Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys, if you're like me and you appreciate gear that's built to last, you've gotta check out my friends over at Range Leather. They're based in Wyoming, and everything that they make is made in-house using full grain leather. Full grain means that each wallet or journal or hat patch. Like the dad's hired one that I'm wearing right now has a unique marbled look to it.
It's actually very durable and will get better with time. If you need a new wallet, their Albert's Bifold is a bestseller on their website and for the guys who still love writing things down, which I'm a big fan of you, if you still write things down, they've got journals, leather journals that will last you for years and years to come.
Plus, Tim, their COO is part of the Dad tire community. He's been a listener for the DA of the Dad Tire podcast for a long time. You know that their culture is a faith-based culture. It's faith integrated. They're big fans of what we do at Dad Tired, and I'm big fans of what they're doing. If you go to range leather.com/dad tired, you can use the promo code.
Dad tired, and they will give you 15% off your order. Again, that's range leather.com/dad tired. Use the promo code. Dad's tired to get 15% off your order.
Pedro so stoked to be hanging out with you today, bro. Right before I hit record, there was just pure chaos happening in my house, uh, real life. Um, I'm trying to set the tone, um, before we like get too deep into it in case there's some distractions as we're talking, but I've told you, but I'll tell the audience we.
Our house flooded last week, and so we've had two hurricanes in the last two weeks come near our house and my buddy was like, you're the one dude who flooded your own house and it had nothing to do with a h who got hit by a hurricane and you flooded your own house. Fantastic. And that was us. Yeah. So that our top loading washing machine on the top story of our house completely emptied out, went through the ceiling.
So these guys, I have our crew here that's doing a great job. Trying to dry everything out and repair, but it's very, very loud, so I apologize. It's real life, man. It's real life. Yeah. A mutual friend of ours texted me last week. Mic a man. It was funny is we just had Matthew West on, he was on last week or this last week's episode.
Yeah. And he was also a connection. Through Micah. Love it. But yeah, but Micah said, dude, you gotta hear Pedro's story. It's so powerful. And what, how God's working in your life and the way he's worked in your life. So really, I'm just like, I, I've already talked too much. My plan is just to step aside, bro, and hear your story.
Before you tell us, like your story, tell us who you are and what you're up to these days. Yeah. My name's Pedro Latori. I look mad white, so it's a little confusing for some of you. I'm looking at the camera at the screen right now. Uh, I'm half Puerto Rican, half Cuban, 100% confused about my ethnicity. So let's just get that outta the way so we're a little bit more comfortable.
Half Puerto Rican. Half Cuban. That's right. And you said you look white. People think I don't white. I look mad white. Do people think you're a white dude? Oh yeah, all the time. Yeah. I get carded. This is true. This is real life, dude. I get carded at Starbucks. They go, what's your name for the order? And I go, uh, yeah, Pedro.
And they go, yeah, no, no, seriously. What's your name for the order? I'm like, that's my name. And you just offended me and now you're canceled. Uh, no, but it really is, it really is. My name dude, vote for Pedro. So we just, you gotta roll with it. You gotta, you gotta work with the, the thing you've been dealt. So it's, it's crazy.
Who's the, who's the Puerto Rican side? My mom is the Puerto Rican side. My dad is the Cuban side, and there's like some like Irish and, you know, weird stuff mixed in. Yeah. But if you know any Puerto Rican people, Puerto Ricans can have like blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah. Like my sister's blonde hair, blue eyes.
So Wow. You know, we just, you just roll with it, man. You just with it. But Spanish speaking. And that's the thing is I don't speak any, oh, dude. Yeah. My name is literally Pedro, Antonio, LA. Tore. So I can say my name Spanish, and then people start going off, and then I'm like, I don't speak in tongues, so calm down.
Yeah. But yeah, dude. Well, you gotta either change the way you say your name or you learn from Spanish. My name's Pedro. Uh. Pedro. Yeah man. So my dad is Pedro. My grandfather was a Pedro. It is a lot of Pedros and my mom is Ramona, so we, it is just a weird, it's a weird thing, but did they not speak Spanish in the house?
No. So my dad doesn't speak any Spanish. I mean, he might know some words, but like anybody would, but my mom doesn't speak really much either. My grandmother was the one from Puerto Rico, like, you know, came from Puerto Rico, was this big real estate agent way back in the day in Florida. Mm-hmm. And she spoke fluent Spanish and English, but as she got older, she started forgetting her English and so we would hear her when she would visited us on summers and stuff, and we were trying to pick it up, but she talked so fast, bro.
She talked so fast. She was wired on caffeine or something and we just couldn't keep up. So she'd be like, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, yeah, I got nothing. But anyway, I'm married. I got two kiddos. My wife and I have been married 14 years. We just celebrated nice, happily married. At least I'm happy. I don't know about her, but I'm super happy.
Get her on the horn. Let's ask her. That's let's not, um, no. Uh, I got an 8-year-old son, justice. He's awesome. And then I got a little girl, no Ray, she's three years old and, uh, I had a full day with her just daddy daughter day yesterday. And it was so much fun. We had a blast. So, what'd you guys do? What do you do with your daughter for daddy-daughter dates?
Well, she, she doesn't need anything big, you know? She's three. Yeah. So she's like. It's all about like little things. So we went for, I made a breakfast, we went for a walk in the neighborhood and we just talked about everything on her mind. So I was just, what are you thinking about? What do you see? What do you like?
