The Savvy Sauce

*Apology and Gospel Update*

**Transcription Below**

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

[00:00:00] Earlier this year, I was spending some of my quiet time with the Lord reflecting on this scripture. "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." That's found in John 15:2.

These follow-up questions were helpful to process. First, what branch needs to be cut off in my life right now? Second, where do I see fruit? And third, what needs to be pruned? 

A few days later, God revealed something that needs to be pruned through the willingness of a friend to speak truth in love. 

So here's the backstory. There are a few of us friends who get together monthly for a potluck dinner. And Mark and I look so forward to this time together and it's filled with belly laughs and shared heartaches and lasting conversations. [00:01:01] 

We each take turns hosting the group and then we prioritize child care so that it's an evening full of adult conversation. The consistency of meeting regularly has produced much fruit and cherished relationships. 

So the weekend that I was processing these questions, a potluck friend brought up the conversation that she believes it's an error to say God cannot be in the presence of sin. We had a really good discussion of where that saying originated and how we all agreed it was inaccurate. Therein lies my big oops. 

This is exactly the phrase that I say when I present the gospel message at the end of every Savvy Sauce episode. I realized I was in error in the way that I communicated that message and I am so deeply sorry for my mistake.

One of my initial fears before starting The Savvy Sauce was that I would somehow accidentally teach something or say something in the wrong way that would be misleading or wrong. [00:02:05] And I especially didn't want to mess up on the most important part of each episode, which is when I shared how Jesus is the only one who can save us from our sins. 

My fears became my reality. But it's actually not as scary as I thought because of God's mercy and grace, because of His undeserved favor and forgiveness. So I have already apologized to my Father and now I ask your forgiveness as well. I hope you can forgive me.

So you may notice a change in the wording of the gospel message from this point forward. It took me months to re-record this because I didn't want to carelessly correct it without praying through these changes and then also seeking the godly counsel of others. 

Now what I would say I believe is that God can be in the presence of sin because Jesus walked among sinners. [00:03:05] He was in relationship with sinners, He dined with them, and He willingly gave His life for them. 

Naomi Vacaro said it really well in her Patreon episode where she expressed, "Sin only separates us from God if we let it." She goes on to explain that Jesus rushes to the side of any repentant sinner every time. That has definitely been my experience with Him too. 

We wrestled through so many options as a potluck group and with our team, but now we feel at peace with this version we've selected. I hope you get to listen to the updated gospel message next time you tune in to The Savvy Sauce podcast.

I am deeply grateful for this work I get to do and I pray God continues to lead and guide our team as we continue moving forward. So please don't hesitate to reach out if you believe that I've erred in any other area. Love you all. Grateful for you. [00:04:05] 

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:05:06] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:06:06] 

And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. 

The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:07:11] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

221 Healthy Attachment in Marriage and Parenting with Jason VanRuler

221. Healthy Attachment in Marriage and Parenting with Jason VanRuler

 

Jonah 2:8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. Will you teach us Attachment theory?

2. How can each of us work to move more towards secure attachment?

3. How can we best set our children up to be securely attached?

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank

 

Jason VanRuler is the author of Get Past Your Past: How Facing Your Broken Places Leads to True Connection. He began his career in 2011 and has worked with many populations over the years, ranging from persons who are incarcerated to top CEOs, performers and artists, and just about everyone in between. Jason has extensive experience as a clinician, coach, and speaker and operates a multistate private practice. In 2018, Jason joined Bethesda Workshops in Nashville, TN, where he serves as a group leader and facilitator. Jason is known for his ability to relate and connect with his clients and offer hope to those who have felt hopeless. He has an engaged and rapidly growing online audience for his insightful, short videos sharing practical tips for psychological care, self-help, and healthy relationships.

 

Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and three children playing games and traveling. In his spare time, Jason enjoys cycling, running, music, fly fishing, and all things personal development related.

 

https://www.jasonvr.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jason.vanruler/

https://www.youtube.com/c/Jasonvrcounselor

https://www.tiktok.com/@jason.vanruler

https://www.amazon.com/Get-Past-Your-Facing-Connection/dp/0310367417 

 

Other Episodes Mentioned from The Savvy Sauce:

97 Guiding Our Children Through Their Emotions with Julie Roth

Patreon 18 Shame's Journey to Freedom with Julie Roth

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

[00:00:00] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18] <music>

Laura Dugger: Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank, who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this amazing nonprofit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org. 

Jason VanRuler is my guest today. He is a therapist, speaker, and author. His book is entitled, Get Past Your Past: How Facing Your Broken Places Leads to True Connection. Jason's going to go first, and he's going to share his story now, as well as relationship advice and wisdom for parents and married couples. 

Here's our chat.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Jason.

Jason VanRuler: Thank you so much for having me, Laura. I've been looking forward to this.

Laura Dugger: Same here. Will you begin our time together by telling us about your personal journey, beginning with growing up in a challenging environment, and then how that led you to become a licensed therapist and now author? [00:01:27] 

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. Well, I think my story is unique to me, but in some ways, one that is increasingly common, probably shared by a lot. But I grew up in a home that was pretty idyllic. Just all the things were there that you would want to be there as a kid. 

Seemingly, it was just going to be the childhood that a kid would dream of. And then at age eight, my parents divorced. It was a very surprising divorce to me. I was eight, so I'm not sure how much clarity I really had about anything anyway. 

But they divorced, and I went from having this kind of idyllic childhood to a very volatile, chaotic one. When my parents divorced, what basically happened is it kind of thrust us into this place of struggling with some poverty, moving a lot. We lived in probably 20 houses throughout my childhood since age 8 to age 18. So we moved a ton. There was just a lot of addiction and trauma, abuse.

So it kind of went from having what you might suspect as being a really wonderful childhood to having this significant break and then shifting to something quite the opposite. [00:02:33] For me, obviously, that was really difficult, and I really struggled with that. 

I did the thing that people do when they exit a difficult childhood, and they just say, well, I'm never going to do that. Right. That'll never be me. I'm going to live so much differently.  And so I kind of declared that from the rooftops as I graduated and I'm going to move out and do all this stuff. 

Unfortunately, I just kind of recreated the same system. And I think the reason for that is I didn't know how to do it differently. I knew in my heart that I wanted things to change, but I wasn't sure how. I ended up just replicating the system. 

Within a couple of years, I'd gone to college, dropped out of college, was now struggling financially, really, because I was making a lot of poor decisions and drinking and using drugs and just doing all the things that I had said I would never do.

That's when I had the realization that I talk about in the book: Either your life is going to be pretty predictable if you keep doing this or it's going to change. [00:03:35] That kind of led me down the path of improvement in wanting to become a therapist. 

But I will tell you, Laura, I always wanted to be a therapist, actually, if you can believe that. It was probably obvious that I was going to be a therapist because at age eight, I was already journaling. So I don't know many 8-year-olds that are journaling. But I actually have the journal at home.

At age eight, I journaled that I wanted to be a therapist. I wanted to write a book. I wanted to kind of do all the things I was doing today. And I think some of that was because I have always dressed like a therapist. So I was wearing my corduroys and my sweater and I was dressed like a 60-year-old man. And I just had decided I'm going to be a therapist.

And so I think I had clarity, but life was complicated. It took me a long time to get to the place I wanted to go because some things got in the way.

Laura Dugger: Wow, that is such a helpful recap. Along this journey, when was it that you met and surrendered your life to Jesus? [00:04:37] 

Jason VanRuler: Yeah, well, you know, really a couple of times. So when my parents were married, I grew up in the church and that was part of my life. Then after they split, that became something that was really hit or miss.

So occasionally we'd go to church and we might go to different churches. So there was not a lot of stability there. 

As I made my declaration about being different and changing everything, I really had this kind of fight with God. I had this wrestling match where I just couldn't quite fathom how I could have something so good that could switch to something so bad and God could still have some role in that. So for a long time, I really wrestled with that.

I would say that even though I had been baptized as a child, I was baptized in the Missouri River shortly after I got married. That, for me, is really when I look at my faith expanding and being the kind of faith that I would want as an adult.

Laura Dugger: Wow, that's incredible. Now as an adult, if you fast forward and catch us up to just a snapshot of today? Can you update us on your family? [00:05:45] 

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. I met my wife, we got married, and we both had talked about having kids and that was important to us. I talk more about this in the book, but we had a lot of problems having kids. In fact, we're told we couldn't and so had tried to adopt and that didn't work. Eventually, by God's grace, we had kids. We did the thing they said we couldn't do.

So now I've got three kiddos, a son who's 13 and a daughter that's 10, and another son who is 8. And so married now, this year will be 17 years with three kids.

Laura Dugger: I love it. I also just love how God surprised you with leading you into a career where you work so often with married couples. Attachment is a huge piece of any relationship. So will you teach us attachment theory?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah, absolutely. Attachment theory is something that's really helpful for a lot of people because I think what we're looking to try to do is to better understand the patterns and themes in our relationship. [00:06:51] And so attachment theory is a great way to do that.

It is not a new theory. It's something a lot of people are talking about now, but it's actually been around for a long time. And it was really founded by this guy. His name was John Bowlby. Basically what he based attachment theory on is that we have these initial relationships with our parents and our caregivers. And so that relationship that we have really determines the relationship and attachment style that we have going forward.

If you can think about this, when we have a relationship with a parent, we're essentially dependent on them, right? If a parent refuses to care for a baby, they will die, right? They absolutely need that. And so that relationship is critical. 

And from that relationship, we learn ways to operate in the world. A lot of that initial relationship will determine our future relationship. So that's what they talked about with attachment theory. 

Bowlby did some experiments that were pretty famous, where he would have a child in a room and the mother would be in the room with the child. Then the mother would leave the room and they would look to see what the baby would do. [00:07:59] 

If the baby screamed and cried and was just inconsolable and very upset, they would often feel like that was an anxious attachment style. The anxious attachment style is the perception that relationships are insecure, meaning you're always at risk of losing them. And so they are deeply afraid of being abandoned. So that baby would respond as though mom has left and I'm abandoned and now I'm alone. That was one of the styles as they did this research.

Another style was the mother would leave and the baby would just be okay. The baby would actually, when the mom came back, not even try to connect. It just didn't have a great attachment to the mother. Period.

This would be called avoidant or dismissive. This attachment style is essentially someone who does not want to depend on others or to have others depend on them. And they don't seek all that support and approval that an anxiously attached person would seek.  [00:09:02] 

The third style is disorganized. Some people call this a fearful avoidant too. But this one is mixed results, right? This often comes from having a parent that's inconsistent or at times is hurtful. So it's a person who deeply wants to have connection, but is also deeply afraid of having that connection. At times they might be anxious, at times they might be avoidant, but it's kind of a mixed style.

Then the style that everybody wants, Laura, is secure attachment. That's what we're all really going for, right? Secure attachment was when the child was okay when mom was there and okay when mom wasn't there and could be in relationship when there was an opportunity and not when there wasn't. Basically, it's the ability to regulate ourselves well. 

Secure attachment is something that people want because it allows us to have some more objectivity in relationship, probably a healthier perspective about relationships than we do if we have the avoidant or the anxious or the fearful because those other ones are driven by a need that wasn't met. [00:10:06] 

Laura Dugger: Okay. That is such a good flyover. Now just a few follow-up questions. As we progress and even get married and have our own families, typically differing attachment styles are attracted to one another. Would you agree with that?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. I mean, I think God's really funny that way. It's sort of this, this idea of we often end up with someone who is either opposite or operates in a place that is kind of challenging for us but is very intriguing initially.

Laura Dugger: Can you give some examples of how that plays out specifically in a married couple?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. I think probably the most talked about pairing of attachment styles would be the anxious and the avoidance. And so what this is, is... sometimes called the pursuer and the distancer. 

So the anxiously attached person is always chasing and seeking that connection.[00:11:09] Because they're kind of fundamental question of the anxiously attached is, Am I okay? Are we okay? The question for an avoidance is, are we getting too close? So when they feel like we're getting too close, they put distance. 

So what we can end up having is a relationship style where one person is chasing the other for connection and the other is running away from it. That can be really stressful. It can be really challenging because we both need two very different things. Unless we're intentional about trying to meet in the middle, we can unfortunately have a cycle that just repeats itself.

Laura Dugger: Even as you say that, I think of friendships as well. Do you see this attachment style playing out really in all of our relationships as adults?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah, absolutely. And it's something that I think if we understand we can work around, but if we don't, unfortunately, it can kind of run our life. I know, and I've talked about this, I'm anxiously attached. [00:12:11] Prior to doing a lot of personal work, I was just kind of always wondering if I was okay. I might've even said, "Hey Laura, how is this going? Am I doing all right in this interview? Do you think it's fine?" 

That just started to come out all over the place. And that's how that works if we don't know or we don't have intention about where we're at. It is something we see in friendships, we see in work relationships. We see it all over the place. 

Again, it's just a thing that if we understand, we can begin to work towards secure attachment or having that stability and ability to regulate our emotions and kind of show up knowing we're okay and being comfortable with connection. But that does take some work if we're not coming into our life with secure attachment.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank exists to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually. They are a food charity with a desire to demonstrate God's love by providing help to those in need. [00:13:14] 

Unlike other parts of the world, where there's not enough food in America, the resources actually do exist. That's why food pantries and food banks like Midwest Food Bank are so important. The goods that they deliver to their agency partners help to supplement the food supply for families and individuals across our country, aiding those whose resources are beyond stretched.

Midwest Food Bank also supports people globally through their locations in Haiti and East Africa, which are some of the areas hardest hit by hunger arising from poverty. This ministry reaches millions of people every year. 

And thanks to the Lord's provision, 99% of every donation goes directly toward providing food to people in need. The remaining 1% of income is used for fundraising, costs of leadership, oversight, and other administrative expenses. 

Donations, volunteers, and prayers are always appreciated for Midwest Food Bank. 

To learn more, visit midwestfoodbank.org or listen to Episode 83 of The Savvy Sauce, where the founder, David Kieser shares miracles of God that he's witnessed through this nonprofit organization. [00:14:27] I hope you check them out today. 

Laura Dugger: How can each of us specifically work to move more towards secure attachment?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah, well, the easiest way that people would recommend is find someone who has a secure attachment style and just be their best friend or marry them. That's the short answer. Because what research has told us is that we change by being around that secure attachment style. 

And you might even notice this. If you're anxiously attached and you have a friend or your partner is securely attached, they will in a lot of ways help you to regulate what you're feeling because they don't experience that same feeling, right? And so they just bring that calming effect. 

The other part is just learning about it. There's a great book called Attached and it's by Amir Levine. It talks about ways that we can actually develop a more secure attachment style. So I think either being around securely attached people or learning about the hallmarks of those and trying to change your behavior are both ways we can get there. [00:15:27] 

Laura Dugger: Anybody who has a personal relationship with Jesus, obviously he is the most securely attached. And I think there is so much healing there when we are deepening and establishing our relationship with Him, because we can experience that unconditional positive regard and unconditional love.

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. I think if you're a faith person like I am, like you are, I think that's our superpower actually is that we have that already. That's just something that is with us today. 

Even if we're in a place where we're like, yeah, very anxiously attached, we just know a very easy place to go where we're going to have that connection that we really desire. So, yes, absolutely. That's a great place to start for people is you don't even have to go outside of your home. Just going even to prayer and having that connection or relationship is a great model for the one we're trying to build.

Laura Dugger: There's a sense of urgency that I feel as a parent too, because attachment follows us throughout our lives. [00:16:31] You said it well. On page 85, you wrote, "I have a good friend who says we are all just reacting to or reflecting our childhoods." So, Jason, how can we best set up our children to be securely attached?

Jason VanRuler: That's a great question. I think it's knowing our own attachment and knowing what we bring in to that relationship with our children and being honest about that and working on it as needed. So I think where we get into a lot of trouble is just not having the awareness or insight about who we are and what we bring into that.

Because the truth is none of us are going to be perfect parents. I mean, I would like to, and certainly that would be a goal of mine if it were possible, but it's not. I think how we can best do that for our kids is just to be honest about how it is. Even just kind of saying like, yeah, this is a place I kind of struggle. What book could I read? Who can I talk to? How do I get better at this? [00:17:31] 

The other thing that I tell people is if you're coming into this as a parent and you say, you know, "I know I've got some woundedness in my past. I know I've got some struggles. I'm aware of that," and so it's not going to be natural or intuitive for me to know what to do as a parent, get some role models. 

I will say my parenting has completely changed the more I've allowed role models to be in my life. And what I mean by that is those are people who I literally go to and say like, "Hey, here's a thing that's going on with my kiddos and this is what I would do. What would you do?" And just learning from people who have a different attachment style, who are more securely attached, who have done it before have that perspective, that is a great teacher for how to do it in your own life.

Laura Dugger: I think it's always helpful to hear practical examples like that. That is something that seems doable. I'm just curious, with this attachment with our children, is that typically more on them or more on us as the parents to whether or not they form a secure attachment? [00:18:35] 

Jason VanRuler: That's a great question. What research tells us is it typically lands more on the parents, although we both have a role in that. The way as a parent that we really want to just reinforce that is being that parent that is available, being the parent that is consistent and stable. When we're able to do that, that lends itself to child having secure attachment. 

Now, certainly, perception can affect things, but if we are coming in as our stable self and consistent with our kiddos, they are far more likely to have a secure attachment style.

Laura Dugger: Okay. And then also, just thinking of when I was a brand new mom, sometimes I would take that to mean, Okay, I can never leave them if I want them to have a long-term secure attachment. But I don't think that's what you're saying. So will you elaborate more, even on the do's and don'ts that help with secure attachment?  [00:19:34] 

Jason VanRuler: That is what I mean, Laura. You can never leave no vacations ever. You have to stay put forever.  I know we feel that way because it is so important. I think so many of us now, we just want to do it better. And we want it to be healthy and we want to do all the right things. That's great. 

