us these. This posture of joy and life was meant for us to enjoy.
Brad Aldrich:I know, I totally agree. It it is, and In the hard we can make a choice either. We're just going to really Get pulled down by that hard or we can go Okay. I want to continue to find the joy I wanted to continue to really grow in this moment, and there are, you know, moments in marriage where we need to do that right and when we need to come back and go. These are the things that made me fall in love with this person. Hmm.
Brad Aldrich:These are the things that I'm passionate about with them and you know what? Yes, we've been just doing a life for a while. Mm-hmm right. And yet we can look for those passion moments and rekindle those.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, where can we find joy as a couple, like the light-heartedness, where can we Focus on that when perhaps life is really hard or you have grown really distant? You know Trying to think about how you can bring that back in. And it does need to be something that is Duncautiously, because if you just try to bring light-hearted moments and act like nothing has happened, that's going to be difficult. But I do think a focus on this trying to bring the lighthearted little moments can really bring healing and move you towards each other instead of away from each other.
Brad Aldrich:I love that there's a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I've always loved that says it's not your love that sustains the marriage but, from now on, the marriage that sustains your love. And he sent that while he was sitting in a German personal war camp to his sister who was getting married, and I think there's a lot of truth in that that we often miss here, and it does go directly into this thing of joy that we have to choose to find the love and the joy of marriage, even in the hard moments, and we can choose to be hardened and to be stuck in where we're at, or we can choose no, wait a minute.
Brad Aldrich:This is a person who I was passionate about, who I loved, and I want to see that grow and it's in that moment of choosing. That's beyond happiness, right, it's beyond just. Oh, we had a happy moment, so everything's okay. Sometimes we have to put aside that side, that idea of happiness, and just move towards. You know what? I chose this person? For a reason right. Like for reasons right, I hope so. And like where is that joy and passion and excitement that we can find again?
Kate Aldrich:So what do you say to someone, though, who just feels like flat all the time? There is no joy and, in my opinion, would be waiting for the external to bring them joy.
Brad Aldrich:Wow.
Kate Aldrich:Because I think there, if I hear pushback on this and I have, it's the you know nothing external is making me feel that joy.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, no, that's a really good point, and I think what we're edging up to is what I think a good definition of depression can feel like of just you know, the absence of any hope or joy, and we then looking for it externally right, we're going to look for it in a friend to make us feel better or, you know, buying something that brings us a moment of dopamine. We're looking for it in these externals and it's so fleeting.
Kate Aldrich:Right.
Brad Aldrich:Right, so maybe we have a you know dinner with a friend and it's great, but then as soon as you're done, it's like here I am again right. And I think that's that challenge that you're talking about that we can't just have externals to make us happy, that we have to figure out what joy is about.
Kate Aldrich:Mm-hmm. So we're not saying in that at least I don't think I hear you saying in that that if you are depressed like that it's all your fault and you shouldn't you know you should be able to find joy. Anyways we are. We are honoring the complexity and how hard that is, but there is some point where you can choose to look for the joy in something, even when life is really flat and hard. Right, instead of needing something externally to make it all better.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah.
Kate Aldrich:Like you know something you've always enjoyed doing. Okay, it doesn't feel like the joy is there as much, but sitting with, I've always loved doing this. This has always been a blessing to me. Right, and just choosing to speak that into your life, I think, can really help us to remember the things that bring us joy. Yeah, so, yeah. So that's a curious question. Well. Can we meditate on the things that we remember bringing us joy?
Brad Aldrich:And this for some longer term listeners. They know that right now I'm teaching a Intro to Psych class and everyone saw I'll bring in something you know from Psych 101. And so not that long ago we were learning about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Brad Aldrich:Okay, and so extrinsic motivation is you're motivated by something on the outside. Intrinsic is you're motivated internally. Right, that's sense, and so we looked at the issue of grades, because these are all high school juniors and seniors right Like why do they get grades High priority and pressure in your life? And the extrinsic motivation is to make my parents happy to get into the right college or school to you know, not get in trouble.
Brad Aldrich:Like your professor or teacher, all of that, and so what I'm trying to do is I want to learn something, I want to figure out. I value the project or whatever that I'm doing. I think it's I could learn something out of this, and really what we can see is pretty quickly we recognize that we go a whole lot further with intrinsic motivation than extrinsic.