What's your favorite color? You know, it's, it's that, that's the age we're at. And, uh, just being intentional. I started a bonfire out front in the middle of the day 'cause it's like a beautiful, cool day here in Nashville mm-hmm. Where we live and did the bonfire thing and then I snuck a marshmallow. It's a very sacred thing in our house.
Mm-hmm. But we snuck a marshmallow in. The hoodie and we went out there and we talked and I said, no, wouldn't it be so nice if we just had a marshmallow? And she goes, yes, this is my kid. Man pulled out a marshmallow. She was like, daddy, you know, like man, it's the little things. And then we played dolls in her dollhouse in her room for I at least 45 minutes.
And I was kin, in case you're wondering, I was a Puerto Rican kin. That was phenomenal. It was just moments, man, and then she fell asleep next to me in my bed, which is also a big deal. Yeah. We don't let him sleep in our bed usually. So she got the cuddle with daddy and it was, that was the day. It was a fun day.
Do you struggle at all with like your own staying present in the moment in those moments? I would say I used to a lot more than I do today. I think yes is the answer to some degree. I don't quite as much as I used to. What changed? I went through a, I went through a pretty intense journey of healing in my life where I went on a journey of emotional healing, heart healing, trauma healing from childhood stuff.
And that was a big catalyst for my presence, like being present. And I think the thing that blocks most of us as fathers from being present. Is this sort of knee jerk reaction, to be fixers, to fix everything, to be tending things. F We're farmers at the end of the day. We cultivate, constantly, cultivate, pioneer, cultivate what we do, and so it's really hard once that switch is on any given day to get the switch back down.
It's easy to turn on. It's just really hard to get it off. And I found the, for me, and this may not be true for everybody, but for me, man, like I couldn't get that switch off. It was almost stuck in the on position in my nervous system. My body. I mean, it took a toll on me and I, I've been traveling since I was very young.
Post I was pursuing a professional baseball career, post an injury. I found myself just saying yes to everything, especially as a, a man who follows Jesus. You know, I want to, I wanna make the world a better place. I wanna use my pain as a platform. All these phrases that sort of shaped my life, but I realized a lot of that stuff was just rooted in.
If I can use a really strong word, it was rooted in addictions. It was rooted in an addiction is anything we use to soothe our pain, right? It's anything. And so my busyness was a form of soothing pain that I kind of neglected and I wasn't even aware of it anymore. And I thought I was one of the good guys.
So I'm preaching, speaking, doing things, making the world a better place, hopefully when really my soul was the thing. Taking the brunt of that. Pain that weight. So it made it very difficult for me to connect with my kids just to be present, to look them in the eye, to not be thinking about, where's my phone, where's the next thing?
And I like anybody, I can have those moments where that switch gets back in the on position and I can find myself going, whoa, whoa, I need to like detox that for a minute and I'll put my phone in a drawer, shut my phone off, or whatever. But so yeah, there's a human part of that. But I would say as I've done more work and gotten a little bit more awareness around my own heart.
It's been easier. It's been easier to be present and it's actually more fun. I'm not being present for them. I'm actually being present. 'cause I enjoy them. Not just, not just because it's the right thing to do. Like, oh, I need to be present. I need to be present. No, it's like I'm actually enjoying my kids.
It's been a paradigm shift, even just learning that God enjoys me and now that I know he enjoys me, why wouldn't I all the more bring that into my family, enjoy my family, not just check a box, which is so easy for many of us to do. Yeah, I think a lot of dudes probably can't relate to that. Like the idea of feeling like God enjoys me and let me go enjoy my family.
Yeah. I think if a lot of guys were honest, they probably, that's hard to relate to. What do you mind me asking? Like the pain that, what caused so much pain that led to the what you called addiction? I. Well, uh, there's a lot. There's a layers seven years old. My, my father left, my dad was a professional baseball player.
Played for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals minor league clubs, a fantastic athlete, and he left when I was seven. Told me I was the man of the house. And that was his parting words, the day he left. We've had conversations since and some beautiful things have come out of that, but man, it was, it was really hard.
And two years before that I was being sexually abused. No one in my family knew about it by neighbors that they would leave me at their house. So I thought when Dad left, I didn't know a divorce meant at seven. I thought he was leaving me, you know, I thought he was ashamed of me, and so I went on this.
You know, 30 plus year journey, 25 years probably is what it was of trying to make sure no one ever left me again, and that's where performance seeped in. I was soothing my pain with busyness in hopes that if I'm busy enough, they'll love the outcomes of my busyness, even if they don't know me. And so I know a lot of men.
I do a lot of coaching with men now. Uh, around the heart and just wellness, like just helping men live well and healthy. And, uh, most of the men I work with don't know what that even looks like. They're like, I don't even know what you're saying right now. I don't even know how to pursue that. Like, I don't even know where to begin.
And that was me, dude. That was me for so long. So, you know, that was a big part of it. So I go from seven to 17 trying to earn love and be this performer. 17 years old. I get up to bat. My senior year of high school I hit an opposite field. Home run. I tear my rotator and my labrum on the swing. I've got the New York Yankees there in the stands watching me and one of our other players, my buddy Desmond.
My whole life is sort of unwinding in the moment as I tear, tear my arm up and. I ended up having surgery. I actually went back as an unsigned agent and an unsigned athlete, and went to spring training out in Cocoa Beach. Spent three months there. While I was there, I got to share Jesus with some dudes.