Something I say often is the opposite, though, of one extreme is another, right? We don't want to kind of fly from not having inside awareness and just operating out of reaction to then being completely rigid and doing nothing.

So really the thing is, is that, yeah, absolutely you can take vacation. You can do things like that. I think the piece that's actually vital is communication. Are we communicating what is happening to our kids and why? Obviously, that's going to be different, dependent on the age because some things are more age-appropriate than others. But are we really communicating what's happening?

And then when we are present, are we really present? I think sometimes people worry about leaving their kids and saying, "Well, I'm going to be gone from them. How does that impact them?" [00:20:40] But they're not even present when they're with them. 

So I think being present when you're with your kids is really, really important. I think if you take vacations and do things like that, it just matters that you communicate what's happening.

Laura Dugger: I feel like that's a message of grace. And we cannot, I know I cannot hear that enough. It makes me reflect back. One of my sweet friends is Julie Roth, and she's actually a counselor as well. She's been on The Savvy Sauce, so I can link some of her previous episodes. 

But she also talked about there are times, like you're saying, if we are communicating with our children, but if we take breaks or we go on date night or we go to work or different things, when we come back and re-enter and are present, like you said, that can even strengthen the attachment. They feel more secure knowing it's okay to be apart and then it's okay to come back together.

Jason VanRuler: Absolutely, yeah.

Laura Dugger: Would you elaborate on any thoughts on that? [00:21:42] 

Jason VanRuler: Yeah, well, exactly. You're just talking about how we model that attachment, right, is that you're okay when I'm here and you're okay when I'm not, and I'll return and you'll know what's going to happen. 

A lot of times where the biggest challenges are and where those attachments are really challenging, the things that lead us to places like being anxiously attached or avoidantly or things like that are when we don't know what's going to happen. And so we're left to fill in the blanks. 

The problem for kids is that kids have a really limited ability to fill in the blanks with different options. So most of their options are going to be revolving around something that they did or didn't do. That's why it's our job as parents to explain where we're coming from, why we're doing what we're doing, and make sure that they're understanding that we're not going on date night because we don't love you and we want to get away from you. We're going on date night to honor our marriage and we'll return. And so just kind of doing that communication with kids is the thing that really helps them to understand that. [00:22:44] 

Laura Dugger: One other piece to follow this further with the parent-child relationship. I think that repair is a huge part here as well. And so do you see secure attachment being also formed when we ask forgiveness from our children and train them how to say they are sorry and ask for forgiveness from us as well?

Jason VanRuler: Definitely. We are really role modeling for them the relationships that they will have for the rest of their life or have to fight against. And so it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, it shouldn't be and it couldn't be because they are not going to find a perfect relationship in this world. 

The ability to really face a mistake or face a disconnect and repair is a skill not a lot of kids get. A lot of times they don't see that done. So having secure attachment is not about being perfect, but it's about knowing how to resolve it when it's not. [00:23:44] 

So the goal for us is just to say like, yep, that thing happened. I want to own it and I want to demonstrate what it looks like to actually repair from this because that is a vital skill not only for kids, but even adults. I mean, so often I work with clients who just say, I was never taught how to do this. And it's really, really important.

Laura Dugger: I want to take a moment to say thank you. You are the reason our team gets to delight in this work and we appreciate each of you so very much. If you're benefiting from the lessons learned and applied from The Savvy Sauce, would you take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts?

Five-star ratings and reviews help us reach more people around the globe and that promotes our goal of sharing joy. So join us in that endeavor with your valuable feedback. Thanks again for being here with us.

Well, you tell so many stories throughout your book. Would you share a couple of your favorites, including some of the lessons that they taught you? [00:24:45] 

Jason VanRuler: Absolutely. I think one of my favorite stories is probably when I'm talking about the experience with my dad where we're tubing. I think that was just a fun story for me.

He took us out and we skipped school, like very irresponsible kids, to go boating with my dad. And I didn't often get a lot of time with my dad, so it was just kind of inherently a big deal. And then I think we drank soda. We did all the things that you're not supposed to do that we did. 

And on that trip, he took us tubing behind a boat. As we were doing that, we each were thrown off. I've got a brother and he was thrown off pretty quickly and I wasn't long after, which thanks, Dad, I think that's why I still go to the chiropractor today. 

But he had this friend that he was on the tube and my dad pulled him with a boat and just increasingly tried to get the friend to fall off the tube, which is kind of what you do, kind of a fun thing. Everyone's laughing. And he just couldn't. [00:25:43] The friend would be kind of jostled around and thrown and would just keep hanging on and hanging on and hanging on.

Eventually what happened is that it kind of went from this joking thing to like, Hey, I wonder if I can really get him to fly off. And my dad did. It was quite the scene. I talk in the book about I think my Snickers bar was like flying out of the boat. It was just, you know, this madness. The friend flew off and went to get back in the boat and was actually missing a tooth.

You know, we were all kind of laughing about it, but then it took this kind of serious turn because, boy, that cost him something. And I was just really caught up in, "Why didn't you just let go? Why did I let go? My brother let go. You could have done that so much earlier." And he just had said, like, "It just seemed easier to hang on." 

I think for me that has stood out throughout my entire life is just this idea of like the open hand, closed hand. Like sometimes it does seem easier to hang on to things we shouldn't than to open our hand and let it go. [00:26:49] 

Laura Dugger: Also, will you unpack a lesson that you learned about a news story that popped up, I think it was maybe five or six years ago, but really stuck with you?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. There was this family and they went to a market and they were going to buy what they thought was a puppy. So they were in Asia. I've never bought a puppy from a market. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it, but they did.

They were just certain that they had bought this puppy and they went home and they began to feed it and do all the things that you do with a puppy. But it didn't take very long before the puppy started to actually consume quite a bit of food and got to be pretty big. And so they're like, "Well, this could just be like a really big version of this dog. We don't know a whole lot about it because we got it at a market. So let's just feed it more and feed it more."

And what happened over time is it started to just eat like this ridiculous amount of food. It was like, This puppy is like... you're not going to go to college because we have to feed the dog. And it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Until finally the family says, "Something is really wrong here. Either we've got the biggest dog in the world or it's not a dog.  I don't know." [00:27:58] 

So they took it to a vet and they just said, "Hey, here's the thing. We bought this puppy..." and they explained the whole story. And the vet says, "Yeah, well, this is actually an endangered Asiatic bear." So the family had thought they had a puppy, they'd been raising this puppy, and what they were really raising was a bear that was actually pretty dangerous to have at the house.

Laura Dugger: That story just floored me. I'd never heard it before reading your book. But I also loved your takeaways. Can you share the lesson learned for you?

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. We have to be curious. We have to be curious. And not being curious can be really dangerous. Because just doing the thing to do the thing sometimes means that we're growing something that could hurt us. Along the way, we have to ask some questions. 

What was interesting to me about the news story was that it had talked about the family really wondering more than once before they ever said anything what was happening and just not doing anything about that. [00:29:08] I think if we're not careful, we do that in our own life, right? We do that thing where our gut is telling us or maybe we're in prayer and we're hearing God say to us, something is not right or something needs to be questioned. And for whatever reason, we just don't. We just don't. We just keep doing more of the same because it seems comfortable and it's what we know. 

But the challenge is sometimes it takes us a year or two before we realize we've raised the bear. And then when we raise the bear, we have a whole new set of problems that we never anticipated because it's not what we were trying to do.

Laura Dugger: That is so relatable. Thank you for sharing. We did talk about parenting, and you have so much background working with married couples and studying attachment theory. As we go back to thinking of the secure attachment within marriage, are there any practical tips you recommend for couples to start turning toward one another in a healthy, securely attached way? [00:30:09] 

Jason VanRuler: Yeah. We have to understand really what makes us tick as well as what makes our partner tick. What I mean by that is we all have different core needs. We have different attachment styles. We have different things that matter. We have our love languages as an example. We have our primal question. We have all these things that are specific to us. 

The best, healthiest couples know the other person. They know what they need, and they give that to them. And so what we really want to do to have a secure relationship is to understand well who our person is and what they need from us, and then do our best to meet them there. 

Where we get really off track is when we don't have insight or awareness about that, we're not curious, and we simply try to give them the things that are important to us.

So for me, it's really interesting being anxiously attached and working through that, I needed to know that I was okay. That was something I sought after quite a bit.

Early in our marriage, I would chase after my wife and tell her she was okay. [00:31:13] All the time. I would be like, "You're great." And I would tell her all the things I wished that I could hear. And it didn't work. And I was very frustrated because I'm like, I'm doing literally all the things. Why does this not work for you? 

The reason was is she was more on the secure attachment than I was. So she's like, "I actually don't need to hear that. That's not super important to me. That's nice, but it doesn't carry the weight for me that it does for you." 

So I think the best, healthiest relationships are not the ones where we're perfect, but the ones where we understand what matters to the other person and we try to meet them there, rather than simply trying to give them what's important to us.

Laura Dugger: Well, you have so much knowledge around psychology and relationships. For anyone who won't get to experience going to school for a counseling degree, will you just share a handful of other useful bits of wisdom you've gained? 

Jason VanRuler: Well, it's been a process. [00:32:13] One of the, I think to me, the greatest benefits of becoming a therapist or counselor is that I've gotten to do these things for myself. And I've gotten to learn along the way.

I think some things that I've learned is just that we are all still a work in progress, no matter what. No matter if you've been a therapist for 20 years, or... we're all still working on things. And actually, that's okay. That is totally okay to be doing that. 

I think I've also learned, too, that there's a lot of beauty in the difficult spaces. I think we run from the messiness a lot of times. But the truth is, at least in my experience, a lot of times the clients that I work with, God is so present in that space. That is just where God shows up in major ways is in that messy place where we think we're going to be all alone. And so getting to see that has just been such a wonderful thing.

I think also doing what I do has taught me that it's really okay to ask for help. [00:33:12] I'm a great Midwestern guy and so that's not how I was raised is to do that. But doing that is how we get through it, and seeking community who's willing to help, that we can also help in return. That is truly where growth and where health and connection come from.

Laura Dugger: Well, Jason, I know you have a lot more to share. So where can we go after this conversation to learn more from you?

Jason VanRuler: I've got a website. It's jasonvr.com. On that website, you'll find some free resources about relationships. There's actually a course about attachment and some other books that can be read, as well as access to my book. 

Then if you're looking for just day-to-day, brief relationship tips, you can go to Instagram. And it's jason.vanruler at Instagram, where I post daily, if not twice daily, about just quick relationship tips and tools, as well as sometimes parenting stuff and dating and all that good stuff. [00:34:14] Because my goal really is just to help people and to get the information in their hands. And so that would be another way that you could find me.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will add all of those links in the show notes for today's episode. You may already be aware, we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Jason VanRuler: I think for me, you know, I get asked a lot, "How did you do these things? How did you get here?" And I think it really is very simple. In fact, a little too simple. But we ask somebody that knows, and then we do the next right thing. That's it. You just take that next step. 

I think for someone like me, who's been, you know, an overthinker my whole life, that sounds very complicated, right? It's like it has to be a trick there. But the truth of the matter is, it is pretty simple. You just take the next step. And when we do that it leads to wonderful places. [00:35:16] 

Laura Dugger: Jason, your field of work is not always an easy one to navigate, but it is meaningful and purposeful. So thank you for walking alongside so many people and sharing your insights with us, both through your book and now this conversation. I just want to say thank you for being my guest.

Jason VanRuler: Well, I appreciate it. I've loved our conversation today, and it is truly an honor and privilege to get to do the work I do.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.  [00:36:21] 

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:37:21] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:38:23] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

220 Cultivating Healthy Family Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman

220. Cultivating Healthy Family Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

1 Peter 4:8 (NIV) "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. How can a thriving, intimate marriage become our reality?

2. What are practical ways we can discover and speak each of our children's love languages?

3. What have you observed to be the best seeds to sow in  children's youth, in hopes of cultivating their character and pointing them toward the Lord?

Gary Chapman, Ph.D.—author, speaker, pastor, and counselor—has a passion for people, and for helping them form lasting relationships. Chapman is a well-known marriage counselor and director of marriage seminars. The 5 Love Languages® is one of Chapman’s most popular titles, topping various bestseller charts for years, selling over thirteen million copies, and has been on the New York Times best-sellers list continuously since 2007. Chapman has been directly involved in real-life family counseling for more than 30 years, and his nationally syndicated radio programs air nationally on Moody Radio Network and over 400 affiliate stations. For more information visit www.5lovelanguages.com

 

Attend a 5 Love Languages Event

 

Other Episodes on The Savvy Sauce featuring Dr. Gary Chapman:

5 Love Languages with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Child Became a Teenager with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Friendships Heal Racial Divides with Dr. Clarence Shuler and Dr. Gary Chapman

 

Francie Hinrichsen's Episode on The Savvy Sauce:

Episode 132 Pursuing Your God-Given Dream with Francie Hinrichsen

 

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

 

5 Traits of a Healthy Family

Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Child Became a Teenager

Five Love Languages

The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers

A Teen's Guide to the 5 Love Languages

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Dream, Build, Grow: A Female's Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business by Francie Hinrichsen

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:17] <music>

Laura Dugger: If you are looking to start a business or side hustle but you're not sure how to begin, I want to encourage you to pick up your copy of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female's Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business. You can find it at foundingfemalesco.com. 

You're probably already familiar with today's returning guest, Dr. Gary Chapman. He is best known for his work with the 5 Love Languages, but he also has written resources on many other topics that are so beneficial.

Today, we're going to be focusing on lessons from one of his books, 5 Traits of a Healthy Family. 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Chapman.

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, thank you, Laura. It's great to be back with you again. [00:01:17] 

Laura Dugger: I'd love to hear some of your personal experience. So going back to when you and Karolyn were raising your children, Shelley and Derek, you had one unique request from a young man named John. So will you share that story with us?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yes. John had graduated from the University of North Carolina and had moved to Winston Salem, where we live. And for the summer, he had worked helping, volunteering in our church. But at the end of the summer, he had a job as a schoolteacher. And he came to me and he said, he said, "Gary, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic." And he said, "I really don't know what a healthy family looks like." And he said, "I wonder if you would allow me to move in and live with you all this year so that I could just observe what a healthy family looks like." [00:02:17] 

Well, Laura, I took a deep breath and I said what any wise husband would say, "Well, John, let me talk with Karolyn about that." So I shared the idea with Karolyn and she kind of liked it. And I said, "Really? You think that would be okay?" She said, "I think it would be good." And I said, "Well, what about the kids?" And she said, "Well, let's just talk to the kids about it." We had a conversation with our kids and they thought it would be good to have a big brother in the house. 

So I said, "Well, let's pray about it. So we prayed for a couple of days and then we agreed, "Okay, let's give it a try." I said to her, "Well, honey, where is he going to sleep? We've only got three bedrooms and they're already full." She said, "Well, the basement is just open. We could put a wall down there and put a door in and he could have he could sleep... that'd be his room." I said, "Well, okay." So we did. 

John lived with us for a whole year and just was a part of the family. And we made him a part of the family. [00:03:24] He had things that he did, chores that he did, just like the kids on their level had things they did. So it was a very unique experience. But he was there for everything. He was there for breakfast in our devotional time we had after breakfast. He was there at night when we had devotions with the kids and so forth and so on. He saw the whole thing. 

And he says, looking back on that, that he has no idea what his life would be like if he had not spent that year with us. Of course, he's married now and has children as his own ministry and all of that. 

But it was a unique experience. But, you know, it wasn't a totally new concept for me, because when I was a senior at Wheaton College, I lived with the unofficial Navigator representative who lived in Wheaton, he and his wife, Jim Merck. They had five children and they had four of us guys who actually lived in two rooms upstairs in their house. And they integrated us into their family. We helped mow grass and wash dishes and all that kind of thing. [00:04:25] 

So the concept was not totally new to me, but the experience was new to me. But we're all glad that we did. And so are the kids.

Laura Dugger: I'm so curious then, because most of us won't have that type of experience. But was there anything that he pointed out, even in later years, that you learned about your family through the eyes of an outsider, really?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, he talked about how Karolyn and I related to each other, because by this time we had our marriage together. You know, we would not have had him in our house for the first three years of our marriage or he would never have gotten married because we were having all kinds of struggles in those early years of our marriage. 

But he saw the way we treated each other with dignity and respect and he saw also how we were investing in the lives of our children. He talks about that at the time at breakfast, the time of the evening, and then going and kneeling beside their bed every night and praying for them individually. [00:05:25] So it helped me see... I already believe these things were important. But an outsider looking in on them, you know, just confirmed how important that is.

Laura Dugger: Well, and there's one other story that really stood out from your book. So will you share what made the boys from Carolina so memorable and help us understand how that lesson can translate into our own parenting today?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, there's four of those guys, John was one of them. There's four of those guys that came to the end of the school year. They all graduated from University of North Carolina and they came to live in Winston-Salem. They all got jobs for the summer and they all lived together.

They came to me, I was leading our discipleship ministry in our church and they came to me and said, "You know, we were in the Navigators Christian group on campus and we were all working for the summer, but we would like to serve the church and do something to help the church." [00:06:25] 

And I was thinking they were asking for like leadership positions to work and lead the young people or da da da da da. And I said, "Well, you know, we really pretty much have all of our personnel selected for those kind of leadership positions." And they said, "No, no, no, no, no, we're not talking about leadership. We're talking about we would like to serve the church."

I said, "Well, what do you have in mind?" They said, "Well, we know you have a dinner on every Wednesday night, and we'd like maybe to wash the dishes or clean up the tables afterwards or mop the floors or, you know, just things like that."

I said, "Oh, well, yeah, I think we have some opportunities for you to serve." I was just kind of shocked, you know? But they were demonstrating what I believe is the fundamental principle of daily living for a Christian, and that is we're here to serve other people. 