Kate Aldrich:But did you find, I'm curious, that majority of their motivation is ex? No, most of them were extrinsic.
Brad Aldrich:Right but they could recognize that when they had a paper or an assignment that they really liked, that they actually remembered that topic better that they. You know it wasn't nearly as torturous to get through right, and we were talking about this idea of if it's coming from inside, it's so much easier to do.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, we don't always have that right, sure, and I think that's exactly what you're tapping into in this we can look for extrinsic joy and, you know, that may make us happy for a moment, that may bring us a little bit. But if we're going to do this long term, if we're going to actually be successful, at joy, we need to figure out where it's coming from within.
Kate Aldrich:Well, I'm curious about that, not to get too far off in a tangent, but when does intrinsic become just pressure from Ex-Trin-Zic, pressure from the air? I can't even get the words out, let alone the question.
Brad Aldrich:No, no, no, you're right. Like okay, now I'm just doing it to make somebody else happy, but it's.
Kate Aldrich:I'll be happy if they're happy.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, I mean, that's still extrinsic right. Right. The intrinsic really comes from like I'm going to value this thing right, and it is more to throw us back to what James was talking about. But it is more what he is saying of count it joy when we meet trials. He's not silly. He knows that nobody is jumping up and down because they're being persecuted or having a trial. He is saying that internally, this is making you stronger and you're going to grow from this really hard thing that you're going through.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, yeah and it apparently will help us with joy. I'm not sure too many people recognize that, but I mean I think I can recognize in my life that my trials have led to really amazing things that God has done in my life. Like he's used them. I do think it's a harder line too. It's brought me joy.
Brad Aldrich:Well, if I think through, like the moments of joy that I've had and these are very much moments, not, you know, the ones that I can really quickly point to are seeing you walk down the aisle.
Kate Aldrich:Okay, Good good.
Brad Aldrich:Our two births that we had right Seeing our children for the first time.
Kate Aldrich:Actually I had them, but okay, yes, you very much did.
Brad Aldrich:And another that I would say is you know, seeing, finally seeing our adopted child.
Kate Aldrich:Meeting and meeting them, our adopted kids, for the first time Right like so meeting them like there is those moments of joy.
Brad Aldrich:Each one of those moments had lots of struggle to get to.
Kate Aldrich:Yes, and when you were saying that, I was thinking of those. I think those are the easiest ones to point out.
Brad Aldrich:That's exactly right.
Kate Aldrich:But I think trying to find them in other things is difficult. I think that's the easy one most people will go to of like the trial of giving birth and then meeting your child, or, for us, the process of leading up to an adopted kiddo and getting to meet them and all of that. I think that's a really easy one, I think how do we see that in the more common?
Brad Aldrich:How do we see that in the more common Well, I mean, I think joy one isn't common, right? I think it is something that we need to really seek out and fight for yeah, and it comes more in that reflection.
Brad Aldrich:So I don't know that you're going to see it in all of that, but it's in that, like I go to like the moments of accomplishment, the moments of somebody recognizing something that you've done well, you know, there is that feeling of joy in those things as well. Well, those all came after hard times. Yeah. So I think it often is a lot of work that gets us to joy. I don't think we're ever going to find easy joy.
Kate Aldrich:I think also like I was thinking for myself and I think we talked about this in the first Advent, one that we were doing. But I know for me, I've always enjoyed Advent. It's always held this special place in my heart and I was just looking through some of my responses. I think I shared, I read and boss cams book every year on Advent and I was looking through some of my previous responses and it really has been something consistent for me all of my life and I don't have to go into my story for you to know because everybody does that I've had had some tough things growing up and and some hard things that I've had to work through and yet I don't know it's like this, this special place I can enter into every single year of focus.
Kate Aldrich:And the other thing I always say is light. Like we tend to, especially as Americans, bring a lot of light to this season, but I love that and light brings me such joy and I think that's such a biblical principle. Like Jesus is the light, he takes away all the darkness right, and so I see that as my ability to enter into the joy of this season of the coming of the King every single year, despite having some really hard things around Christmas with my family, having some really hard things around Christmas with our current family. It's hard to have kiddos who have trauma. Holidays are often hard and yet there's this piece of me that desires it and is still seeking it, as you said, hard fought for, even though I know this season is gonna be a mix of both the joy and the heartache.