I've known Jesus since I was young, but I think I really started walking with him in that time of my life. I was desperate for a new identity that wasn't wrapped up in performance, and that was one layer of him going, okay, like. I'm gonna show you that you don't have to be good at something in order to, to have, have my love.
And so baseball turned the page. After spring training, I got to share my faith with a couple dudes. They give their life to Christ. I'm like, I think I'm supposed to be in ministry. But then ministry became a form of performance and speaking and writing books and podcasting. And so then that became a way in which I would soothe a lot of the pain.
So I was aware that the pain was there. It's not a lack of awareness. I knew it was there. I just didn't know how to deal with it, so it was dealing with me and whatever you don't deal with, that's usually how it works, right? It, it, it comes out sideways somewhere. It's gonna come out sideways somewhere.
It's like a C clogged pipe. It's only a matter of time before that Joker bus, and it's been leaking probably for a while and causing some mold and so some other issues. So that was me. That was me for a long time. So there was just this, these years of just stuffing down numbing. Medicating. We say there's two questions that everyone's trying to get answered of their lives.
It's to matter and belong, and you'll get those questions answered. As a man, especially, you're gonna get those questions answered one way or the other. Mm-hmm. It's just a matter of like, will you be aware of Will? It's coming from like how, how am I trying to get my question answered? Talk tells me about my heart.
The way in which I try to get my question answered. It tells me about the state of my heart. Yeah. And so if I'm looking for it in work. And golf and fantasy football and my wife, all of these places that weren't meant to be the ultimate place where I get my question answered. Then dude, it's gonna come out.
It's gonna come out weird and wonky and, but there's hope in that. There's hope in that if you're willing to see it. There's hope in that. Many of us want to live a surrendered life, but we don't want to see what's going on inside. And I believe the beginning of living the surrendered life is being willing to see.
Hey, what's going on to me? And dude, I ran, I, I relate to anybody listening right now 'cause I ran from my own heart for 30 years and thought I was fine and medicated. Thankfully, I've got some people in my life who lovingly walked me into a new story and, uh, some great therapy, some great counseling that's changed my life, but I lost a lot.
In those times of my life, dude, I lost a lot. I lost a lot of relationship. I lost a lot of connection. I lost a ton of being present with my family and friends. And I got to my early thirties and was like, why am I so lonely? Why do I have no friends? But I feel like a lot of it was work had become my best friend and uh, I needed it to answer my primal question of, and do I matter and do I belong?
Was there a point where you were realizing this is hitting, this is coming to a head? What was the turning point that, did you just walk into a counselor's office or somebody call you out on something? What was it that was started, that turning point? It was several things. You know, if I, I was an onion, so I was just getting, in retrospect, it was several things in the moment I would say.
There was, there was like this moment that happened and, but then this moment happened, it was almost like this crescendo effect that sort of was building to something bigger that I didn't see. The first real moment, I can honestly tell you I have an amazing mentor. Uh, a lot of your guys might know. His name's Sean Alexander, and he was a football player for the Seahawks.
You should have Sean on. Oh my gosh. Please have Sean on this podcast, and Sean brought me into an amazing ministry. To help coach professional athletes spec, specifically NFL football players on some different areas of their life and wellness, uh, emotional heart, finances, all this stuff. And so I was like, man, yeah, this will be cool.
I can help some dudes. This is, you know, I can do it from home like this, like we're doing right now. And the end of our training, we did this training with an organization called 10 Man, 10 Man Ministries up in here in Nashville. And at the end of our training, this dude from 10 man just kind of calls me out and luckily him and I have some history.
We have some friend, you know, some subtle friendship at the time. Yeah. And I went to this deep intensive in Atlanta and I'm in a room with ex, a lot of ex NFL football players. Many of them were. You know, it's an intimidating room to be in. You know, you're like, okay, these are big dudes. You've been around, these guys, they're just huge.
And they're, they're awesome. And they're, they've done cool stuff. It's like they've been to war. You know what I mean? You're like, you're so cool. I've done nothing. I'm drinking my pour over coffee this morning. Lemme take a sip. It's good. I wanna get it while it's warm. Anyway, so, bro, I'm there and the dude just calls me out and he's like, how long are you gonna keep performing?
How long are you gonna keep doing this dance? And I'm like, mm. Yeah. Yeah. Who are you talking to? And he's like, I'm talking to you. And we're sitting knee to knee, bro. So I'm starting to sweat. I'm sure these other dudes could feel my body heat just getting activated. And uh, long story short, he just sees me and he speaks into me unlike anyone ever has in my life.
And he's like, you, you're a performer. You're, you having a, a performance addiction. He's like, the moment you walked in here, the way you carry yourself, the way what you say, the way you talk, the, and that's a hard thing to hear in front of another group of men that you want to like you. Right? And he said, Pedro, since you were a little kid.
And he, he's, he knows my story. He said, since you're a little kid, you've been trying to matter and belong and you've done it in some pretty unhealthy ways. And the worst part is the outcomes look spiritual and they look beautiful. Jeez. And it was this like. Uh, collision with myself for the first time.
And he said, and I'll never forget it, bro, he said, I'm, I'm so thankful your addiction was performance because it's what kept you alive. It's what kept you here. That's what got you here. And Pedro, imagine all the good that's happened in your lifetime. And I would say this to anybody who's considering pursuing a life of wellness, surrender, following Jesus, healing wholeness.