You know, Jesus said about Himself, "I did not come to be served. [00:07:26] I came to serve and then, of course, to give my life a ransom for others." So they were demonstrating what I have come to believe to be the fundamental lifestyle of every Christian, at least it should be.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor. 

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She delights in over-delivering to her clients with excellence and care. [00:08:33] And if you're interested in getting to know her a little bit better, she was also a previous guest on The Savvy Sauce. So I will add her episode in the show notes for today's episode.

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Laura Dugger: You even translated this in your book into an encouragement to parents to go and do likewise. Would you like to elaborate on that at all?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah, I really think that one of the traits of a healthy family, and one of the things that motivated me to write this book for families is I know that there's so many people that grew up in dysfunctional families, and they don't have a picture of a healthy family. 

I just believe that one of the fundamental aspects of a healthy family is that there'll be an attitude of service in that family. The husband will have an attitude of serving his wife. She'll have an attitude of serving him. They will serve the children. They will then teach the children at their appropriate age to serve each other and then to serve mom and to serve dad.

And then we take that outside the family. At appropriate ages, we take them outside the family to do service projects to other people outside. [00:10:44] It may be taking them to a food pantry, you know, to help fix up boxes to give out to those who are hungry.

One of the things I did with our kids when they were 10, 11, 12, long in there, I would get them in the car, the two of them, we have a son and daughter, put rakes in the back of our car and drive through the neighborhood in the fall. And they're looking for yards that had not been raked.

So I'd knock on the door and say, "I'm Gary Chapman. I live down the street here and I'm trying to teach my children how to serve other people. So if you don't mind, we'd like to rake your leaves." And they would say, "Say what?" And I'd repeat my little speech and they'd say, "Oh, I will pay you to rake our leaves. I've been looking for someone to rake our leaves." I said, "No, I don't want money. I'm just trying to teach our children how to serve other people." 

You know, Laura, I never had anyone who would not let us rake their leaves. The kids were learning this is what our family is all about. You know, we serve other people. They grow up like that, you're getting them ready for a life of service. [00:11:46] 

Laura Dugger: It reminds me of that famous quote to share the gospel at all times, use words only when necessary. I just think that's a way for others to even get to encounter Jesus when we hear so often be his hands and feet. And so that's a great example.

Early on in your book, you also discuss our innate longing for closeness and you teach more about healthy communication that fosters intimacy in marriage. So will you elaborate on healthy communication and even discuss all five of the steps to intimacy?

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think in a healthy family, there will be intimacy between the husband and wife. You know, the scriptures say the two become one. It's speaking of deep intimacy.

Now, a lot of people in our culture, when they hear the word intimacy, they think only of the sexual part of marriage. But it's far, far more than that. It's intellectual intimacy, sharing your thoughts, your dreams, your desires, your opinions with each other. [00:12:53] 

And some couples have lost that. They don't have intellectual intimacy because they shared an idea and the other person will say, "Well, that's not right." You know, they get into an argument because they shared an idea or shared a dream. 

So there's intellectual intimacy and we're listening to each other, treating each other's ideas with respect. And then there's emotional intimacy: meeting each other's emotional needs. That's where the 5 Love Languages can be so helpful to them. They learn that, they speak each other's language, and they feel love. They're meeting emotional needs.

And then there's social intimacy. That is, the two of them are doing things with other people in a healthy family. That can be, you know, going to church because you're interfacing with other people. They can be going to a ballgame together. But you're doing it with other people and sharing life with each other. So social intimacy. 

Then there's spiritual intimacy. We're sharing our walk with God, with each other. I don't mean preaching to each other, Laura. "Now, I read this in the Bible this morning and I think you need to hear this." [00:13:53] I don't mean that.

I mean, "Honey, I read this this morning. It was so meaningful to me. I want to share it with you. It's sharing our spiritual walk with each other. 

And then, yes, physical intimacy. But physical intimacy is impacted by all the other areas of intimacy. If we don't build intimacy in these other areas, all of which requires, you know, communication with each other, then we're not likely to have mutual sexual fulfillment. So to me, in a healthy family, that's what's going on between the husband and the wife.

Laura Dugger: That kind of goes along with something that I've always heard is that the best thing you can do for your children is give them a good marriage. I'll just quote something that you write on page 55 where you say, "I am fully convinced that my greatest contribution to the children of this generation lies in helping their mothers and fathers build intimate marriages," end quote. So, Dr. Chapman, how can a thriving and intimate marriage become our reality? [00:14:57] 

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think it's step-by-step. I talk to people about a growing marriage. I never talk about a perfect marriage. I talk about a growing marriage. Because marriages are either growing or they are regressing. They never stand still. 

So what I'm saying to couples is, Okay, here's a pattern of intimacy that I've just laid out in the book. Of course, I deal with that even more and more deeply. But let's begin to work on these things. Which one do you think needs more help right now? Intellectual intimacy or social intimacy and so forth. Let's begin to work on these things. Let's see ourselves growing.

One way to grow in intimacy is to share a book together. And by "share a book", I don't mean that one of you reads it and highlights it and says the other, "You need to read this." I don't mean that. I mean, you say, "Honey, why don't we share this book?" Any good Christian book on marriage. "Why don't we share this book?" 

So we each read the chapter. Same chapter. At the end of the week, we each say to the other, What do you think we can learn out of that chapter that might help us? [00:16:00] I can tell you by the time you get through the book, you're going to have a better marriage. I don't care what book it is. If it's a Christian book on marriage, you're going to have a better marriage. So to me, that's the way you grow to have the kind of marriage that is the model for your children.

Laura Dugger: I love that practical tip. I found chapter five to be especially helpful where you talk about raising our children with both nurture and discipline. Discipline is something that we hear a lot of people would love guidance on how to parent their children in this way. But will you elaborate on the ways that various approaches play out?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. I think we want to use words and actions. That's the way children learn: words and actions together. In our culture, we tend to lean to one extreme or the other. We either have the concept that, look, just explain to your children what you want them to do. And they're intelligent. And if you explain it clearly, then they'll be motivated to do it. [00:17:02] 

But if they don't, if the children don't do it, what do they do? Then explain it again. "Now, honey, let me tell you this one more time," and explain it again, usually a little louder than the first time. And before long, they're yelling at the kids. "Don't you get this?" 

What I'm saying is, no, no, no, use words to be sure, but put actions with the words. Here's an illustration that I've often used. The mother's fixing dinner. She goes to the door. Little Johnny's playing in the neighbor's yard and she says, "Johnny, dinner." Little Johnny just keeps on playing as though he hadn't heard anything.

And then she does that a second time. And then she goes back in a minute or two and does it a third time. The fourth time she goes, she says, "Johnny, get home." And little Johnny comes home. 

Why did Johnny come home on number four and not on number one, two, three? Because he learned that when Mama says, "Get home," if he doesn't come home, Mother will come down there in the neighborhood, take him by the hand, action, take him by the hand, and walk him home. [00:18:06] And he doesn't want Mama in the neighborhood. So he'll come home on that one. 

So I say to mothers, if you want your son or daughter to come home on the first call, all you have to do is take the action that you normally do on number four and move it up to number one and you won't walk them home at one time. And they'll come on the first call. 

So tell them you're going to change the paradigm. Don't shock them. Tell them. "I've been listening to this program, you know, this podcast. Really, really good. Here's what I learned." Oh, yeah. Words and actions.

Laura Dugger: Then on the country, if it's just actions, how does that play out?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, what they tend to do is they tell them they tell them one time and if they don't do it, then, you know, they tell them loudly and kind of whack them on the back. "I told you to do this. Now  get in there and do it." Those parents often end up physically abusing their children. I mean, hitting their children, pushing their children, physically abusing their children. And either extreme, either extreme is negative, verbal abuse or physical abuse. [00:19:08] 

What we want is the middle of the road where we're putting our words and our actions together. We're teaching the children how to respond to the things that we think need to be done.

Laura Dugger: And then if we're trying to take a more proactive approach, what are some practical ways that we can discover and speak each of our children's love languages?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, it's extremely important that we learn their love language. I've said to parents often, the question is not, do you love your children? The question is, do your children feel love? If you're not speaking their primary language, they will not feel loved, even though you're loving them in some of the other languages. 

Here are three informal ways to discover a child's love language. First of all, observe their behavior. How do they typically respond to you and to other people? For example, my son's love language is physical touch. And you can learn a child's love language by the time they're 4 years old. I mean, it's there early. [00:20:08] 

When I would come home from work, he would run to the door, grab my legs and climb on me. He's touching me because he wants to be touched. So how do they respond to you? My daughter never did that. She would say at that age, "Daddy, come into my room. I want to show you something." She wanted quality time. She wanted my undivided attention. So observe their behavior, how they respond to you and other people. 

Secondly, what do they complain about most often? The complaint reveals the love language. I had a mother say to me recently, she said, "Gary, my 6-year-old son said to me, "We don't ever go to the park anymore since the baby came." He used to have his mother's quality time, undivided attention. He and his mother at the park together. Now the baby's here, he's not getting it. And he's telling her. So listen to their complaints. What do they complain about? 

Then thirdly, what do they request of you most often? [00:21:10] If they're saying most often, "Mommy, can we play together? Can we play together? Can we play together?" they're asking you for quality time. If they're saying I need a hug, they're asking you for physical touch. 

If you put those three things together, observe their behavior, how they respond to you and others, what do they complain about, and what do they request, you can pretty well figure out a child's love language very early, certainly by four years of age.

Laura Dugger: There is an exciting project taking place behind the scenes right now, and I would love to invite you to participate. I will give you more details as I'm able. But for now, here's my request.

Will you email me your personal story of a specific way God has clearly shown up in your life? Big or small, I want to hear an account of the way He made Himself known to you and maybe received credit for an answered prayer or a way he worked out a situation in a miraculous way or how He displayed his power in your life. [00:22:12] There's no limit to the type of story to submit as long as it's true.

So please email me your story at this email address, info@thestavisauce.com. I can't wait to read your story. Thanks for sharing. And what have you observed to be the best seeds to sow in children's youth in hopes of cultivating their character and pointing them to the Lord?

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think it's exposing them starting early in their life to the things of God. That's why the devotional brief devotional time we had every morning at the breakfast table in which I just read a verse of scripture and we might make a comment or two about it and then have a prayer. And then in the evening when we would have the whole family together, all for all four of us.

One of us, Karolyn and I, would read a Bible earlier. We'd read a Bible story to them. Later we read the Bible to them. And then kneeling by their bed. [00:23:17] And either Karolyn and I would go every night to one of their bedsides and kneel by the bed and pray for them. They eventually learned to pray as well. 

It's making the Christian life, the scriptures, our relationship with God central to our family. This is what our family does. And when we expose them to that throughout those years, they're far more likely to come to receive Christ when they get to an age, they're old enough to understand, you know, what that means.

So, to me, it's those kinds of things. Then obviously treating each other with dignity and respect and giving them a positive model of how husbands and wives relate to each other. Those things are exceedingly important. There are seeds that grow up to strengthen them and lead them to Christ.

Laura Dugger: Just thinking through your study of different cultures and your many hours interacting with families, what themes have you noticed that you see are both best practices for families and also the ones that are the most destructive practices? [00:24:22] 

Dr. Gary Chapman: I think I would say the most constructive thing that we can do with our children is to not only love them and speak their primary love language on a regular basis, but also sprinkle in the other four because we want the child to learn how to receive love and give love in all five languages. 

We talk about this in our family. Mommy has a love language. Daddy has a love language. Sister has a love language. Brother has a love language. We want to speak each other's language, but there are other ways to express love too. We want to learn how to do this. 

The healthiest adult is the one who learned how to speak all five languages when they were a child. Not many people did. And they grow up and some of these languages, they don't know how to speak. And they get married and find out their spouse's language is something that they don't know how to speak.

So on the constructive side, I think that plus the spiritual dimension that we talked about is really central. 

In terms of destructive, I think the worst thing that can happen to influence children in a negative way is for mom and dad to always be arguing with each other and the kids hear them yelling and screaming at each other and telling them that's not right. [00:25:37] And sometimes even cursing each other. I mean, can you imagine that? But it happens.

I think when they see parents like that, they grow up, they have no idea what a healthy marriage looks like. That's what the young man, John, was telling me. He said, "Dr. Gary, I don't know what a healthy marriage looks like." And so they grow up without any concept of how to have a good marriage. 

So we're setting them up for failure in marriage when they just see us arguing with each other and never see us loving each other, you know, and speaking kindly to each other and touching each other and speaking the love languages to each other. So yeah, to me, that's the best and the worst thing that could be done.

Laura Dugger: Well, I love that. I find that so fascinating that you answer one of the worst things we can do for our kids is something that actually originates in our marriage. I think there's some profound wisdom in there. 

So even culturally as we see, and as a parent myself, I see the struggle of leaning toward being a kid-centered family and yet knowing that that is destructive. [00:26:44] So do you have any encouragement for families to get it back to, I mean, ideally Christ-centered, but also marriage-focused before the children type of family?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. I think to share a book on marriage and then share a book on parenting, Christian perspective in both of those kinds of books. When you read those and you're asking yourself, you know, what can we learn from this chapter, you're constantly growing, you're constantly having a better marriage and you're constantly learning how to relate to your children in a more positive manner.

Like in this book, you know, I discuss the whole thing of when you give a rule to a child, tell them what the discipline is going to be if they don't do it. Don't just give them the rule. 

Let's say the rule is going to be, We don't throw the ball inside the house. We throw the ball in the yard, but not in the house." And if you do, you'll have to put the ball in the trunk of the car for two days and you can't play with it. [00:27:45] 

Now the child understands the rule and the consequences. You're not likely to lose your temper when they throw the ball in the house because you already know and they know you just say, "Johnny, Mary, I'm so proud of you. You seldom break the rules, but you know, you broke this one. You threw the ball in the house. So you know what has to happen, right?" And they start crying and they nod their head. "Well, let's go out to the car and you go out and put the ball in the trunk of the car." And then you say, "But listen, I love you so much. I'm so proud of you because you seldom break the rules." Wow.

You know, they know the discipline, you know the discipline and you wrap the discipline in love and they learn. To me, that's the most powerful thing you can do in terms of teaching children how to follow rules. And we all need to follow rules and respect the authority of parents.

One of the major problems in our country is we have thousands of people that don't respect authority. The school teachers say to me, "Gary, I spent half my time just trying to keep order in the classroom because they don't respect the teacher." [00:28:50] So teaching them how to respect parents as the authority, the loving, who makes rules because we love them, man, that's powerful.

Laura Dugger: Well, that's such a great takeaway to get on the same page and to have a book as our outside helper. It makes me think of the proverb that says, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." 

Gary, you are one who has many resources that can help us get wisdom and understanding. So where can we go after this chat to learn more from you?

Dr. Gary Chapman: If they go to 5lovelanguages.com, the number five, 5lovelanguages.com, you can see a little blurb on all my books, and most of them you can actually order there, or you can order them from Amazon, but you get some descriptions there. You'll also find out where I do marriage conferences all over the country. I do 10 of them a year in major cities around the country. So you can see where I'm going to be. I'd love to meet some of your listeners if they're anywhere near where I'm going to be. [00:29:55] 

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will add a link to our show notes in today's episode with all of those websites. I just have one more question for you. You are already familiar that we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Dr. Chapman, what is your Savvy Sauce?

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I would have to say it's learning your spouse's love language and choosing to speak it. So if you don't know your spouse's love language, let me encourage you to go online, again to 5lovelanguages.com, and take the quiz for married couples. 

You take it individually, it will tell you what your love language is: your primary, your secondary, and the one that's least important. 

Learn each other's love language. And then listen, choose to speak that language, even if you have to work hard to learn it because you didn't get it as a child. I don't know anything that, any one thing that would create a more positive climate in your marriage than learning and speaking each other's love language. [00:30:59] 

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Chapman, this is your fourth time being a guest on The Savvy Sauce. I love to keep inviting you back because you continue to share this godly wisdom that is timeless and you're so endearing with your kind tone and humble stance. So thank you for being a great role model to each of us. And thank you sincerely for being my guest today.

Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, thank you, Laura. I appreciate what you're doing. So keep up the good work.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior. [00:32:08] 

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:33:09] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:34:11] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

Special Patreon Re-Release: Strategies to Overcome Perfectionism with Jill Savage

Special Patreon Re-Release: Strategies to Overcome Perfectionism with Jill Savage

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Psalm 18:32 (NLT) “God arms me with strength, and he makes my way perfect.”  

 

Jill Savage is an author and speaker who is passionate about encouraging families. She is the author or co-author of twelve books. Featured on Focus on the Family, Crosswalk.com, Family Life Today and Today’s Christian Woman magazine, Jill is the founder of Hearts at Home, an organization that encouraged moms from 1994-2017. Jill and her husband, Mark, have five children, three who are married, two granddaughters and one grandson. They make their home in Normal, Illinois. 

 

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.  

 

Jill’s Website

Books by Jill Savage:

Living With Less So Your Family Has More

No More Perfect Moms

Professionalizing Motherhood

Better Together by Jill Savage and Anne McClane 

No More Perfect Marriages  by Mark and Jill Savage 

No More Perfect Kids by Jill Savage and Dr. Kathy Koch 

Need a Next Step? Try Mark & Jill’s FREE 4 week e-challenge here! 

Jill's book that released in August

Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas  

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: WinShape Marriage

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website 

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

[00:00:00] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:17] <music>

Laura Dugger: I am thrilled to introduce you to our sponsor, Winshape Marriage. Their weekend retreats will strengthen your marriage, and you will enjoy this gorgeous setting, delicious food, and quality time with your spouse. To find out more, visit them online at Winshapemarriage.org. That's Winshapemarriage.org. Thanks for your sponsorship. 