Brad Aldrich:That's really good, and I think that may speak to the people who started this podcast on joy rolling their eyes going yeah, I don't have any right now. Right that, I think you probably do it's there. It's just hard fought.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah. Right, and it's something we've got to.
Brad Aldrich:We've got to really think through and seek because, it's not gonna just show up, and that's the key.
Kate Aldrich:Well, I think too for some of you that maybe rolled your eyes and said like, well, you just have to find joy in everything, and I think I honor that. But I think that that is a cover up for don't wanna acknowledge or potentially process or deal with some of the pain. Right, I do not think joy is a constant turning your back on all of this or a constant absence of it. To experience true joy, we have to have experienced hard things. For us not living in Eden or in heaven anymore, I mean, obviously there would be pure joy in those places, like nothing we've ever experienced, and there wouldn't have to be the pain in the heartache. But I think for us, you can really only measure and understand and enter into true joy if we've gone through some really hard things. Right.
Kate Aldrich:Which is stinks, because then it's like, okay, you sort of have joy, I have to go through hard stuff.
Brad Aldrich:Yep. Well, here you are in the middle of hard stuff. For some of you listening right now. You're in the middle of that hard stuff and I would encourage you to start to look for joy. Right. That sounds ridiculous because I know many of you are feeling really stuck, not where you wanna be in your marriages, in your relationships, and yet it can be a time of joy and a time of seeking out a positive next.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, absolutely, and yeah and just. This season is very mixed with emotions for people. But what can you seek out and look for Right? I know for us, like the next week and a half, we have our boys coming home. That is always such a joy for us. It is our goal for them to explore and do whatever God is calling them to, and we want them to know they have our full support. But it's so wonderful to have them come back home and have their presence in our home for a short while again.
Kate Aldrich:And so it's just looking for those little moments of this is joy, this is beautiful.
Brad Aldrich:And I think it's interesting you really talk about how much Advent has meant for you. I actually think this is laying a foundation for the beginning of the year and. I have never been one for New Year's resolutions or anything like that but I am at a place of. I always like the renewal of a new year Like it's a place of starting again and building.
Brad Aldrich:That I think could be a real positive of like. Okay, we just went through holidays and all this and then we have this kind of new beginning of January. That just is a fresh start in some ways. So I would encourage use that energy of like. Okay, I can move into finding joy again.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, that would be a really interesting New Year's resolution because I think a lot of them are so based on habits and health and not that those things are bad I'm not saying they're not but what would it look like to set yourself a goal of like how can I find joy? As I said, I'm reading Ann Voskamp's book again on Advent, but of course I think her book that's more well known is the Thousand Gifts, and that whole journey for her of course I'm summing this up very small was choosing to see things daily in her life that are little gifts, right, and we can choose to shift our mindsets and recognize the joy moments that we have in a day. Maybe they're just little moments, but I believe that that will lead to a more joy filled life.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, love that All right. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to take a moment and give a quick announcement. There are some of you that are listening to this, that have listened to some of our previous podcasts, who know about some of our work with unwanted sexual behavior. Kate and I do a lot of coaching in that area, and there are some of you who are looking for a new start in that area.
Brad Aldrich:And whether it be you recognize dealing with pornography, you're not finding the victory that you want. You recognize that there's something that you need to make a change in your life in terms of unwanted sexual behavior. I am actually starting another men's group using J Stringer's unwanted sexual behavior book the book Unwanted and we had Jay on as a guest a couple months back. I'd encourage you to go and look at that podcast and if you're interested in you know, finding out more about the group. It's going to start in January and it is an intensive that is all about finding freedom.
Brad Aldrich:So if you are a guy who's looking for that, or you know one who is, let them know and have them reach out and help at still becoming one, and we would love to get you some resources. So I hope that there's some of you out there that might stir a little something of maybe starting a new journey for you. Hey, I'm glad that you are with us this time. We will be back next week and talking about love. Yeah, it will, so until then, I'm Brad Aldrich.
Kate Aldrich:And I'm Keith Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
Brad Aldrich:Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Cade's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom. For podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.