Consider all the good that's happened in your life up until now. Now imagine what would happen if God got to fully heal that heart of yours. If he, if you literally just let him in. Imagine what the future would look like if all this happened in your unhealth. Imagine what could happen in your health.
Wow. And that's why pace and perspective and presence are, I would just say a little easier now because now I'm not fighting for my identity. Right. I know who I am. Also, when you know who you are, you know who you're not. I'm not Superman. I can't save everybody. I can't make millions of dollars tomorrow. I can't make it all make sense for my kids.
I can't fix all my wife's problems. I can't. I'm not gonna live codependent forever, suppressing my needs to meet other people's. It ain't happening. Why? Because I need y'all to know where I get my source from, where I get my life from, and it's not from me. It's not from self. It's not from my power or my prestige or my knowledge.
It's from Jesus and it's from relationship with other men that really know my heart, that really know my heart. And so the good, the bad, the ugly, the, the past, the my hopes for the future and and more importantly, just will sit with me in the truth of where I'm at in that moment. Not that moment is my truth, but the sit in the truth of my moment, that's where so much of my life has changed.
So are there a hundred other moments since then? Yes, totally. But that was sort of the zenith of like, oh snap, I've been medicating for too long and I've gotta, I gotta make some changes, man. How long ago was that? That was for four years, three and a half, four years ago now. Okay. So you fairly recent. Yeah.
It's fairly recent. You had already had at least one child and maybe it sounds like maybe your second, your girls, we had already had my, the unwinding happened, started back in 2020. Oh, okay. Yeah. So they give it a timeline. Yeah. It was really 2020. That sat me down in la. We were living in Los Angeles, we were planting a church.
We were doing all these things, and I'm like, couldn't see straight, you know? And then Covid shuts down the city for 18 months and. It was like, what, who am I if I can't do stuff? Like, who am I? Yeah. So, you know, I found every way to, to do stuff during Covid. Everyone was like, this is amazing. And I'm like, oh no, it's, this is horrible.
Like I'm writing my next 17 books. I'm reading 250 books I read in 18 months. I mean, bro, I just, I, I worked out every day, sometimes two, three times in a day. I, it was unhealthy. And that's the thing, even this is what I say all the time, good things. Without God can become idols. Oh yeah. And that's what so much of my life was idolatry.
It was idols. And then I would slap Jesus's name on it. Right. And invite people into that story. Well, that's terrible. Did I do it unknowingly? Yeah. A lot of it was pretty, pretty, like I was not super aware that this was going on. And in that you're in spaces like we're in right now, and I would get on needing you to help me feel like I matter and belong versus add matter, add belonging, right?
Mm. And so there's a freedom that comes with healing that I don't think we talk about much in, especially in dude spaces. Like we just don't talk about it enough. You said that you, at one point you had asked yourself like, why don't I have any friends did after that? Zenith as you called it. Like, have you been able to find some deep friendships?
You, you mentioned them a little bit. Like what has the friendship aspect been like? Oh, it's been so sweet. I didn't know what I was missing out on. I thought a friendship. It didn't feel like I had dudes I could be real with. Yeah. And the irony was, is that all the friends I did have that I would say I did have, they all felt like they could be real with me.
Hmm. So this is what a performer does. He creates a world in which others need him to answer. His questions matter and belonging. So everyone else needs me, and they pull at me and I would give to them constant. I would give to the people outside of my home way more than I gave to the people inside of my home.
I would go speak and spend way more time on stages than I did by fire pits, eating marshmallows with my daughter, right? And that's just true. That's just true. I'm not shaming myself. I'm just, this is factual. And because of that, everyone else was my mission, like everyone else but me. And I think sometimes we forget the whole rescue story of Jesus is about, it was about us.
Like we try to like and humility go, oh no, it's about God rescuing human. Yeah. You're one of the humans he rescued. And we forget to obsess over that and be excited about that. And if we don't obsess over that and we're not excited about that. We'll miss out on connection. We'll miss out on relationship.
God longs to hold our hearts, mainly because when we give him our heart, he gives us back his heart. And now all the things in scripture that seem impossible are possible. Why? Because I'm holding his heart, not mine. So friendship is quite literally saying, will you hold my heart? That's what friendship is, and my friendship was, I'll hold your heart, but you're not holding mine.
Interesting. Wow. You said, I'm not shaming myself. Was it? Is, is part of that you preaching to yourself? 'cause you, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but like, have you spent a bunch of your life shaming yourself? Let's give shame a title. So shame for me. 'cause we hear that word a lot in Christian circles, so shame is, I am a mistake.
Guilt is, I made a mistake. Right? Right. I spent a lot of time since I was young thinking I am a mistake, and so I have to remind myself even in conversations like I just did and you caught it. I'm so glad you did, is I did that on purpose to go, oh, you're not a mistake, right? I'm not gonna tell myself you're a mistake because you did all these things.
I did all those things. In hopes to keep going forward in life, just like everyone surviving, right? Mm-hmm. It was a form of survival. If I can dance, if I can hit a ball, if I can write a book, if I can, and that's how we live. We live transactional. Yeah, but the cross wasn't transactional. The cross was covenantal, and it's way more.