If this is your first time here, welcome! You may be wondering what it means to have a special Patreon release. So, here's the scoop. Patreon was a platform we used to generate financial support for The Savvy Sauce, and we would express our thanks to those paying Patrons by giving them a bonus episode every month. 

But now, we have some exciting news. [00:01:17] We are transitioning away from Patreon because we recently launched The Savvy Sauce Charities, a nonprofit to inspire us to grow in intimacy with God and others. This podcast will be moving under that nonprofit umbrella on January 1st, 2024. That means after January 1st of 2024, your financial contributions to The Savvy Sauce Charities will still support our work and keep us on the air, but they will also be a tax write-off for you.

We try to make as much of our material free to the general population, but it's only possible when some generous listeners show their support through financial backing. We spend thousands of dollars each year to record and produce these episodes, and we do pray that they are beneficial and that God sees fit to use them to be transformational in your life and in ours. [00:02:19] 

So if that is the case, if you have ever benefited from an episode of The Savvy Sauce, would you consider showing your gratitude through your financial generosity? Any amount is greatly appreciated. In fact, you may have heard me say before, if every listener gave only $1 per month, it would completely offset all of our costs. 

We will have updates on our website, thesavvysauce.com, in the coming months, but feel free to reach out anytime to any member of our team if you want to partner together. Our email address is info@thesavvysauce.com. 

And now I'm thrilled to share this episode with you that used to only be available to paying patrons. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Jill

Jill Savage: Thank you. It's good to be with you again.

Laura Dugger: Hopefully our listeners have already heard your previous episode, but can you just give us a quick recap of who you are?

Jill Savage: Well, I am a wife. My husband and I have been married 35 years, 25 of them happily. [00:03:22] And that makes up much of our ministry is to marriages. I'm a mom of five. My kids are all now grown, and I'm a nana to three. 

I run a ministry called JAM Savage Ministries along with my husband. JAM stands for Jill and Mark Savage Ministries. We do marriage events. I speak at women's events. We do a lot of marriage coaching. I do writer and speaker coaching. 

And we run a lot of online resources. We run a marriage membership site called nomoreperfectdatenight.com. Probably our most popular posts on the blog are what we call Marriage Monday that my husband and I do together. So we stay very, very busy.

Laura Dugger: Yes, you do. Well, let's just jump right into one of the topics that you've covered before in your books, in your blog. How did you decide to teach others to resist the pressure to chase after perfectionism? [00:04:22] 

Jill Savage: Well, I only write about the things that I screwed up. That's really what that came from, because that was a personal struggle for me. That was a place where God was really growing me. And the more I began to talk about that with others, the more I realized that I was not alone in this struggle. 

So I first wrote No More Perfect Moms and identified what I call the perfection infection. The perfection infection is when we unfairly compare ourselves to others and we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. 

I think as moms, we struggle with this in so many areas. We struggle with it with our body. We struggle with it with our home. We struggle with it with hospitality, parenting, marriage, all of that. 

My second book dealing with that was No More Perfect Kids. No More Perfect Kids looks at when the perfection infection invades our parenting, what happens? [00:05:26] And that's when we have unrealistic expectations of our kids and we unfairly compare our kids to others. That really can be damaging. We have to recognize when that's happening. 

Then eventually No More Perfect Marriages, which is where we took a look at what happens when the perfection infection invades our marriage. We have unrealistic expectations of marriage in general. And we unfairly compare our marriage to other marriages. Here's what we're doing. We're comparing the outsides of other marriages to the insides of our marriage. And that's a dangerous comparison. It's not fair. Or we have unrealistic expectations of our spouse or of marriage. 

Man, those expectations are just killers in all areas of our life. And that is when perfectionism really begins to rob us of contentment. And that's really at the heart of what happens with perfectionism. [00:06:25] I like to say that perfectionism is this really, really high bar and real life is several feet below that bar. And the space in between real life and perfectionism or unrealistic expectations, that space in between is discontentment.

When we are in perpetual discontentment, it fuels anxiety, it fuels depression and it certainly fuels discontentment in general in all areas of our life.

Laura Dugger: What are the lies in perfectionism and what truths have you found that we can rest in instead?

Jill Savage: You know, the lies really come down to the things that we tell ourselves. For instance, one of the places I struggle with is I believe that excellence is important. I've always been a high achiever and tried to do everything excellent. But the truth is, if I really look at it closely, I don't really expect excellence. [00:07:29] I expect perfection. And that's an unrealistic expectation.

So that's a lie I tell myself is that all I really want is excellence. But the truth is I want more than that. And what I have to recognize is on this side of heaven, excellence is attainable, perfection is not. And so just recognizing that.

I think another lie is in perfectionism we often feel like we don't measure up and nobody else measures up either because our expectations are so high off the chart. So the truth that battles that lie is “I am enough”. I am enough as I am imperfect and all. So recognizing that and replacing that lie with that truth is a gift we need to give to ourselves and to those that we love as well. [00:08:28] 

I would say that a third lie that I think we struggle with is that we will tell ourselves that something is a realistic expectation but in reality, it's an unrealistic expectation. And so we're lying to ourselves when we're saying... Okay, I'll give you an example. A lot of times people will say marriage shouldn't be this hard. Well, that's an unrealistic expectation. Marriage is hard. Period. Every married couple is incompatible. Every married couple is wonderfully incompatible. 

Marriage just forces us to have to learn to deal with those incompatibilities. It forces us to learn how to give grace and kindness to people who are different than us. So marriage is hard work. So a lot of times we tell ourselves lies like it shouldn't be this hard. And so that causes discontentment. And it really is a lie because the truth is it is hard work. [00:09:29] 

Laura Dugger: Let's just dive a little bit further into these various areas that we may battle with perfectionism, beginning with expecting perfection internally within ourselves. So, for starters, what are some good questions to identify if this is an unspoken expectation that we might have unnecessarily placed on ourselves?

Jill Savage: I would say one of the first things is, where are you constantly disappointed? If you can identify. Maybe it's in a relationship. Maybe it's with you, maybe you're constantly disappointed that you can never get on top of the laundry. Maybe it's just something as simple as a daily activity like that, but you're going into it expecting to get six loads done in one day and then you're disappointed because you only got three done. 

A lot of times the best place for us to pay attention to what's going on internally and what we are saying to ourselves when we talk to ourselves is to identify the places where we are perpetually disappointed. [00:10:36] Because that'll give us a clue at where we probably have some unrealistic expectations.

Laura Dugger: What is our next step? 

Jill Savage: I think our next step is then to ask ourselves, what is a realistic expectation? Maybe you do laundry once a week and I needed to get six loads done, but for the last four weeks, I've only gotten three loads done. You have to look at it and go, So what's a realistic expectation here? Can I get six loads done in a day? No, I cannot. I can only get three loads done in a day or two or one or whatever it is. 

If we constantly are disappointed in the outcome of what happens, we probably have set some unrealistic goals. 

A next step would be, okay, so maybe I need to do laundry twice a week and I need to expect to get no more than three loads done. Or maybe I need to do it three times a week and I need to expect to get no more than two loads done. [00:11:38] 

And so what we do is we take a look at: where have we been disappointed? What have we been able to accomplish in that? What's a more realistic expectation? And then that actually inserts both joy and a sense of contentment and accomplishment to replace the perfectionism.

Laura Dugger: Now let's talk about the temptation to pursue perfection externally, beginning with body image. What wisdom can you share about resisting the urge to focus our energy on having the perfect body?

Jill Savage: Oh, I think particularly as women we struggle with this because the media has done us no favors. You know, we go through the grocery store checkout line and we see the front of the magazines and you see this skinny celebrity and it says body after baby, three months. And you look down at yours and you're like, Body after baby, three years, never looked like that. [00:12:40] 

I think we have some pretty unrealistic expectations that are presented as possible. The truth is that magazine cover has been photoshopped and that is not how she looks in real life. So we have to recognize where these messages are coming from. They are setting up absolutely impossible standards. 

In fact, this all started years ago with the Barbie doll. If a real woman had the measurements of a Barbie doll, I mean, she would not be able to live. Her organs will not fit into that size body. And so I think we have to recognize where that's coming from.

And we have to change our goals. Instead of maybe a certain weight or a certain size, we need to focus instead of appearance on health and taking care of our body, being intentional about the health of our body, stewarding the care of our body. [00:13:45] That is a better goal. And that is an absolute better pursuit of excellence and will steer us out of that area of perfection that often happens more with appearance.

Laura Dugger: What about this desire to have the perfect home or perfect meals for our families? Will you speak into that?

Jill Savage: I think all of us could do our fair share of helping to rid the world of perfectionism by sharing our good and our bad. We're quick to share snapshots of when something looks really good, but we're hesitant when something looks really bad. People have to live in a home. So we have to recognize that it has to be livable. 

Now, everybody has their own tolerance level of clutter. So you have to find what your tolerance level is. We certainly have to take care of the things that we have. [00:14:45] And part of that is stewardship. But at the same time, it's so important for us to understand that it is impossible to have a perfect home, to have a perfect schedule. So we've really got to learn to give each other grace. 

I will never forget this. I had come home from a trip. I do a lot of speaking in the spring and the fall, sometimes back-to-back trips. So I get off an airplane, I'm home for a couple days, I'm repacked and on another airplane somewhere else. This had been one of those like three, four weeks where I've done that. 

Instead of unpacking and repacking the suitcase, I'd gotten lazy and just grabbed another suitcase. So I had all these open suitcases and clothes everywhere. I mean it looked like the suitcase had exploded. Clothes everywhere in my bedroom.

I remember saying to myself, "All right, this weekend I have to..." I always call it I'm declaring war on this when I have a project like that. I'm like, "I'm declaring war in my bedroom this weekend." [00:15:50] And then I caught myself and I went, "You know what, I'm going to take a picture of this and I'm going to post it on Facebook." And I did.

I mean, I took a picture. The bed was unmade. There were dozens of clothes everywhere, suitcases laying open. And I said, "This is my current reality. What's yours?" And I'm going to tell you that thing came as close to viral as I think I have ever had.

And women were snapping pictures of their kitchen counters that were covered in dishes and they were snapping pictures of their kid's room and snapping pictures of the interior of their car. I mean, it was so freeing for all of us to see that we all struggle with staying on top of stuff. This is the reality that most of us are experiencing in some way, shape, or form. I think that was a gift we all gave each other that day.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

Sponsor: I'm so excited to share today's sponsor, Winshape Marriage, with you. [00:16:51] Winshape Marriage is a fantastic ministry that helps couples prepare, strengthen, and if needed, even save their marriage.

Winshape Marriage is grounded on the belief that the strongest marriages are the ones that are nurtured, even if it seems like things are going smoothly. That way, they'll be stronger if they do hit a bump along their marital journey. 

Through their weekend retreats, Winshape Marriage invites couples to enjoy time away to simply focus on each other. These weekend retreats are hosted within the beautiful refuge of Winshape Retreat, perched in the mountains of Rome, Georgia, which is just a short drive from Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chattanooga. 

While you and your spouse are there, you'll be well-fed, well-nurtured, and well-cared for. During your time away in this beautiful place, you and your spouse will learn from expert speakers and explore topics related to intimacy, overcoming challenges, improving communication, and so much more.

I've stayed on site at Winshape before, and I can attest to their generosity, food, and content. You will be so grateful you went. [00:17:50] To find an experience that's right for you and your spouse, head to their website, WinshapeMarriage.org. That's WinshapeMarriage.org. Thanks for your sponsorship. 

Laura Dugger: I know that you have a unique take on Professionalizing Motherhood. So we are talking to the stay-at-home moms as well as working moms when we talk about work, but let's just clarify, what do you mean by professionalizing motherhood?

Jill Savage: Well, Professionalizing Motherhood was my absolute first book, which is amazing. It's been in print 20 years and still is. It's still one of the most popular books out there for stay-at-home moms.

It really looks at the concept that what we do every day when we take care of our family, we need to treat it as a profession. If a mother is an at-home mom, you know, our tendency is to say, when somebody says, what do you do, our tendency is to say, Oh, I'm just a mom. [00:18:53] And that word "just" has so many negative implications.

My call to moms at home was, no, you're not "just" an at-home mom. You're a woman committed to the profession of motherhood. And what that does, when we are able to say that, it raises motherhood to the place that it needs to be in our minds, that we give it our best. We pursue it as a profession. So we seek professional continuing education. We set goals. We get up and treat it like we were going to work, take a shower, do our hair, actually take some pride in what it is that we do each and every day. 

And when I began to do that as an at-home mom, I became a more intentional mom. My family didn't get my leftovers. They started getting my strategic best. 

I think for a woman who works outside the home and has children, she is also committed to the profession of motherhood. [00:19:54] But she has two professions, the one she gets paid for and the one that she doesn't get paid for, at least not monetarily. But she has to still approach what she does at home for her family as a profession. And she will be a more intentional mom for it as well.

Laura Dugger: I love it. What are some ways that we can identify if we're sliding too far to either extreme in our work, whether we're all consumed by it or neglecting our responsibilities? And that's for stay-at-home moms or working moms, all of that considered work.

Jill Savage: You know, I think that too often we can become siloed or super focused in one area or another. I think we can also so easily slide towards the things that are natural to us and miss out on the things that maybe we have to work a little harder at. [00:20:53] 

You know, for me, I'm natural at organizing and leading things but I'm not real natural at being the fun mom. And so my kids, they learned responsibility. I had them where they needed to be on time. I knew what their schedule was and how to manage their schedule. But I had to really stretch myself to go out and jump rope with them or to sit down and play with blocks. Because that's not where I naturally excel. And I really had to stretch myself in that. 

So I think that the place that we can maybe go one way or the other is often the place that we're most comfortable in. But relationships, whether it's work or home, they need a balance from us.

I think one of the best things we can do is pay attention to the places that maybe we aren't naturally drawn to but that we can grow, we can be stretched, and then we can be probably a little bit more rounded of a person in whatever profession it is that we're dealing with. [00:22:05] 

Laura Dugger: What are the dangers of expecting our kids to be perfect?

Jill Savage: Well, probably the biggest danger is that our kids will get to the place where they will throw their hands up in the air and say, "You know what, I can't make her happy. Nothing I do can make her happy." 

Or it can be, as Dr. Kathy Cook and I talked about in our book No More Perfect Kids, our kids can begin to throw their hands up and say, "You know what, I don't feel like my parents love me. They only love me when I do things their way." And that becomes conditional love. 

I think that oftentimes, especially when we are stretched thin, we don't have a lot of margin or capacity for differences. We don't have a lot of margin or capacity for kids doing things at their own pace. And that's when perfectionism or at least the feeling of having unrealistic expectations of our kids can creep in there, and we can actually send wrong messages to our kids. [00:23:11] 

Laura Dugger: What are some of the underlying reasons that we have this expectation?

Jill Savage: Well, it goes back to perfectionism on our part. How many of us have said, at your age? And then if we've really thought about it, they are. I think oftentimes our expectations are unrealistic. They're off the charts. We really have to evaluate those expectations and recognize that we are expecting some pretty unrealistic things out of our kids. That is a gift. If we can have realistic expectations of our kids, that's a gift that we can give to them because then they feel accepted, valued, encouraged, and they don't feel like they're constantly disappointing us.

Laura Dugger: I want to pick your brain here. How can we proactively lead our children rather than reactively respond to their misbehavior? [00:24:14] 

Jill Savage: I think as parents, one of the places that we so easily miss the boat is to recognize that we are a leader. We are a leader. A lot of us would say, I'm not a leader at all. Well, if you have children, you are. Because they're following you. The question is, are you giving them something to follow?

The first place is in our own mindset. Am I thinking of myself as a leader? The second would be that we need to proactively give our kids direction rather than react to what they do when they don't have direction.

Let me give you an example of a place, especially if you have small children, this makes a difference. You're at the grocery store, and you're getting the kids out, and you're going into the grocery store. Before you get out of the car, what do you expect the children to do as it relates to the grocery cart? Are they riding in it? Are they holding onto the side? What expectation are you setting for them? [00:25:18] 

When you check out, is this a "we get candy in the grocery store aisle trip"? Or is this a "there will be no candy in the grocery store aisle trip"? 

See, if we let them know those things up front, then they're not like a pinball trying to find the boundaries that haven't been set for them. You know, it's possible that we'll have to bring them back to what we told them they needed to do. But at least we have set a direction, and we've set something to bring them back to. And that's how we lead proactively rather than reactively.

Another place that we can lead proactively is giving our kids a five-minute warning before they need to clean up, before dinner, before grandma and grandpa comes, before they have to leave a friend's house. That is leading them well. Nobody likes to just be yanked away from what they're doing, and that includes a child who's playing.

So we give them a little bit of a heads up, and we let them know, "Hey, this is coming. It's right around the corner. I want you to be ready." [00:26:25] Those are really practical ways we can lead our kids.

Laura Dugger: We've saved our most important earthly relationship for last. So why do you recommend we embrace a real-life marriage rather than expecting a perfect marriage?

Jill Savage: Well, there is no perfection on this side of heaven. It just doesn't exist. A real-life marriage is going to roll with the realities of imperfect. It's going to allow marriage to challenge us, to soften our rough edges, to grow and mature us. 

I will never forget reading years ago, Gary Thomas' book, Sacred Marriage. But the subtitle of the book was something like, What If God Gave Us Marriage Not To Make Us Happy But To Make Us Holy? 

And, man, that hit me really hard when I read that. Because, really, marriage is about learning to take the self out of the relationship and to serve each other, to give grace to one another, to allow another person to do things differently than we do, and to give the space in life for that to happen. [00:27:43] 

Marriage is a great maturer in our life. If we will let it, it has the ability to mature us in some huge ways. But if we won't let it mature us, it can also lead to some very painful places when we don't understand that we have this opportunity to grow together.