Life-giving and then life taking, but it's not law, it's relationship. So I have to remind myself like, Pedro, your addiction's got you here and now you're not a mistake. Like God has always had a plan for all this. And even now I get to share, uh, about how he's stepped into my heart and into my world. But I believed a lot of lies for a really long time man.
And it goes back to the garden. I mean, Satan wanted us to e either exaggerate our heart or diminish our heart in the very beginning. And this is where it goes for every man. When he said, Hey, did God really say. Did God really say That's diminishing the heart, that's diminishing God's word? Well, he knows if you ate of the apple through the tree, you know you would be like, God.
Well that's an exaggeration, isn't it? So this is what he's done and he's still doing and pulling apart an entire culture, Christian culture and culture at large. With this, it's exaggerated. Sexuality, it's diminished sexuality. Mm-hmm. It's exaggerated, uh, manhood, diminished manhood. So we don't know where the middle ground is in anything anymore.
Nothing. Not in leadership, not in our homes, not in our role as a father. Not our wives are struggling with this. It, it's. A constant, pervasive problem. And the answer is simply to look at the person of Jesus again, because he's the middle. He's the the prototypical man, and he's also the prototypical God that we need.
He's the prototype, he's the center of perfection, and he's inviting us to lay down our versions, our performances, and just go, man, I just wanna be with you. And then from that place, as we give him our heart, he goes, here's my heart. Again, all these things in scripture that I read sometimes like that's impossible.
He's like, it is if you hold onto your heart, it absolutely is. But then when you see in Mark 12 when he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, then he says this, Jesus summing up his own teachings, he says, and then love your neighbor as yourself. How am I supposed to do that?
Jesus. Well, if you let me love you from the heart, I give you my heart. If, if now what is impossible with man is possible with God, now you can love because you hold my heart. Now you're moved with compassion just like I was. When you see people who are hurting, maligned, broken, forgotten, a hurricane rips through, you start your natural reaction.
Your reflux is to go, love to go serve, to find a way to, to engage and not disengage, not medicate, not hide. This is what we need more of. We need more men who realize their role in culture is the the pinnacle of what it means to be a man. I really believe this in culture is to be healed. My friend Propaganda, he's an artist, an amazing friend.
That's incredible. Yeah. He says Culture can only be as healed as we are. Mm Wow. So it's like if we want to shape culture, we have to allow Jesus to, to heal the deepest parts of who we are because we are going to shape culture one way or the other as men, especially men who follow Jesus. We're gonna shape culture.
Every person who's on the planet right now is shaping culture. It's just a matter of when healing enters the story, we create more healing in the world. And it's. It's fascinating. You will move slower and we can do a whole nother podcast on how hard it is to do this. It's very difficult. Yeah. And it's not for the faint of heart.
And it's not for the soft, and it's not for the guy who's like, well, I don't want to be sad. I don't want to feel my feelings. And this is for like dudes who are like, I want to feel so that I can heal, so that I can go create more healing. Wow. I don't wanna miss, or I don't want the guys listening to miss what you said about the covenantal part.
'cause I think that's really important. It's not transactional, it's a covenant just for, 'cause there's some guys who are maybe newer to the faith and that's like, what do you mean by that? Can you just unpack what, what you mean when you say that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't transactional but it's it's covenantal.
Well, I have a sense that you might be able to unpack it better than me. Well, I don't know if I can unpack it better, but it just, I, I really want the guys to be able to just capture that. It's essentially the, instead of saying, if you do this, I'll do this. That's the transactional. That's a contract.
That's a contract. Yeah. That's the contract. Yeah. That's a contract. Yeah. Company is I I'll do this even if you don't do it. Yeah. That yeah. Which is so spectacular. Yeah. Like you can't understate, it's Jesus saying, Hey, no matter what you do. This is who I am. Right? And we are in a covenant, and I'm gonna be faithful to who I am.
The literal words we sing in church all the time that I, I used to hear all the time. I'm like, why are we singing Holy, holy, holy? Like, I get it. He's holy. Like, but why? Holy literally translates consistent. He's consistent. Consistent, consistent. So all the angels right now are in some heavenly realm, singing.
Holy ho. He's consistent. Consistent, consistent. He's without blemish, he's flawless, he's set apart, but he's consistently without blemish, consistently set apart. He has been since when? Forever. He's always been, it's like, that's fa and God's saying, I sent my son so that you could be participants. My children restored into relationship with God the father.
Like, bro, that's incredible. It's not contractual. It's not it, Hey, if you don't look at stuff on the computer at night when no one knows, it's not If you it, there's no contingency. Yeah. It's, you are my son. And the irony is, is if we obsess over that, we will not abuse grace, right? If you obsess over the kindness of God, you will not abuse grace.
It's guys who obsess over their own moral performance, that abuse grace because they think they're in a contract. 'cause the contract is, I can't believe I did that. Now. God's not gonna bless me. He's not gonna bless me. He is not ebbing and flowing. Like your emotional state. That's not how he works. That's why I believe our feelings are so important in our relationship with God, because if we're not careful, we'll start to believe that our feelings are God and that God loves us, like our feelings feel.
Mm. And what I've learned about feelings is they're actually passcodes into our heart. They are not our heart, but they are the passcodes we use. So if I said, Hey Jared, you can come to my house, bro. Password is 0, 0, 0, 0. Which is terrible password, but I'm just saying. And you hit unlock. You wouldn't say, Hey, Pedro gave me the passcodes to his heart or to his house and now I have his heart.
The passcodes are not the heart. You would say. He gave me the passcodes to his house and now I have entrance into what his heart, into his home. I have access. So when I give God or other men close to me access and I say, Hey, I'm, and there's eight primary feelings, right? I say, I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm, I have fear.
I. I'm angry. All of these words that in the church for a long time we have like diminished and said, oh no, no, don't feel it. Surrender all of that. Well, okay, I actually agree with that, but you can't surrender what you're not willing to see. So we have to be willing to see, we have to be willing to say, I have fear.
The irony is the feeling of fear and the spirit of fear are two different things. But if I can't admit that I have the feeling of fear, you know what happens? It actually grows into the spirit of fear. So we should feel our feelings because if we tell the truth about our feelings, we bring 'em to God and others.
This is where we find connection. This is where we find relationship. This is where our question, our do I matter? Do I belong, get answered in healthy ways. This is where we have access into each other's hearts. We see into each other. This is where we find all the things we're actually looking for in life, health, wellness.
But it was these years of suppressing my own heart. Diminishing my own heart, and then trying to go out there and win souls for Jesus. That. I was inviting people into a soulless, loveless relationship with their creator. Wow. Quite literally, I was inviting people into a contract. Wow. Not into a covenant, because a covenant says, son, I want you to know my heart.
I want you to know every square inch and every room of what matters to me, of what I care about, how I love, and how I see, and how I pursue the world. And if I'm not willing to open my heart to that, I can never. I can be a son of God. I can still go to heaven. I can be saved, but I miss the whole point of bringing heaven to earth.
Wow. Did you notice there was a, a shift in your marriage as you started to find that healing? Bro, it is like, you know, the questions to ask, how do you do? Are you're good at this? Yeah. Well, what, what changed? What changed? You've been married 14 years, so I mean, really 10 of those you would say you weren't healed or found, found healing.
I. I imagine there's probably some performance stuff that's like you, or you even mentioned it, like, I, I want to find this with my wife, and she's not, she can't satisfy that either. Like, unpack what the first 10 years of your marriage look like versus the last four and a half. That's so good. I'm gonna do my best to do that.
So when we got married, I thought like many people, my wife would meet all my needs. Show me all my needs. She's gonna know when I sigh, she's gonna go, I know, babe. I know exactly what you're feeling. Like. I literally, I'm just being honest. Like I, I actually believe that. Then you get married and everyone's listening has probably got a chuckle right now driving in their, their truck and you're like, oh, well this is not how this works.
She doesn't care, or she does care, but she doesn't know how to care, or she doesn't say the right things, or she says things that make me feel small and I don't like that or feel disrespected. All of a sudden now I'm filled with all this rage of like, why doesn't she love me? Why doesn't she care about me?
Why didn't she ask me how my day was? Or whatever the thing was. So it was really messy early. Where it changed is when I got back from that intensive in Atlanta, and I would say this as a hopefully a helpful tool to anybody listening. This is a question I would say you should ask your wife 'cause it's so helpful to see yourself.
Remember, the goal of marriage is not just to lead the other person, it's to also grow as an individual, right? We need to be two whole people, individuals away from each other. Two holes that are becoming. Stronger and better together. Like that's a, as opposed to I'm at 50%, she comes in at 50% and then we just complete each other.
That's a movie. That's Hollywood. That's not real life. Right. That's why if you're not married or somebody's listening, they're not married, dude, I would just tell you like you have an opportunity to go on a journey of healing before marriage. That can just save you so much time, heartache, and frankly money.
And every dude that is married is just screaming at the podcast like, please do. 'cause we all wish we would've done that before we got married. Totally. And it's still, it's also very beautiful in the context of marriage. It's a beautiful journey, but it takes a lot of unlearning on both parts. Right. My wife was, and I don't wanna speak for her, but my wife learned a dance in the way that I loved as an addict.
And so I performed in my love for my wife. I went head over heels, did everything she needed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And everyone looking on was like, gosh, he is such a great husband. But truthfully, honestly, now I can say this without any, again, without any shaming myself, but I was an addict. I, I was trying to earn her love, so she didn't leave me.
Mm, that's what I was trying to do. I didn't wanna be left again. Daddy left at seven. My mom kicked me out at like 16, 17. I don't want this again. I don't wanna be left. Uh, my fear was abandonment. So if I can love you really well, you won't leave me. Does that sound like genuine, authentic connection? No.
It's, it's an addict. Now again, does that mean our whole marriage is a sham? Like no, absolutely not. It means we're humans. On a road to recovery, on a road to healing, on a road to feel wholeheartedness. I'll tell you when it changed. I came back from the trip and I asked my wife a question they had told me to ask her, which I was truthfully, honestly thinking it was gonna go so good and my God, but she goes, I, they said, go home, Pedro.
My, my guy Todd at 10 man, who I love, Todd Wormers, and he said, go home and ask your wife this question. Hey Jesse, what was it? What's it like? What's it been like being with me? What is it like being with me? Mm. And she kind of like laughed at first, almost uncomfortably and like kind of wiggled around the couch and got a blanket and I was like, oh, this is gonna go great.
I actually really thought she was gonna be like, you're amazing the way you provide, the way you love us, the way you, and I'm just like, this is gonna be great. I'm so excited I need this right now. I just came back from this really hard intensive. Yeah. And bro, for 48 minutes, my wife, I did not interrupt. I just listened.