Laura Dugger: As we sum up all of these different examples, what role do you think grace plays as we hear this message?

Jill Savage: Well, we have to learn to be givers of grace. Here's what I want us to think about. If I don't learn to give grace, what am I giving in its place? I'm giving criticism. I'm giving judgment. I'm giving anger.

Those are very human ways of responding to what's going on around us. Or we can do things God's way, and we can actually give grace in a way that is a beautiful gift to those that we love. [00:28:47] And it's giving them the space to be human, the space to make mistakes, honestly, the space to be different.

Here's a beautiful place that you can recognize. If your spouse fills the dishwasher different than you do, can you give him grace and allow him to do it differently than you do? I know. I know. You can get three more dishes in there than he can. But is it worth it to go behind him and redo it? No, it's not. That's a moment where we have to give grace.

Here's what I've learned. And I'll tell you, some of us that have the most trouble giving grace are those of us that struggle with efficiency. I'll tell you, I'd be the first one to say I am an incredibly efficient person. So I think about the best way to do everything. I even think about the best way to drive across town. And I certainly think about the best way to fill the dishwasher. [00:29:48] 

But here's what I've learned. Never sacrifice your marriage on the altar of efficiency. Never. Never sacrifice your parenting and your relationship with your children on the altar of efficiency. Don't you dare go back and remake their bed after they made it! Don't you dare reload that dishwasher after your child or your husband has filled it! Don't. Because they'll see that and they'll throw up their hands and say, "You know what, it doesn't matter. I can't make mom happy anyway." You'll redo it after I do it, so why should I even do it in the first place? No. We need to give grace for things to be done differently.

Laura Dugger: Will you now just walk us through some of the resources that you have available on these topics and let our friends know where they can connect with you online?

Jill Savage: Absolutely. The best place to connect is jillsavage.org. It is a wonderful place that I hang out. [00:30:50] I have a blog. My books are there. 

Also, you can connect there to some of the marriage resources that we have and some of my book websites as well.

The No More Perfect Moms, No More Perfect Kids, No More Perfect Marriages books also have their own website at nomoreperfect.com. There are free videos. We have a lot of moms groups and small groups and churches that use that book as well as our Better Together book, which is on friendship.

And those all, the No More Perfect books and the Better Together book have free online video curriculum that moms groups and churches and small groups can use if they want to study the books together. 

So jillsavage.org is a great way to start, but they can check out nomoreperfect.com as well as bettertogetherbook.org.

Laura Dugger: Thank you. I have one final question for you today. We're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or insight, and we would love to hear, Jill, what is your savvy sauce? [00:32:00] 

Jill Savage: Stop comparing your insides to other women's outsides. It's a challenge that I think most of us have to be reminded of because we are often comparing the insides of our family to the outsides of other families. We're comparing the insides of ourselves to the outsides of other women, the insides of our marriage to the outsides of other marriages. And we have to stop that.

We have to be more vulnerable. That's part of the reason I'm very vulnerable because what that does is it lets others know that there are struggles out there. When we can compare insides to insides, we're not so different after all. So we have to stop comparing our insides to other women's outsides.

Laura Dugger: I just really appreciate all the wisdom that the Lord has filled you with, and you've documented it in so many ways through your websites and your books and on podcasts as well. So thank you very much for your time today, Jill. [00:33:00] 

Jill Savage: Thanks for having me, Laura.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:34:01] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:35:01] And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:36:05] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

219 Training Our Children in Biblical Financial Stewardship with Matt Bell

219. Training Our Children in Biblical Financial Stewardship with Matt Bell

 

Proverbs 11:24 MSG "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller."

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Questions and Topics We Cover:

1. Why do you say you relate to the prodigal son through your own financial story?

2. What are some of your favorite Scriptures that have taught you about God's opinion for how we are all invited to manage His money?

3. What are a few of your favorite ideas to teach our children as it relates to finances?

 

Matt Bell is a personal finance writer and national speaker. While serving as the managing editor at Sound Mind Investing, he has spoken at churches, universities, and conferences across the country. As the author of several books and video-based small-group studies on biblical money management, Matt has been featured in major print and broadcast media. He lives with his wife and their three children in the Louisville area.

 

Matt Bell's Website

 

Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management

 

Sound Mind Investing

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka

 

Other Related Episodes on The Savvy Sauce:

Understanding Temperaments to Improve Your Relationships Part 1 with Author and Communication Coach, Kathleen Edelman 

 

Understanding Temperaments to Improve Your Relationships Part 2 with Author and Communication Coach, Kathleen Edelman

 

Parenting All Temperaments with Jenny Boyett

 

How to Align Your Finances with Your Values with Natalie Taylor

 

Ideas for Spreading Generosity with Courtney DeFeo

 

Financial Heart Issues with Rachel Cruze

 

Patreon 3 Answering Common Financial Questions with Certified Financial Planner and Speaker, Natalie Taylor

 

Patreon 20 Personal Stories of God's Provision with Hope Ware

 

Patreon 57 Teaching our Children about Finances with Markie Castle

 

Related Articles:

 

Four Best Financial Tips I’ve Received

 

Ten Financial Questions to Ask Your Spouse

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription Below**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18] <music>

Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at Lemangm.com. 

Happy New Year! Some of you may have already set your New Year's resolutions, and maybe finances plays a role in some of your hopes and dreams for this year. If you're also interested in training your kids to be wise stewards with their relationship with money, you are going to thoroughly enjoy this chat. 

My first guest of the year is personal finance author and speaker, Matt Bell. Matt recently released a book entitled Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management. [00:01:22] 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Matt.

Matt Bell: Thanks so much, Laura. I appreciate the chance to spend some time talking with you.

Laura Dugger: Will you begin by telling us a bit more about who you are and what work you get to do?

Matt Bell: That's a great way to put it. Sure, I'd be happy to. My wife Jude and I have been married for 24 years now. We have three kids. They're 19, 17, and 15. We spent most of our time in Chicago but moved to Louisville in 2012 for me to take a job with a company called Sound Mind Investing, which is a Christian company that helps people invest. It's been around over 30 years. 

On the side, in addition to the day job, I write a blog, mattaboutmoney.com, and do some other writing and speaking. It's all about biblical money management. I just love the topic. It really is a privilege to be able to do this work.

Laura Dugger: I know you've said before that you personally relate to the prodigal son through your own financial story. [00:02:25] Will you share your journey with us?

Matt Bell: Yeah, absolutely. I like to say that it was my unintentional reenactment of the Bible's parable of the prodigal son that certainly led me to the Lord and led me to this work. I can smile about it now, but it was a challenging time.

I was in my mid-20s, and I inherited about $60,000 from an uncle who passed away. I had no idea he planned to leave me any money, so it was this huge surprise and this huge gift. 

I had great intentions with the money. I thought, "Wow, this is such a unique opportunity. I really want to use the money well." I thought if I could do anything, I would create my dream job, something I would love to do all of my days.

I took a little inventory of the things I most love to do. I love to golf, and I love to travel, so I created a newsletter for golfers who take golf vacations. For a time, it really was a dream come true. I got to play Pebble Beach and some just great courses in this country and some other countries. I was really having the time of my life. [00:03:25] 

The problem was I wasn't attracting very many paid subscribers. It didn't occur to me as a big problem because I had this huge pile of money that I thought would last forever, but it certainly didn't last forever. 

A couple of years after inheriting the money, I found myself deeply in debt. I was $20,000 in debt. I took this gift of $60,000 and turned it into negative $20,000 in two years' time because I was just so acclimated to that great life I was living and so blind to what was happening with the money. So that was a very humbling wake-up call to realize what a mess I'd made of that opportunity. 

I ended up moving home at the encouragement of my parents for about six months, which I'll always be grateful to them. That was a huge safety net they provided to me. But it was also just really discouraging and literally depressing. 

I remember looking forward to the nighttime when I could just sleep and dreading when the sun would come up in the morning and I had to face up to what I had done for another long day.

But it turned out to be this really great turning point. [00:04:26] I mean, during that difficult time, a good friend from college who had become a Christian after I left school, he reached out and wanted to get together and talk to me about matters of faith, which I was open to listening to because I trusted my friend and I was intrigued with what he had to say. And that set me on a course of starting to investigate the claims of Christ and starting to go to church and read the Bible.

After about 11 months after moving home, I finally accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, which would have been plenty to come out of that experience. That would have been quite enough. 

But the other thing is that it woke me up to my need to learn about money. After becoming a Christian, I was amazed to discover how much the Bible says on this topic. So the first church I went to turned out to have this stewardship ministry, which I had never even heard about such a thing, but I loved serving there and just was a sponge, just drinking up everything I could learn about what the Bible teaches about money. That turned into my life's work. [00:05:27] 

So it was a difficult time, challenging time, but I'm really, in the end, grateful. It was really a wonderful turning point.

Laura Dugger: Something that stands out is the Lord's kindness in that because when you were creating your dream job, part of it involved blogging and writing. And that is part of what you get to do today.

Matt Bell: Yeah, that's very true. I love taking the background in writing and all that and turning it into something a little more productive than golf. Golf is not a bad thing, but to use it this way to encourage people to see what God's Word has to say on this topic and to start to shape their finances around His Word, I love doing this.

Laura Dugger: I love how you shared that this is the experience that set you on a path to then apply biblical principles to all of your life, but especially to finances. Matt, what are some of your favorite scriptures that have taught you about God's opinion for how we're all invited to manage His money? [00:06:34] 

Matt Bell: Yeah, that's really well said. The first one that comes to mind was the first set of verses that I came across that really, to me, depicted so clearly what our relationship with God and money is to be. And that's in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30, where Jesus talks about a man going on a journey and entrusting three servants with his resources. 

The man there represents God, the servants represent us. And so God entrusts us with some of His resources to be used for His purposes and according to His principles.

I remember reading on into that story, and it says that at a certain point the master returned, and he took account of what his servants had done with what he had entrusted to them. And I remember lingering over those words for quite a while, and I realized, you know, we're accountable. We're accountable to God for how we use the resources that He generously entrusts to us.

Now, that's not a heavy burden. [00:07:34] That's something that we shouldn't be scared of or intimidated by, but we should be mindful of that. And just really grateful for the resources that He entrusts to us and the fact that He does trust us.

He gives us so much guidance in His word about how we're to manage these resources for good purposes. So that was really a great starting point for me was the parable of the talents. Then as I've gone further in my writing and speaking and thinking about this whole topic, I've come to the realization that I think people understand... they will understand the purpose of money best when they understand the purpose of their life. Because the purpose of money is best seen as a way to express the purpose of our life.

We read in God's word about what's most important. Jesus, when He was asked what's most important, He said to love God and to love people. So those are the two starting points, the two first big-picture purposes of our lives and the two first big-picture purposes of money. [00:08:34] 

And then in Ephesians 2:10 it says that God has prepared good works for us to do. And so everybody's been given certain gifts and talents and passions with which we're to make a difference with the lives we've been given. So I see those as really the three overarching purposes of our lives, love God, love people, and use our lives to make a difference in this world to honor God. And if we can shape our use of money around those three purposes, that's a great overarching orientation of money.

Laura Dugger: And to take that even further, it seems that you're passionate about taking that and passing it along to the next generation, which is also very biblical. In this book, your recent one entitled Trusted, you guide parents on ways that they can prepare their kids for a lifetime of God-honoring money management. So I'd love to know why you believe it's so important to train our children to be wise financial stewards.

Matt Bell: There are two main reasons. [00:09:34] One is that there's so much at stake here. I mean, it isn't that if we don't teach our kids about money, they won't learn. They will learn. But the consumer culture will be their teacher. 

Social media has really amplified the messages of the consumer culture. You know, it used to be when I started in this work, I was concerned about young people becoming maybe too materialistic and using money, you know, spending too much time shopping, too much time spending money, things like that.

But today there's credible research out there that links some use of social media, in particular, with things like anxiety and depression and even self-harm. And so the stakes have really gotten larger. That as the consumer culture's messages get spread out into the world and amplified, it's more than just about whether we're going to use money well or not. It's really something much deeper, much more at a heart level.

So there's a lot at stake here in helping kids know who they are in Christ, if they've placed their faith in Christ, and to live from that perspective. [00:10:36] 

The second motivating reason to have written this book is because there's so much potential here. You know, there's so much at stake here. That's kind of the negative kind of warning side of this whole conversation. But then there's the great, incredible potential. 

If we can get young people on a good, God-honoring path with money early in life, it's incredible how much that will benefit that young person's life. It'll deepen their relationship with Christ. It'll benefit greatly their relationship with their future spouse. It'll free them to make the difference with their lives that God intended for them to make. It's just there's so much incredible potential in getting kids on a good path with money early.

Laura Dugger: And you even point out that it's not a linear effect that our finances have on our lives, but it's really an exponential effect.

Matt Bell: That's right. Usually, when people think about compounding, or like you're saying, exponential returns, they think about investing. And for sure, compounding is a hugely powerful concept when it comes to investing money. [00:11:39] 

But I like to think about how it applies to all areas of finances. So if a young person really starts to get a vision around generosity, their heart is just oriented around God and serving God and loving others, and they develop some biblical practices around generosity early in life, how God could compound that young person's impact over their lifetime is incredible. 

And not just in the tangible investments they make in God-honoring causes and addressing some of the great needs of the world, but in their own life, infusing their own life with a great sense of meaning and purpose and joy as they express this generous heart that God has given them.

You think about a young person who kind of gets their relationship right with God and money early in life and how that will impact their future marriage. I mean, money is a common source of stress and struggle in marriages. And so for a young person to get those relationships with money and with God sorted out early in life has so much potential to help in those future relationships that are so important. [00:12:39] 

So it's just really exciting to think about how God could multiply the effect of a young person getting on a good path with money early in life.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor. 

Sponsor: Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi Family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago.

If you visit their dealership today, though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did, with honesty and integrity. Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle. This is why they do everything they can to make the car-buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible. 

They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple, Welcome to Sam Leman's. Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different.

I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life, and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. [00:13:46] Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you, and they appreciate your business.

Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com, or visit them on Facebook by searching for "Sam Leman Eureka". You can also call them at (309) 467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship.

Laura Dugger: Well, what are a few of your favorite tangible ideas to teach our children as it relates to finances?

Matt Bell: I mean, it really does start with identity. I know it sounds kind of abstract, like, all right, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty of using money. But it really starts with identity. And so I want our kids to understand that they are children of God. 1 John 3:1, "For what manner of love is this that God should call us His children." And yet that is who we are. 

So I want our kids to understand that their value, their worth, is not based on the brands of clothing that they wear. It's not based on where we can afford to take them on vacation. [00:14:47] It is secure in their relationship with Christ. They are fully valued, fully loved, just as they are. That's really an essential starting place that relates to money and so many other aspects of life.

But then getting kids started with something simple. A really young kid with a three-slotted piggy bank, or three envelopes, or three mason jars, where they're learning to give the first portion, learning to save the second portion, and then spending.

That framework of give, then save, then invest, then spend, and avoid the bondage of debt, as the Bible describes it, that's a really simple framework, and yet it's very rare that I find people practicing it, and it's so helpful. So to get kids on that path early with those priorities.

And by the way, as they learn to prioritize money, as they learn to allocate every dollar that comes into their life, that's a beginner's budget. The culture, again, is not thrilled about the idea of using a budget, and yet we're managers of God's resources, so we want to be intentional in the use of that money, and that whole practice of giving some, saving some, and then spending, that's a beginner's budget. [00:15:53] 

So kids can start to learn at a remarkably early age. I mean, kids about as young as around two can start to understand some kind of basic concepts around money. And so we would be wise, as parents, to start to be intentional about cultivating good habits of work around the household, a diligent work ethic, a God-honoring work ethic, learn to prioritize the uses of money, learn to spend well. There's a lot to it, so we can just kind of weave it into the rhythms of daily life. Those are some starting points of getting kids going with money in a good direction.

Laura Dugger: And I'd love to dive a little bit further into each of those, because really that's what we can do with money, give, save, and spend, and I guess part of that may include investing. But let's just go through each. So when we're training our children to give, I loved that section in your book where you elaborated on generosity. I had never heard The Message translation that you put in about Proverbs 11:24 that says, "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller." [00:17:02] 

Matt Bell: Yeah. 

Laura Dugger: Is there anything else you would want to share about that impact of training our children on giving?

Matt Bell: Sure. Yeah, there's a lot there. I mean, unfortunately, in this day and age, you've got the prosperity gospel kind of twisting that into a give-to-get sort of message, which is not at all what the Bible teaches. But the Bible does teach that our worlds do expand.

I mean, we have greater impact, and we have greater joy when we live the generous lives that we were designed to live. Kids get that more easily than an adult who maybe hasn't heard that message throughout their life. 

I heard that John Rockefeller one time, one of the wealthiest men that ever lived, he once apparently said that, I never could have tithed on my first million dollars if I hadn't tithed on my first salary, which was $1.50 a week. And I get that. I get the principle. So if you get a kid trained early that, yes, part of it is an act of obedience.

We look at the Old Testament and Leviticus where the law is taught and the tithe is introduced. [00:18:04] But then we get into the New Testament, and you see more the joy side of generosity. And there's so much secular research out there that has found that the most generous people are the happiest people.

Again, kids get that early. I think kids are naturally generous. They enjoy giving. They enjoy sharing. And so to glom onto that and to feed that and to encourage that is just a really, really good thing. 

You know, we help kids by modeling it. Hopefully we don't model the behavior where giving is kind of checking the box. I met with some young adult men, some 20-something men when I was writing the book, and all of them were raised in Christian homes, all of them saw their parents giving to the church, none of them understood why. One of them even said it seemed like his parents were just checking a box. 