Said, it is so lonely to be with you. Wow. Lonely. It's sad. I have a lot of passion for us to have a healthier marriage, for us to feel more connected, for us to have more intimacy. I don't know what you're thinking half the time. I don't even know, bro. I'm like at Enneagram four, so like I thought, I feel all the time, all the things, but there's a difference between thinking about your feelings and feeling your feelings.
And I had believed the lie as many men do, that there's no place for a man in the western world, in western culture to feel his feelings. That's soft stuff. That's for the soft. And I'm telling you, bro, it is not. It is for the brave. Now, do you feel with everyone, no, we don't need any more exaggerated emotionalism.
That's not it. Do you feel with a few that you build a relationship with and you have this type of intimacy with it? Absolutely. Why? Because when I feel in the context of other men. What happens is they can dispel a lot of the lies surrounding my emotions. Then now I find what's really true and if I can find what's really true, I'm in the presence of God.
'cause where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. That's what I need. But my wife told me it was lonely to be with me, and I'm so glad she did. It was such a gift. Her saying that because now I was no longer living under this veneer of like, I'm crushing it. I'm performing. What she was saying is, you are crushing it.
You are performing, but almost so well that I don't know you. And I feel distant from you, and that was really hard to hear, but I can't understate how painful it was, but how much I needed it. I really, really did need it. And so that was the beginning in a lot of ways of me learning the language of the heart and learning how to, yeah, I knew I needed work at that point.
I was like, oh my gosh, wow. I need to go do some work. Layla and I, we celebrate. We've been married just about, we're coming up on 15 years, so we're probably pretty close. Got married pretty close to when you did, but every 10 years we do a big celebration with all of our friends and family. So we've only done it once, but we've, we're already pre-planning our next one.
I love that. But there is something, I was just thinking it'd be cool for you to like at 20 years just reflect back, like do a big celebration. Just reflect back and, because it's almost, for you, it sounds like it's been a new marriage. You know, the last four and a half years are really a new marriage.
When your wife tells you she's been lonely for 10 years. That's the start of a, that either ends the relationship or you d dig deep into the covenant and not the transactional piece of it. Oh, well said. Um, and you find kind of an a, a whole new layer of intimacy, which is really, really cool. Dude, bro, I, I so appreciate your, you sharing and, and being vulnerable with us.
Yeah. I, one time I was in Serbia and this lady, we were working with a group of pastors and one of the pastor's wives were with us, and we took like this lunch break and we went to the. A convenience store, and we got some snacks as we were walking back to the church and she got a snicker bar and we were walking, as we were walking back to church, she's like, well, you have this.
And I had just bought all the snacks for all the, the pastors and their wives. And, um, she's like, well, you have this. And I'm like, no, I got this for you. Like I want you to have it. And she was like, no, no, please have some. And we kind of, you know, did that awkward dance of like, no, you had no really, it's okay.
And to the point where she actually stopped, she like stopped in the street and she said, you must share this with me in our culture. Like we, we don't. Enjoy good things by ourselves. And that dude that that like was I, we went there and we did all kinds of cool stuff and I learned a lot, but that moment actually stuck out to me more than any other moment I.
Because I thought, how, how beautiful is that? That like I just, I've experienced something good. I don't want to experience something good unless you're part of it. Mm. That was really the lesson that I took away. So I, that's a long way of me saying you've experienced some of the goodness of God and what is it for our guys that's just like.
Guys, you have no, I'm insisting that you have this with me. Like you must catch onto this before I, we hit stop on this recording. Like, you must experience this piece of the goodness of God that I've tasted. Otherwise, it, it won't be worth it. Does that question make sense? Yes. That's so good. Thank you for sharing that.
That was well said, man. Your feelings are really powerful and they were meant to be passcodes. They were meant to give access and. I would just say to any man listening who's maybe like skeptical, like I was of all this, I was like, ah, this is whack. This is whack. Let's go to like some other thing. Let's talk about some other stuff.
I would spiritually wiggle out of these conversations a lot for a lot of reasons because it felt, I felt more astute. I felt more safe, if I'm being honest. If I could spiritually justify why, you know, I shouldn't be having a conversation around the heart. So I would just say this. When you tell the truth about your feelings, you get access to your needs, and when you get access to your needs, you get access to the gifts of the feelings.
And every feeling has a gift attached to it. So this is why you need to pay attention to your heart. So I'll give you one example and then we can shut it down or whatever you wanna do from here. Fear. Let's talk about fear. If I'm out in the street with my son and we're playing, and a UPS truck comes, we're throwing the football, I'm pretty far, I'm a hundred yards away.
Let's just act like I got a Roth Asperger arm. I don't, let's be honest, but let's say we're a hundred yards away. A UPS truck comes around the corner, I see it. He doesn't see it. He turns around. So I feel fear he turns around and sees it. Now, in that moment, do you want your son or daughter to feel fear?
Absolutely. Every one of us do. Every one of us want them to feel fear. So we already acknowledge. Fear is not bad. It's a signal. It's a signal. It's not a truth teller. It's just a signal. Signal goes up. I'm afraid. My son says, I'm afraid he feels it. What does he need? I told you feelings give you access to needs.
He needs protection, help and refuge. That's what he needs. So how does he go find that? How does he find protection help? Well, one, he can run. Hopefully I've trained him to get outta the way, get outta the street son, right? I'm screaming by this time. Two, he can ask for help. Dad, I'm scared. I don't know what to do.
What do I do? Right? He can ask for help. So the gift attached to the needs it of fear is faith and wisdom. Faith says, God's made a way for me out of this situation. And wisdom says, get out of the way of the UPS truck. Seek protection, help and refuge. So in one feeling, I just showed you how that plays out.
I feel I felt a thing, I have a need, and I got the need met. That's the gift. There's eight other feelings. There's seven other feelings other than those. Other than fear. What happens if that fear? If I don't listen to that feeling, you know what happens? I go into control and anxiety. This is the little boy, my son, justice, sitting in the road seeing it coming, staring at the front of the UPS truck going, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And now anxiety is overtaking him. He's frozen in that anxiety. And then if no one comes to help him, no one comes to meet the need to help him in his need. Guess where he goes? He goes into rage. And rage is him screaming at the UPS truck to stop when really, if he just would've had his needs met in healthy ways, he would experience the gift of faith and wisdom.
He'd know what to do and he'd get outta the way every one of those feelings. So the tool I would say every man should get ahold of is the eight feelings chart that 10 Man, 10 Man created. It's created by a guy named Dr. Chip. Dod, Dr. Chip, dod wrote The Voice of the Heart. I would highly recommend his work, his book, it's unbelievable.
It's biblically based it, it's changed my life. But those eight feelings, my son, eight years old, knows how to articulate his heart. He knows how to say My name is justice, and today I'm feeling fear, sad, lonely, hurt. He's eight. My daughter is three years old. Before I got on this podcast this morning, we prayed as a family and she prayed over me and she said, daddy, God, help daddy not feel lonely, sad, or angry, right?
So she doesn't understand how it all works, but she understands. That feelings are a part of our everyday life. And my daughter, my son and my wife all know how to bring their heart to me, and I know how to hold space for that heart and not tell 'em how to fix it. Not right. That's where Codependence begin.
So find that tool. I can send it over to you if you wanna send it to your tribe, if you Yeah, please. It's one of the most incredible things. I do weekly right now, so tomorrow we have one. But almost every Wednesday I do a webinar for men. And it's not a top of funnel. It's not trying to get everybody in the coaching program.
That's not the idea. The idea is just simply to help men experience the Snickers bar. It's to help them experience the thing that's changed my life. This tool is just a tool that's helped greatly, helped me, like get in touch with what's going on. And the irony is like the feelings aren't your truth.
They're just your truth in the moment. And so they're not the ultimate truth, but many of us live guided or animated by our feelings in the background, and we want to act like we're not, you know? And so every business deal I've ever done, every conversation I've ever had with my neighbors, every time I've ever done a contract to go speak somewhere, whatever it is.
All of that has feelings shrouded on both sides by both parties. Yeah. It just is. So if we can learn how to see it, bring it to God and others, now we're not being manipulated by the things that were only meant to be signals. A lot of men are enslaved to the signal, and they're not meant to be. They're meant to be enslaved to righteousness, which is the gift of God over their life, and that's that covenant.
It goes back to the heart of God. He longs for us not to be legalistic. Running around trying to do it all. Fix everybody. Help everybody, man. That's an exhausting way to live. Yeah. And uh, I also resonate with anyone who feels like that. 'cause that was much of my existence and I wore every day not to go back there because I've tasted and seen how good life can be on this side.
Now do I still do business deals? Do I still travel? Yeah. I've been in like 14 cities in two weeks. Like, uh, speaking, I'm tired. It doesn't mean you won't work. It doesn't mean you won't grind. It doesn't mean you won't have time to hustle. Absolutely. But it doesn't mean my soul has to diminish or my feelings have to be exaggerated in the process.
I can be buoyant, and I think that was the whole mission of Jesus. Come and, and let me show you how to live light. Even Jesus when he describes himself, and I'll end with this, Jesus, I was reminded yesterday, Jesus, when he describes himself in the New Testament, he only does once and he says, I am gentle and lowly of heart.
Hmm, I, I'm gentle. And does that describe our parenting? Does that describe me as a father? I mean, what a beautiful way for somebody to describe me when I'm dead at my funeral. I want my kids to go. My dad was gentle and lowly of heart. That's amazing. Not busy, hardworking, driven, successful. Who cares about all that crap?
No one does. Is it hard some days to manage the tension of provision and presence? Absolutely. It is hard and it, it can't be understated. But if you're a man listening, I'm telling you, the deeper you're willing to go in your heart and let God down there with you and let healing in and find some men you can link arms with and really do life where they say, here's my heart, Pedro, and here's your heart and let, let me hold.
Let's be honest. Let's be real, bro. You find freedom. In that place. And no man should be an island. Not especially not a man walking with Jesus. Jesus isn't an island. He exists in the Trinity. He's not an island. Mm. We shouldn't be either. Yeah, dude. Yeah. I, I think about the, so much of what you talked about today reminds me of James, that if we confess our sins to each other, that we would find healing when it's, that's that healing you're talking about, bro.
I'm really thankful, man. Uh, you pointed me closer to Jesus. I have a good sense that you pointed a lot of guys closer to Jesus today. Hope so. Thank you. Or SIUs as I shot. I dunno. Oh, stop. That means like good hair, right? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which also, yeah, that would fit both of us. French poodle.
French poodle, bro, thank you so much, man. This has been really fun. I appreciate it. It's my honor.