We don't want that. We want to express the joy of generosity, the privilege of generosity. We want to treat generosity as an act of worship. And so for our kids to see that, that'll be a healthy part of their early training in generosity. [00:19:04] 

But then, yes, get them in the practice of it. You know, it would be better if we didn't just give them the money to give to the church or to other ministries that God puts on our hearts or their hearts. It would be good if it's money that they earned and so it's real for them, that they're choosing to take a real portion of money that's really theirs and giving that. That'll be much more tangible and much more helpful for them. 

It's one of the most beneficial things we can do for our kids is to set them up for a life of generosity because that's what God designed them to live. That'll be the most joyful, meaningful life that they can live.

Laura Dugger: And if anybody's sharing this episode with their children as a way to instruct them, will you share a story that illustrates what one of your mentors refers to as God's math?

Matt Bell: Absolutely. So there's some friends of mine in Texas and they have two daughters. They were teaching their daughters from a very young age about the priorities that we've talked about here in this conversation already of giving and then saving and then spending. [00:20:04] So they were very much in the habit of doing that but they were also very much wanting a trampoline. 

And their parents said, "Great, so we'll give you some extra chores. You can save up your money for this trampoline." And so they did. They worked really hard. They saved a lot of money. They almost had enough for the trampoline. 

But one weekend at church, they heard a missionary speak and their hearts were just captivated by his stories of the people that he was serving and the needs that he was meeting, and they wanted to be a part of it. And they ended up giving most of the money they had saved for the trampoline to this missionary to further his work.

One of the cool things, we parents, we can kind of swoop in and save the day in ways that are not very helpful with our kids. We can do that when they spend too much money. We can give them more money to spend. But we can also do that sometimes with generosity where we might be tempted to say, "Oh, honey, that's so sweet that you want to give all that money you had saved, but you worked so hard for it. Why don't you just let me handle that need and you keep using that money for the purpose you intended it for?" [00:21:06] 

But the parents, Leo and Natalie, did not do that, thankfully. They let their kids give generously toward this missionary. And wouldn't you know it, not long after that, their aunt got in touch. Their aunt knew that they had been saving for a trampoline, did not know that they had given away a lot of the money that they had saved for the trampoline. 

She was calling to say that where she worked, there was a trampoline on deep discount, and with her employee discount, they could get it for even less money. They ended up having enough money left over to buy that trampoline. 

And as the dad, Leo, said to me, he said, "You know, that's just an example of God's generosity. What a great thing to happen so young in these children's lives to see that in action.

Again, we don't give in order to get. They just unexpectedly receive this incredible blessing from God to be able to give that generously and still have the money because of these discounts that the aunt was able to provide to purchase the trampoline. [00:22:10] 

And so my longtime mentor, Dick Towner, he likes to talk about God's math. It's just the experiences like that that just make no sense in our logical minds, but God orchestrates things sometimes in such an incredible way.

Laura Dugger: I love that so much. That does illustrate the giving portion. As we move to consider the saving portion, we all hear that it is important to save. But you share a really critical reason why it's important and why it's important to teach our children. So when we cultivate that habit of saving money, what is the character trait that we're developing in our children?

Matt Bell: Right. It's a crucially important one. It's the character trait of delayed gratification, which is really a lost art in our world. But that's what saving is, basically. We're putting aside some money, we're delaying our need or our desire for something right now in order to have money for something later on.

So some of your listeners may be familiar with this, what's come to be known as the Great Marshmallow Experiment. [00:23:13] It was this experiment done at Stanford University back in the 1960s where a researcher brought 4-year-olds into a room one at a time and gave them their choice of treats, including a marshmallow, and told them that they could eat one marshmallow right now, no questions asked, no problem, or if they could wait, the researcher had to go run an errand, they were told, and if they could wait until that researcher came back, then they could have two.

Now, some of the kids couldn't wait at all. Before the researcher was even out of the room, they had gobbled up that treat. But about 30% of the kids could wait what turned out to be about 20 minutes, a long time for a 4-year-old to wait, in order to get that better reward.

One of the really interesting things about this study is they stayed in touch with these kids. So when they got into high school, they got back in touch with the kids, they talked with their teachers, their counselors, their parents, they evaluated them on a variety of traits, and they found that these kids were really different than the kids that couldn't wait. [00:24:11] 

They were better able to wait for other things, they were making better decisions, they were better at problem-solving, better at maintaining friendships, relationships. And these kids scored, on average, 200 points higher on the SAT scores than the kids that couldn't wait.

Then they followed these kids into adulthood, early adulthood, and they continued to find some remarkable differences between the kids who could wait and the kids who couldn't wait. Better health practices, again, better able to maintain relationships, just a host of other benefits. 

So we can think, oh, it's pretty cute to encourage little Johnny to put a couple of coins out of every dollar into the savings slot of the piggy bank or into the envelope, but we're teaching our kids something very, very important, and that is this character trait of delayed gratification.

Laura Dugger: So that's giving and saving, but also we want to teach our children how to spend their money and hopefully spend it wisely, or I guess also to learn those financial mistakes when the stakes are lower. [00:25:14] But you share kind of a surprising definition of what it means to consume. So can you share both the definition of consume and how we can train our children to spend wisely?

Matt Bell: Yeah. That's one of the really... So back to the whole idea of identity, our culture calls us consumers. And if you look at the definition, I think you'd be a little offended. I mean, we hear the term so often that we don't even really give it a second thought. But if you look it up, it means to waste, to squander these ways of using money that are not at all what it would be to be a steward of God's resources as the Bible teaches us that we are. 

We're managers of God's resources. We're not in life in order to squander and to use up and to waste all that God has entrusted to us. We're to manage those resources well. And there are so many ways we can teach our kids to spend money well. 

I mean, one of the ways is by being intentional, by living within their means. That might sound kind of silly. If your kid has a dollar-a-week allowance, like, what do you mean, spend within their means? [00:26:16] That's such a small amount of money, but seriously, if they give some, if they save some, and then there's a framework that a lot of adults use of 10-10-80. Give 10%, save 10%, and then spend 80%, but with kids, I like it to be something more like 10-50-40. Save a large amount because kids can afford to save a large amount and then spend 40. 

But even 40% or 80% of a dollar, that's not much money, but yet we can help our kids learn to live within their means at a very young age by, if they go to the store with us and they want to buy some stickers and they spend their entire spending portion for the week and then they want to buy something else, we would do them the greatest favor by lovingly, warmly, kindly saying, No, I'm sorry, but you've got to wait until next week when you have more to be able to spend. So that's one really important early lesson. 

But then there are so many aspects of spending well. We can show our kids how we compare us in shop, how we compare prices in the store, we're at the grocery store. And they've made it easy for us now. [00:27:16] Now we can see the cost per count or the cost per ounce, and so we can show our kids.

So I think a lot of teaching kids about money in these really practical ways is just including them in the conversation as we're out in the real world making real decisions with real money. Just help our kids see. Sometimes we just do these things.

It's faster maybe, it's easier if we can just scoot on and get it done. But if we can fold them into the conversation and show them what we're doing, we're going to teach them some really good habits around money.

Laura Dugger: Do you have any other practical tips for how we can implement these ideals into parenting?

Matt Bell: Sure. I mean, there's one that I just love that I learned from a woman named Mary Hunt who has written quite a few books about money. She talks about this idea that I just think is brilliant. We want to make money real for kids. We don't want it to be too abstract for them. 

So the idea is that oftentimes kids will have some spending money, but if we can give them more responsibility over time as they get older for more and more spending categories, that would be a good thing. [00:28:20] 

For example, we can give them responsibility for their clothing budget, probably as young as age 8 or 9. So if we're budgeting our household budget of $25 per kid per month for clothing, we can start to... this is what we've done. We've given our kids that money in cash, they put it in an envelope for clothing, they take it with them to the store, and now they're making real decisions. 

I mean, it used to be that we would shop with them and they would still be making their own decisions about what they wanted, and they kind of knew big picture what the limit was, but it's much more real, it's much more tangible if they have the actual money in hand and now they're having to make some real trade-offs. Is it going to be one pair of designer jeans or two pair of not-so-designer jeans? And we're going to have to live within our means because I'm looking in the envelope and there's only what there is in there and no more. 

So if we can give our kids more and more real responsibility for these real spending categories over time, that'll really, really benefit them a lot. [00:29:19] 

Laura Dugger: There is an exciting project taking place behind the scenes right now, and I would love to invite you to participate. I will give you more details as I'm able, but for now, here's my request. Will you email me your personal story of a specific way God has clearly shown up in your life?

Big or small, I want to hear an account of the way He made Himself known to you and maybe received credit for an answered prayer, or a way He worked out a situation in a miraculous way, or how He displayed His power in your life. There's no limit to the type of story to submit, as long as it's true. So please email me your story at this email address, info@thesavvysauce.com. I can't wait to read your story. Thanks for sharing. 

Do you also have any examples from your parenting that have really stuck with your kids over the years?

Matt Bell: Yeah. I mean, there's so many to draw from. [00:30:20] I mean, I kind of see our household as this living laboratory. And I don't think I've damaged the kids too badly by seeing it that way. But it's just really opened my eyes to the fact that kids can learn more about money at a younger age than we might have assumed. 

And we should be open about teaching both the really kind of good lessons, happy lessons that are fun to learn, like generosity, but also some lessons that are a little tougher to learn and tougher for us parents to teach. And that really has to do with the consequences of bad choices or the consequences of mistakes or accidents. That's, again, the real world. We want our kids living in the real world.

I remember a time when one of our kids was pretty young and in the kitchen swinging a large cardboard tube around the kitchen, and we asked him to stop more than once, and he did not stop. He ended up knocking a glass of water over onto a computer, and it led to a very expensive repair for this computer.

Now, we could have just swooped in and saved the day and said, "that's not a great thing to do" and had a strong talk with him but covered the cost ourselves. [00:31:27] But we did not do that. We had him cover, I think it was about half the cost. 

I mean, basically, we were giving our kids a small allowance at the time, and that ended his allowance a year earlier than it would have ended otherwise, and it pretty much drained his savings account at that time to be responsible and take responsibility for that mistake.

He didn't try to do it. He didn't intend to do it. But in the real world, things like that happen, and so we wanted our kids to learn about the consequences. So, you know, there was grace. We certainly shared in the cost of it and all of that, but we felt like it was important for him to take some responsibility for it as well.

Laura Dugger: So you mentioned the word grace. I have to share that as I was reading one of your sections, you were just elaborating on exactly what compounding interest is. And when I really stopped to consider it, when it's earning interest on interest, to me, that is an expression of grace. Even as we're training our young children about compounding interest, how can we verbalize and explain this to them? [00:32:37] 

Matt Bell: Yeah, it's incredible. Again, I like applying it to all areas of money, from generosity to spending well to just having a real grateful attitude about money. There's so many ways, so many really beneficial things that can compound in incredible ways. But if we take it down to the most common example of investing money, $100 a month, if you stuffed that under your mattress every month and you just did that for 50 years, you'd end up with $60,000. That's $100 a month turning into $200, turning into $300. It's growing in this kind of straight-line, linear fashion. 

But if you invested that money, did something more productive with that money, and if you were able to invest it in the way that got the U.S. stock market's average annual return of about 10%, in 50 years, you would have invested that $60,000, but it would have turned into something like $1.7 million. Now, that's incredible. 

Because it's the idea that if you get a return on money... if you invest $100 and you get a 10% return, then the next year you've got $110. But if you do that another year after that, you don't just have another $10, you have another $11, because not only did the original 100 earn 10%, but now the return you got last year, that dollar earned 10% as well. [00:33:56] It sounds like a little thing in a short amount of time, but over a long period of time, it's an incredible thing. That's one of the reasons. 

In a really tangible, nitty-gritty, just purely financial sort of way, I like to encourage parents to teach their kids about investing at a young age, because the Bible teaches us that we have a responsibility to provide for our families. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, "Whoever does not provide for his relatives, and especially his immediate family, has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." That's during the years that we're working, and in our later years, when maybe for health reasons, or other reasons, maybe we're not going to be working for pay anymore, we need to have some money in reserve that we've been investing over the long period to provide for our families in the long haul. 

One of the examples I use in the book, and some of these numbers are... they're not cast in stone, it's just an example. But if a kid could have $2,000 or $3,000 saved up by the time they're 16 to 18, if they never added another penny to that money, but they invested it aggressively as they can because they have time, then by the time they're 70, which will be a pretty typical retirement age by that point, they could have well over a million dollars. [00:35:08] 

And that isn't about getting wealthy for the sake of getting wealthy, that's about being a good steward, and having money saved up for providing for your family in your later years. So kids have this tremendous opportunity. I really encourage people to encourage their kids and teach their kids how to take advantage of that opportunity starting at a very young age.

Laura Dugger: It's so motivating to teach them when you lay it out that way and you see how well this will not only benefit them but others that they can bless with it as well. But something else that significantly impacts our children is our marriage. So what have you learned about the impact financial management has on the marriage?

Matt Bell: There's so much. I mean, it's a pretty common issue between husbands and wives, and that is one of the really exciting things about getting a young child on a good path with money early because you start to envision the quality and the joy of their future marriage. [00:36:07] 

So the research I've read says that if one spouse thinks that their spouse handles money foolishly, that not only decreases marital satisfaction, that's intuitive, but it actually significantly increases the chances of divorce.

So using a budget, as nitty-gritty as that tool sounds like, it can have a huge benefit on a person's marriage because now we've got a tool that we're using to be proactive and intentional about managing money well. So there are a lot of things. 

You know, this whole generosity piece, sometimes a man and woman come together in their 20s or 30s, and they've got some different habits and practices around generosity, and they have disagreements about that. So it's just easier if a kid gets on this good path early in life and orients not only their practices around money, but their perspectives about money in a biblical sort of way.

Laura Dugger: I love it. This is a money management and parenting tool about being wise stewards and teaching our children how to do that. [00:37:06] But there's so much more where you get to the heart issues and talk about other topics that we may not connect to money at first glance, but they were really helpful.

And one of them I'm thinking of, on page 49, you write, "I'm convinced that one of the greatest ways we can express love to our kids is to set a good example in the use of technology." So will you elaborate on that, Matt?

Matt Bell: Yeah, for sure. Social media has really become a significant force in our culture. I don't think social media is inherently bad, but I think that many ways that it gets used can be very damaging to a person, to their sense of self, to their sense of satisfaction, to their joy. 

And so we want to teach our kids about the proper use of social media. We want to set some healthy boundaries. In the book, I talk about these three roles that encourage parents to embrace. The role of the gatekeeper is one of them, then the teacher, and then the role model. [00:38:06] 

And the gatekeeper for kids around this topic would be to decide between spouses, when will we allow, will we allow, and if so, when will we allow the use of social media? When will we allow the use of screens? And to set up some rules in the household about the use of screens.

In our household, when each of our kids has gotten a device, a phone, it's come with a three-page contract. And people can download that off my website, and they can customize it to meet their needs as well. I looked at a lot of different contracts that I've seen, and we shaped it together, my wife and I, to create a document that we felt good about. 

But we want our kids to be intentional in their use of screens. It may not come to them naturally, so that's where some of the rules and regs get set up. 

I like the idea of screen-free zones in the household. So the dining room is a screen-free zone, bathrooms are screen-free zones. We don't allow computers or TVs to be kept in a room overnight. When people are using screens, the screen needs to be visible to other people so that there's accountability and transparency in those sorts of things. [00:39:16] 

There's a great documentary out there called The Social Dilemma that we watched with our kids. I think when a kid is about age 12 or so, you could watch this documentary with your kids. And you hear from some of these people who've worked for social media platforms talking about some of the dangers and some of the decisions they've made in their own families about setting up some rules and regs around screen time and social media use. Our kids saw that, and we already have rules and regs, and yet they created some new self-imposed rules and regs, which was pretty interesting coming out of that movie. 

As you were talking about, really your question was about being a good role model, you know, sometimes we can talk a mean game and we can set up the rules, but then our kids are watching, and they're paying attention to what we're doing. Are we spending too much time on screens? Do we have some rules that we're following of when are screens off for the night, and are we building in some intentional family time that's just about conversations and it's not about a screen? That would be a healthy thing to model for our kids. [00:40:17] 

Laura Dugger: Well, and one other unique angle that you take is talking about why it's important to learn about our own temperament and also our children's temperaments when it comes to handling money. Can you elaborate on that as well?

Matt Bell: Sure. Temperament's a fascinating thing. I mean, when you figure out your temperament, it's as if somebody's been following you around all your life and they've described you. It's amazing. And everybody has it. It's God-given. We're wired up a certain way.

There are different temperament ways of analyzing temperaments out there, but the most basic one divides up temperaments into four different classifications. So the choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy, and they all come with certain natural money management strengths and some natural money management weaknesses.

So for us to learn our own temperament, and people have a primary and a secondary that sometimes shows up in different circumstances, but it's just a really helpful, powerful thing because it can start to lessen some of the arguments that we might have with our spouse around money now that we've got some empathy to see where they're coming from and vice versa. [00:41:30] And we can start to identify this in our kids. When they're arguably a teen or an early teenager, we can have them go through. 

There's a list of characteristics on my website people can download, and they can check off which ones they relate to, and the one with the most checkmarks will be their primary, and the one with the second most checkmarks will be their secondary. And we can talk about it. 

There's some ideas in the book about how does somebody with this temperament tend to come at money? You know, choleric tends to be kind of the hard-charging, type A sort of person. And they, from a marriage standpoint, can kind of run ahead of a spouse and make decisions on their own. And so they need to caution themselves about that.

By the same token, they're great at accomplishing goals. If you're trying to get out of debt, set a choleric loose with that goal because they're really good at accomplishing goals. But again, each temperament has certain strengths and certain weaknesses.

The melancholy, for example, tends to take to the use of a budget much more naturally than other temperaments. Certainly the sanguine. The sanguine is more the life-of-the-party, outgoing sort of person. [00:42:31] They've got no time for budgeting, but they can use the envelope system, the biggest-picture sort of approach to using a budget. 

So it's just a really helpful set of insights that comes from learning your temperament and helping our kids understand how God has naturally wired them up.

Laura Dugger: And just to go into a few more of those, so the sanguine, I loved, you quoted Tim LaHaye that says, "I've never met a sanguine accountant."

Matt Bell: Right, exactly. We're thankful for the temperament types that are drawn to accounting and to some of these more technical professions. But that's right. Again, these are not good or bad. These are just how God has wired us up. And so to gain some insight into that. 

I tend to make decisions kind of quickly. And my wife tends to, if we go out to eat to a restaurant, she likes to see her options. I tend to be a little bit more boring. I'll see the first thing I'm interested in, and I'm ready to move on and make that decision.

But we can gain empathy for each other, and we can gain a much greater sense of teamwork by understanding this is how God has gifted this person, how God has wired them up in this wonderful way, and appreciate the strengths that come with that temperament, and then by the same token, work around some of the weaknesses. [00:43:44] 

So, as I said, the sanguine is not going to love the budget, but the sanguine should be involved with the budgeting process with their non-sanguine spouse. God tends to bring people with different temperaments together, thankfully.

And so it's just a wonderful insight and gives you some new structure to be able to work together on this crazy thing called money management.

Laura Dugger: Yes. I identify with the sanguine temperament myself. That's why it's easy to poke fun at it. But also a tip for me, I now love and embrace our budget because it ultimately leads to more freedom.

Matt Bell: Yeah.

Laura Dugger: And I think it's been really helpful to have some categories that are saved to spend so that you have that big picture to look forward to. But we also didn't cover phlegmatic. There were just a few points I'd love to draw out where you write, "If you're a phlegmatic, you may benefit from working with an investment advisor who will drive decisions." I thought that was really practical. [00:44:44] 

Matt Bell: Yeah. Phlegmatics are really... they're kind of a steady-as-you-go sort of person. You know, great. They're going to show up on time at work and they're going to be there for you and that sort of thing. And they're really good researchers when it comes to some sort of financial decision. They're great at researching the decision, but they're kind of slow at pulling the trigger. So, right. 

So we can learn from that and we can surround ourselves with some structure that'll help us in areas where we might need a little bit of help. And so, as you said, maybe working with a financial advisor who can steer some decisions and drive some decisions. That would be the better part of wisdom to say, "Hey, I'm just going to be slow at this. I might not ever get to it. So I'd rather have somebody in my life that is going to get to this for me."

Laura Dugger: And with each of those temperaments, you kind of link different Bible verses as well. I'll just read the one for the phlegmatic from Ecclesiastes 11:4. And you have it in the translation TLB where it says, "If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."[00:45:45] 

Matt Bell: It's so true. It's great to draw encouragement from scripture and to love the idea of memorizing scripture, love the idea of meditating on God's word. And so if each temperament comes with certain inherent strengths and weaknesses, and if we can use scripture to be an encouragement to maybe overcome some of these inherent weaknesses, that's the best possible motivation.

Laura Dugger: Absolutely. I think this whole conversation is a great way to help disciple our children, even if we want to listen alongside them if we're driving together. I'll link to a few other episodes we've done, some temperament episodes, even temperaments in parenting that might pair nicely with this topic. 

But Matt, also, if anybody wants to follow you or learn more from you after this chat, where would you like to direct them?

Matt Bell: Sure. There's a few different places. I would suggest my own website, which is mattaboutmoney.com. There's a lot of free resources there and a lot of articles there that'll be hopefully an encouragement and a help to people. [00:46:44] 

My day job is Sound Mind Investing. There's a lot of free resources and articles there, more specifically about investing. It's an overtly Christian organization that teaches biblical principles and helps people in some really practical ways around investing. 

And then, I mean, the new book. I feel like it was a gift from God that this opportunity to write this book came along and to partner with Focus on the Family. And writing it was a gift as well. So you can find the book on Amazon. You can find it on christianbook.com and other sites where you might buy books. But the book is called Trusted: Preparing Your Kids for a Lifetime of God-Honoring Money Management.

But what I did with the book is I designed it so that the first part of each really practical chapter is written to parents because I think we can all continue to learn about money. And so it's written for parents to learn how to apply these biblical principles to their own lives. And then the next half of each of those really practical chapters is filled with ideas of how to bring these principles and these ideas to our kids.[00:47:43] 

Laura Dugger: We will certainly link to all of this in the episode's show notes for today. And you may be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so it's my final question for you today, Matt. What is your savvy sauce?

Matt Bell: I love that question. I would say that, you know, when people think about, oh, here's this idea about now I need to teach my kids about money, it feels like one more thing. It feels like... you know, no parent has extra margin, extra time on their hands.

And so the savvy sauce that I would suggest is to just weave your kids into the conversation about money through the rhythms of natural daily life. Because we're all making so many financial decisions. We don't even realize probably until we stop and really think about it. We make so many financial decisions every day. And if we can just bring our kids into the conversation. 

So I might be updating our online budget. And if one of our kids is nearby, I'll just bring them in and say, hey, you know, I'm checking to see how we're doing on our grocery spending this month. [00:48:46] If we're a little bit over, we'll make it up next month and that sort of thing. 

Or if we're at the grocery store, we're teaching our kids, you know, we're using a list or modeling that for them. And then we're being intentional about getting the best deals for the food that is healthy and good for our family. If we're driving in the car, we can talk about I recently got an oil change and tires rotate in the car. We talk about, hey, we're stewarding God's resources. This car is a gift from God to take care of it. I want you to know that we take it into the shop on a regular basis to keep it in good shape. And part of that is oil change and tire rotation. And here's about what that costs.

So, you know, the big picture, the short answer to your question is just start to talk to your kids about practical things you're doing with money and you'll be amazed at how much you can teach them just in the rhythms of everyday life.

Laura Dugger: Well, Matt, I very much enjoyed your book and we've begun implementing some of these principles within our own home. 

Matt Bell: Awesome. 

Laura Dugger: So I want to personally thank you for investing in our family and also just say thank you for being my guest. [00:49:52] 

Matt Bell: Thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate what you do. I appreciate the chance to talk with you.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:50:57] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:51:56] And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:52:59] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

218 Secrets of Sex and Marriage: An Interview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

*DISCLAIMER* This episode is intended for adults

 

218. Secrets of Sex and Marriage: An Interview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

 

Micah 6:8 (NIV) "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Questions and Topics We Cover:

1. Will you share a few practical sexual education tips with us?

2. What are the best ways spouses can practice communicating well about sex and what are the potential benefits?

3. How does "desire tend to work differently for men and women"?

 

Dr. Michael Sytsma is a certified sex therapist, ordained minister, and co-founder of sexual wholeness.  Dr. Mike has been working with couples in a variety of capacities since 1987. He currently works with Building Intimate Marriages in Atlanta, GA as he meets with clients, teaches, and speaks at various conferences. He and Karen have been married since 1985 and have two sons, Josiah and Caleb, and one daughter-in-law.

 

Secrets of Sex and Marriage Website

 

Building Intimate Marriages Website

 

Previous Episodes with Dr. Mike:

Ten Common Questions About Sex, Shared Through a Biblical Worldview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

 

Enjoying a God-Honoring, Healthy Sex Life with Your Spouse with Certified Sex Therapist and Ordained Minister, Dr. Michael Sytsma

 

Desire Discrepancy in Marriage with Dr. Michael Sytsma

 

Patreon 29 Remaining Sexually Engaged Through The Years with Dr. Michael Sytsma

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Leman Property Management Company

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Donate to Savvy Sauce Charities here!

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

Laura Dugger: Hey friends! This is our final episode of 2023 and I want to share some exciting news with you. It has been a dream to launch a non-profit to resource people so that they're inspired to grow in intimacy with God and others. Well, this dream officially became a new non-profit this year called Savvy Sauce Charities.

Beginning January 1st, The Savvy Sauce podcast will now be under the umbrella of Savvy Sauce Charities. And here are just a few changes to explain what that means. 

First, we're no longer going to have a Patreon option. If you want to support the podcast and all the work that we're doing at Savvy Sauce Charities, I encourage you to still visit our website, thesavvysauce.com, and under the "More" drop-down tab, you're going to find the option to donate. It lists our official name and tax ID number so that you can make a donation that is now tax deductible. We are so grateful for your contribution.

And if this podcast has ever added any value to your life, I hope you consider sharing your finances with us so that we can continue sharing our resources with you. Your donations are now tax deductible and our team is so grateful for your consideration and contribution. So I look forward to meeting you back here on January 1st and until then, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. 

 

[00:01:36] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:01:53] <music>

Laura Dugger: Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message.

Leman Property Management Company has the apartment you will be able to call home with over 1,700 apartment units available in Central Illinois. Visit them today at Lemanproperties.com or connect with them on Facebook. 

Dr. Michael Sytsma is my returning guest today. His episodes are some of our most downloaded because he approaches the topic of sexual intimacy and marriage with such care, gentleness, and knowledge and today is no exception. 

He recently co-authored the book, Secrets of Sex and Marriage, with Shaunti Feldhahn and now he's going to provide some insight into their research and findings from this beneficial resource. [00:02:54] 

Here's our chat.

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Mike.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Well, thank you. It's such an honor to be with you. This is always so much fun.

Laura Dugger: I just want to begin by saying you are an excellent author. Why did you strive for much of your career to not do this type of work in book form?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think there are a lot of reasons for that, Laura. Part of it is it's a lot of work to write this way. I'm a slow writer too. Shaunti was great in keeping me focused and languaging a lot of it. We spent hours and hours and hours with me talking through the principles and then her distilling them and writing them. So much time.

The other thing is there's some great stuff out there. You know, Cliff and Joyce Penner's book on Married Guy's Guide to Great Sex, I just think is... I told them once, yeah, nobody can do better than that. Why would I even try? There's such good stuff out there. [00:03:52] 

And then I think it took me listening to tens of thousands of hours of stories before I felt like I had the credibility to say something that wasn't already out there. So just a number of reasons. But it's been an amazing project.

Laura Dugger: And what would you say was the most enjoyable part of this project for you?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Well, you know me, I'm a little bit of an academic nerd at times. Just the research, you know, to dig into the numbers and to see what people are saying that they don't know they're saying. We had 502 matched pair samples. So 502 couples where both the husband and wife answer anonymously, but we're able to pair them up to know who's married to who.

So I can ask, how often do you think your wife wants to have sex? And then I can ask the wife, how often do you actually want to have sex? And we can then compare to see how far apart they are. We're asking that of the wives, too: What do you think of your husband? [00:04:54] 

And to see just how radically different couples are at times and how they misperceive each other, that's fascinating. And then the surprises. I've always taught that couples that have more kids have less frequent sex. And that is way not what the data told us. I even ran it three times. I went all the way back to the beginning and redid all of the calculations because I kept looking at it going, "This is wrong. This is not true." 

But it was so dramatic to see the couples that are three or more kids, which I know you don't know anybody like that, you know, their frequency versus the couples that have no kids, a huge number of sexist couples in that category.

And when you come across those kind of surprises, that's the cool part of doing this type of work, I think, to be able to say, well, maybe things aren't what we've been saying. Maybe things aren't what we thought they were.

Laura Dugger: And I love that you are just a lifelong learner and an excellent teacher. [00:05:54] I know that there's a lot that we can cover when it comes to sexual education. But I think it would be helpful to have you share a few of the actionable ideas that you mentioned throughout your book. So will you just share a few of those practical tips with us now?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think the first one that comes to mind, Laura, is a big picture issue that the last couple of years I've been spending more and more time on just seeing the value of it. You know, great marriage, great sex happens not from our skills and our technique, but happens from our heart. And what kind of a heart that we have toward ourself, toward our spouse, toward our marriage.

I keep spending more and more time talking about the value of seduction. My assertion is that in dating, we present our best self, because we're trying to woo, trying to draw, trying to seduce the other into wanting to be with us, into liking to be with us. Getting hooked on us. [00:06:55] And so we're always showing up as our best. I like to talk about that as seduction. 

Part of the principle of seduction is it has to be two-way. It doesn't matter how hard somebody tries to seduce another individual. If we're not receptive to it, we can't be seduced. So early in that dating, we're working to be our best to seduce the other. And then our future spouse receives that seduction and they warm up to it and they allow it to touch their heart. 

Sometime shortly after the wedding, we tend to stop doing that. "Well, this is who I am. It's who you married. Deal with it." Or we close our heart to the other. What you're trying to do to touch my heart, I no longer let it touch my heart because I'm hurt or I'm wounded or I'm angry. I'm punishing you. I'm doing passive-aggressive stuff, whatever. I no longer let the things that used to touch me truly matter. 

And so I spent time helping couples to think through how can you be seductive to each other and then how can you receive that seduction and allow this space between you to be a wooing space, a drawing space. [00:08:06] 

So I think my first practical would be that heart issue of how do we not act seductively, but how do we live seductively? How do we make sure that everything we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed is presenting our best self, not a false self, but our best self towards our spouse?

Laura Dugger: Then I even think of the research that you've done on a chemical level. So will you share the chemical reasons why couples who engage less are going to desire it less? And if they engage in sexual activity with each other more, they're going to desire it more.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Some of this is still in process in the biochemical field as we're looking at how does some of that play out. As we're talking about this, we're on early edge of stuff that down the road we might go, that's not quite exactly how we expected it to be. [00:09:05] 

But we do tend to see that the law of thermodynamics... Dr. Rosenau used to talk about this. You put energy into something and it grows and you stop putting energy into it and it's going to die. I see so many times couples that intentionally actively work on growing any arena of their marriage, whether it's, you know, we're going to be better parents for a while, or we're going to really work on our finances and budget things or get a good savings going, or we're going to really work on our spiritual life. As we put energy into it, it grows. And it's no different with our sexual life.

I sometimes more so there because as a guy engages in sexual activity, not only is that often prompted by or fueled by our testosterone level, but then it increases our testosterone level. And we believe that there's very likely a cyclical loop that goes on, that the more we're engaging in it, the more it's produced in our system, and the more we desire it, so the more energy we have for it. [00:10:09] 

It doesn't always work quite that cleanly for women. There tends to be another cycle that's often engaged. We think that much the same process works there though, that as we get into the habit, as it were, that it begins to be self-fueling, self-fulfilling, easy for both of those to get disrupted and to fall back. And we have to intentionally put energy back into it again. But if we ignore it for a while, it tends to spin down. And the more we ignore it, the more energy it takes to get it spun back up. 

And couples come into my office who have neglected or because of wounding have stepped away from it, or there's been reasons that they haven't been pouring energy into the sexual part of the relationship. It takes so much energy to get it started back up. But once it gets started, it tends to run without very much energy and it doesn't take too much to even spin it up a little bit more. [00:11:07] 

So yeah, we think there is some biochemical aspect that's going on there as well as just the relationship and the thought process. And maybe some spiritual energy that's coming into it as well.

Laura Dugger: That's good. It makes me think my husband loves to play golf and he will talk about improving his golf swing would be with a swing thought. So just clearing everything and thinking of one thing. So it's making me think of swing thoughts that you've taught me for when I was preparing to see my own clients. 

And you and Dr. Doug and Deborah Taylor would all kind of summarize that as a swing thought to remember where you say a sex life in motion stays in motion and a sex life at rest stays at rest.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Dies. Yes. That is very true. The example that you just gave, as he is focusing in on one aspect of this far broader, larger game that he's thinking, you know, if I could improve this one aspect, it's going to spill into other areas. [00:12:15] 

And doing the same thing with couples. What's an arena that they just don't do real well with? And can they spend a month just attending to it? You know, my favorite is to help couples attend to what I call the reflection stage, you know, that post climax as they hopefully lay there together and connect. That is an easy one for couples to neglect. And to invite them to take an entire month just to drink that in, to figure out what they like during that. 

It may be five minutes, it may be 30 minutes. I've had one wife say it needs to be 24 hours, but whatever they agree to, to how do we enrich this part of our connecting, so it's not just this abrupt end? Okay, we've hit the climax and now I'll roll over and go to sleep and you go back to whatever you were doing. But we drink and we bask in that moment.

Laura Dugger: I'd love to read one of your quotes. [00:13:15] You write, "We must take it seriously that a spouse who is unhappy about how often they have sex is 10 times more likely to also be unhappy in marriage."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: That's huge impact there, isn't it? We found several places that the numbers were just massive like that. Now, of course, we can't tell a couple if you go have sex more often then you're going to have a better marriage. No more than we can say, you know, if you have a better marriage, nobody's going to be dissatisfied with the sexual frequency. 

It may be that there's a tertiary issue going on that's causing both of those. But to see them that highly linked gives us at least some clues. If your spouse isn't happy with the frequency, then they're probably not going to be happy with the marriage. So that's one arena that we could work on the swing to help the overall game of the marriage. [00:14:18] 

Laura Dugger: Sometimes I understand as a counselor being hesitant to write certain things because I know your heart is to make this a safe conversation. And so I don't want to get you in trouble with this next quote, but I love how you just clearly state "for multiple reasons, I encourage most couples to try to keep their engagement at once a week or more."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Yeah, exactly what you're saying. You wrestle with how to say because there are so many reasons why that might not fit for a couple. And we say in the beginning, I write that early preface that says, if this isn't for you, please don't be wounded by it.

But that comes out of my clinical experience, Laura, as I watch couples, couples that tend to be intentional and make sure that this arena of their marriage is important, about once a week tends to keep a fairly healthy balance moving forward. When they drop to every 10 days, it's pretty easy for them to drop to every other week. [00:15:20] And once they drop to every other week, they start losing track. And then it drops to once a month. And once it hits once a month, now we're down to once every three months. And now we're into a sexless marriage and feelings get hurt and it's tough to talk about it. We blow up every time it's addressed. So couples just ignore the subject and then it dies. 

If I see them having a weekly engagement, that tends to keep it at a minimal level of satisfaction, especially if there's... I work with several couples where one is an entrepreneur and they're in the midst of starting a new project. And it just is all consuming for a period of time. But if they are still intentional and connecting weekly, it seems like it draws the couple back together. 

That being said, couples that have sex slightly over two times a week tend to be a lot happier in their marriage. But that often gets more difficult for couples to pull off, even in an intentional way and it starts to move into duty and responsibility and have-tos, which can kill a sex life very quickly too. [00:16:32] Where it seems like about once a week people can do and feel good about and not feel onerous. And that is a goal.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

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Laura Dugger: Differences in desired frequency is a common topic that couples can experience some frustration over in marriage. But what leads to both individuals in the marriage being happy with their frequency of sex?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I want to go back to your question. Not only is it frequent, but more than half of the couples, this is an area of intense conflict. In my dissertation, this was the topic of my doctoral dissertation, and half of the couples experience clinical level of distress because of the desired discrepancy. So to say this is common, it is extremely common and very painful for a lot of couples. 

My major professor in the child development courses in my PhD used to assert that the best parents were radically divergent. The best parents had very different ideas of parenting. [00:19:36] One was going to be very nurturing and the other one was going to be very…. almost authoritarian. And he said, "But it's not the difference that is powerful. It's that they accept influence from each other. And when they approach it from a radically different perspective, and then they accept influence from each other," he said, "what comes out of that is really powerful for the child." And I love that imagery. 

And much of the time, it's the same thing, that a higher drive spouse steps in and they pour energy into it. They're thinking about it. They're wanting it to happen. They enjoy it. The lower energy spouse don't have as much energy, but if they can accept the influence of the higher drive, higher desire, initiating desire individual, it helps to add the energy up. 

The receptive desire or the lower desire person, those aren't always the same, but as two different categories, they're often pointing out there's a couple of things that need to happen for the physical connection to be rich, to be good. [00:20:41] "I need you to touch my heart more. I need to feel like you care for me, not just for my body. I need you to stop screaming and being critical outside of the bedroom so I feel like I want to connect with you." They're often asking for another really critical part of the sexual connection.

If the initiating and/or the more higher desire drive spouse can accept the influence that, yeah, I need to do a better job of laying the foundation or creating a setting that is rich for our sex life, it's going to do better. I think when couples come in with a differing perspective, it can actually be very good for the couple. If they talk about it, if they're curious and open to each other, if they work on being seductive with each other, if they accept influence from each other's perspective, they can find a middle ground that is rich for both of them.

Laura Dugger: Isn't that interesting? Because at the core of that, it sounds like a character piece that each person is responsible for, whether that's self-control or character piece of coachability and humility. That is really interesting. [00:21:53] 

Dr. Michael Sytsma: It is. Sometimes it's setting myself aside for the priority of the we for the us. You know, the reason I went into sex therapy is I tell couples that even the couples that I'm working with, I don't care if you have a good sex life or not. That's not my goal. To have a great sex life requires some transformation of things that are internal to who we are. And as we learn to have a great sex life, it changes who we are. Our character does grow and develop if it's going to be healthy. So yeah, you just pointed out a core part of the whole process to me. It is about discipleship.

Laura Dugger: Even following up with... you explain so many factors in the book to elaborate as well on how couples can be happier with their frequency of sex in marriage. But there's one that you mentioned that I want to have you elaborate on when you write that it's when partners can communicate well about sex. [00:22:54] So what are the best ways that spouses can practice communicating well about sex and what are the potential benefits?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Let me go backwards on that. Let's start with the benefits. The benefits are just huge. This was another area where the impact was so great. My memory, without the numbers being in front of me, it was 6.4 times. Couples who were effectively communicating about sex in their marriage had dramatically increased frequency. They had dramatically increased satisfaction around frequency. They were far happier couples in general. Just the impact is so high.

Now, it is possible that couples that are happy with each other are more open to talking as well. So it can go both ways. But to see that huge impact. 

Learning to communicate with each other is a skill that can be developed. We don't have to just have the innate ability.[00:23:56] We can practice it. We can learn how. So it is a very tangible way that we can create change very quickly in our sex life and in our overall marriage.

Part of the design for the book is to address the question you just asked, because I wrote it continually saying, This is a book that I want couples to sit down with and read it out loud to each other, not with the goal of getting to the end of the book. Though, every time I say that, I cringe inside because I think chapter 10 is some of the richest stuff in there. So I want them to get to that. But it's not to get to the end of the book. It's to pause every couple of sentences and to talk about it.

I was talking with a couple recently, they said, "We took your challenge on." They said, "We actually do this for books on an ongoing basis. So it's pretty common for us to read a book out loud to each other and to talk about it." He said, "But usually we will read an entire section of the book and then pause and talk about it for a few minutes before we move on." He said, "There's so much in this book." He said, "We would read two sentences and we'd have a 10-minute conversation. So then we'd read the rest of the paragraph and we'd be off for another 15-minute conversation." [00:25:08] And he said, "We have learned so much about each other and thinking out loud and wrestling with it." And I love that. That's what it's about. 

For couples that don't know how to talk at all, I use lovetakeslearning.com. There are other materials out there that can teach them just basic listening skills. They may need to go back to that. But then it's just sitting down and practicing it, staying at the table, leaning in. 

When your feelings get hurt, taking a deep breath and calming yourself down. "I believe in my spouse mostly. And so we can do this, I think." And just staying present with it until they figure out how to have the experience of talking well to each other.

Laura Dugger: I love that so much because there are just endless benefits. If you can grow and becoming comfortable with talking about this, I feel like the possibilities are endless after that.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: They are. So much opens up for the couple. [00:26:09] At one level, what we're talking about just sounds so simple, Laura. But because sex is so central to our hearts, because of how society, whether that be the larger society or the society we grew up with, our family, our church community, or whatever we grew up, has a lot of messages about sex that are potentially wounding or restrictive or too unboundaried, whatever it was, we bring that into it. It's easy to get hurt, to get wounded. It's easy to get offended. And yet, if we can stay at the table and we can continually, calmly talk through it, we can find a way to really develop a rich intimacy with each other.

Laura Dugger: I hope that that offers a lot of hope to anyone listening. Dr. Mike, where are we likely to attribute incorrect motives to our spouse? And how does that negatively impact our sex lives? [00:27:12] 

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think we do it in every stage of the sex life. I've got a model. They can find it intimacymodel.com. But I've got a model that I walk couples through that gives different stages of the sexual act. I will research each of those stages. 

Couples do misattribution at every stage. Desire is a huge arena for... where I'll ask a wife, if it were totally up to you, how often would you like to engage in sex? And I'll ask the husband, how often do you think your wife wants to engage in sex? And they will be so far apart. The most common answer I get from wives is one to two times a week. And if the couple's in distress, the husband will answer never. And I point to him and say, "There's a big difference between her not ever wanting to have sex, which is what you think, and her saying she'd like to have it one to two times a week. Why do you think you guys are so far apart?" And it's because they're not talking about it. They're not communicating again. [00:28:10] 

Another one we looked at in this research, in the marital intimacy project, is we looked at orgasms and the importance of orgasms and how often a husband, what he identifies as the importance of orgasm for himself, for his wife, or how important he thinks his wife feels it is for him to have an orgasm, for her to have her own. So we've got these cross-questions going all over the place. 

Honestly, wives have men fairly well figured out in some of this, but in some of this, guys are way off in what they think their wives are thinking. And oral sex, the same thing. We looked at a lot of the questions there and what spouses think about the other and what they want and what they enjoy, often they are way off from each other. 

Of course, the more distressed the marriage, the further away they're going to be, the more poor attributions there are. Couples that are pretty happy and are communicating more, obviously we see much less misattribution. [00:29:12] But it shows up in every area, especially if a couple's not talking.

Laura Dugger: I love how you point out how understanding one another is going to be so beneficial. So when we look at men and women, there are differences. So how does desire tend to work differently for men and women?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: It does get tricky, Laura, because this is on a spectrum, and we do see... the numbers tell us that there are stereotypical differences between men and women. But I work with a huge number of couples that walk in and are the flip of the stereotype. 

So I'm always cautious every time we start talking about it to know that a quarter to a third of the audience is going to go, wait, that's not me. But if we start talking stereotypes, more commonly women are going to experience a receptive type of desire, especially a couple of years into marriage or after the first child. [00:30:12] 

Men will tend to experience more of the initiating type of desire, where they are thinking about sex more frequently and they're pursuing it more, where she's going to likely be, "I haven't thought about it in a couple of days, but if you seduce me in the right way, I'd be open to it. And once I'm open to it and I start to engage and I begin to get aroused and I am aware of the arousal and I view the arousal as positive, then the desire kicks in." And we tend to see that a bit more stereotypical for women. 

But that being said, we see a lot of older men, 55 years and older saying, No, that's me now. I sound like that today. That's how I work. So it changes sometimes with whether we want to have kids, how stressed we are in life, how fulfilled we feel in life. It may change with where we are physically. That I am in really good shape and I'm sleeping well and I'm eating healthy versus I'm under a lot of pressure and stress and I'm just not sleeping well and my diet is really poor. [00:31:21] All of those things can make a difference too.

Laura Dugger: You articulate that all so well. I'm just going to keep sprinkling in these quotes, but I love this one. You write, "In general, for men, desire leads to sex, while for women, sex leads to desire."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, to get something into a book like this, you have to be almost oversimplifying. And I really wrestled with that because it's not fully accurate, but yet it's correct. What we're thinking right now in the field, at least what many of us are thinking, is that desire follows arousal for everybody, that something turns on in our body.

Maybe it's, you know, his wife walked by getting out of the shower and he saw an image that just sparks a release of testosterone in his system. So now he's aroused and he is aware of the arousal, so he experiences the desire. [00:32:26] And so now he wants.

We've seen that for many women they're not as aware of those micro-arousals. They're not as aware of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and have their body already be in kind of a slight arousal state, or they're not aware that that smell or that voice prompts some level of arousal in my body. So then if they're not aware of it, they're not evaluating it positively, and they're not allowing it to shift into desire.

So the thinking is he experiences these micro states of arousal, assesses that the desire turns on very quickly. Then he begins to pursue sexual activity, and now the arousal truly kicks in. So it seems like he experiences desire, pursues the activity, and then has arousal.

Because she's not as aware of it, it seems like the arousal has to come first, that she's like, Yeah, I haven't thought about it in 10 days, but we could do that. As long as I get the laundry switched over and the dishes done, and, you know, the kids in bed, then we can. [00:33:34] And she begins to engage physically, and maybe her mind's not fully there yet. But as her body starts to engage and she becomes aware of it, oh, this does feel kind of, I like his attention on me. Now she's aware of the arousal and she's assessing it positively. Then we see the desire kick in. 

So for her, it seems like there needs to be some sense of arousal before the desire happens. It's not as clean as that, but that's the experience of it. And so that's why the quote is the way it is, that it almost seems to be on opposite ends for the stereotypical male and female. But some of it is the awareness of what's happening in our bodies, too.

Laura Dugger: I want to take a moment to say thank you. You are the reason our team gets to delight in this work, and we appreciate each of you so very much. If you're benefiting from the lessons learned and applied from The Savvy Sauce, would you take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts?[00:34:37] 

Five-star ratings and reviews help us reach more people around the globe, and that promotes our goal of sharing joy. So join us in that endeavor with your valuable feedback. Thanks again for being here with us.

I don't want to miss this topic as well, because this conversation has been a time of addressing healthy marriages and not destructive ones. But you also write about couples. You say, "often they have heard teaching on divorce that isn't truly biblical and I walk them through what Scripture actually says, for example, to help them see that tolerating sin is sin."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Correct.

Laura Dugger: Dr. Mike, what are other examples of what Scripture does actually have to say on this topic?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: That almost moves into a whole other podcast as we unpack some of Scripture. I think what I'm addressing there is the couples that come in, and there's a sense of demanding, a sense of "I'm owed. I deserve something. You promised something," and it is turned into a sinful degrading of the other, where we are saying, because you are doing it wrong, you are sinning, and you just need to do what I want. [00:35:55] 

I tell people, pressure rarely is seductive, as opposed to, I see Christ continually inviting. You know, of anybody who had the right to demand from us, we see Him regularly inviting people around Him. And then when somebody doesn't go along, we don't see Him demanding, we don't see Him ridiculing them. We see Him like He told His disciples to do, brush the sand off your feet and move on. 

It gets tricky when we move into marriage because He does challenge us to make a lifelong commitment and hold to that no matter what. And in doing so, if we make that commitment critical, we have to surrender aspects of us that are unhealthy and unholy.

But if our spouse is unwilling to surrender those and moves into doing harm, now there's already sin in the marriage. And we see things like, you know, in the Old Testament, He said, "If there's not protection, provision, and having sex, even the slave women could leave." [00:36:59] 

It seems like there are some rights to marriage that He acknowledges, that if there is trauma and abuse, that is not a healthy marriage. And to demand that somebody stay a part of it, to demand that somebody do what I want because you are my spouse and you have to do it that way, that's not reflective of the heart of Christ. It's not reflective of the heart of God. 

That's a bigger discussion, but I think we can argue that that is not at all scriptural marriage. Scripture gives... I see plenty of options for those couples to get out. Not that I'm giving permission to get out. My goal is to give permission for either of them to say, "This is not healthy. Stop demanding that I behave in the way that you want. Let's communicate, let's accept influence from each other. Let's lean in to find a middle balance that is Christ reflective, that is about the spirit and of the body, that is about pursuing oneness, not about demanding for self." [00:38:04] 

Laura Dugger: Oh, that's good. You're making me remember, there was a listener who wrote in and had the viewpoint that she wanted to make her marriage work. And she believes God's ideal is that they were designed to be in marriage forever in covenant.

But she also wrote that after studying the scriptures, she shared how God is a God of compassionate exceptions. And she said, such as healing on the Sabbath. And that helped her recognize that God was actually leading her to separation from her abusive husband because she said, God cares more about the individual than the institution.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Oh, you know, God's heart is always first for the person. Lots of stories, but one of my favorites is they throw this woman at Christ's feet, who's been caught in a sin where he wrote the law that says she has to be stoned. [00:39:05] You know, the irony here is just rich.

He wrote the law and they throw her at his feet and say, what should we do with her? Well, he already wrote it down for them. Then he turns and looks at them and he says, "Well, who has the right to condemn her? Who is without sin? Obviously, we all know the story. Nobody is without sin. So nobody had the right to condemn her. He's the only one that does. 

His word had already said what is to happen. That is the law. But look at his response to her. His response is one that cares for her in her heart. As He looks at her and says, "I don't condemn you." And He extends profound grace to her. And then a short time later, He hangs on the cross to pay the debt of her sin. He took it upon himself. 

We tend to look at somebody and say, yeah, "That sin, you can't do that. You're going to experience all kinds of punishment because you chose divorce." [00:40:05] I don't see that happening as Christ interacts with people that are caught in a life that is outside of His ideal. And many times I work with couples and I think, There is no way I would allow my child to be married to your spouse. Your wife is just way too unhealthy, too critical, too destructive. Your husband is way too abusive, way too selfish, and demanding. I would not want my child to be married to them. I cannot imagine that God who cares so deeply for a child, us, would demand that we stay into something that is destructive to us.

Now, sometimes He invites us to stay because He knows what He's going to be doing with it. And transformation is very real. And I watch couples stay longer than what I would personally choose for them and I watch God do amazing things in the marriage. You know, scripture says, Let each one know what is right before the Lord, to seek that out with fear and trembling. [00:41:11] 

So I don't think there are good, hard, and fast rules. But I totally agree with you. The people are what's most important to God in the heart of grace. And His compassion for us, even when we step outside of His ideal will, is profound.

Laura Dugger: Well, you also encourage us to have a higher image of God's good gift of sex and marriage, and even say sex is a divine object lesson. So will you elaborate on this idea?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, Dr. Rosenau, who, you know, had huge impact on all of us in the Christian sex field. When I started working with him 30 years ago, he would say that every scripture verse talks about sex. And I was like, yeah, you're a little over-focused there, Doug. But the more I read, the more I listen to people, the more I study, you know, I can't go as far as he did. But, you know, some of it was to push people.

God is continually revealing Himself through His creation. [00:42:10] And He desires us to know Him. And I do agree. Doug used to say, when we get to heaven, we're going to realize that God is a sexual creature. Not like we think of sex, but we'll go, Oh, I get it. That's what you're trying to teach us. That what it takes for a husband and wife to engage truly in an honoring, rich sexual intimacy, it requires the heart of God. It requires a Christlike attitude and spirit. And He regularly teaches us that over and over and over again.

My favorite example of that, I write about in chapter 10, of Him being incarnate, meaning that Christ is fully God and fully man. And if we remove any of the spirit nature of Him or any of the physical nature of Him, we have something that's warped, something that's heretical, something that's disincarnate. 

I watched so many couples remove either the heart of it, the spirit of it, the care, the love, the compassion, the tenderness, the fighting for the oneness connection with each other. [00:43:15] Either they remove that or they remove the body of it. Well, I know you need it, so I'll just be a presence here. No, that's not okay. Anytime we overemphasize or deemphasize one side or the other, we do damage and it's no longer Christ-reflective.

And I think He keeps trying to teach us what it's like to be Him and what it takes to be in relationship with Him. I can say I love God, but if I don't put action to that, do I really love God? It's about both the spirit and the body. And it flows all the way through the process, right down into the techniques that we use in sex have to be incarnate, have to be both spirit and body for them to be rich. And I think He just keeps telling us over and over again, do you not get My heart yet? I keep trying to share it with you. And I love how sex does that on such a rich, profound level.

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Mike, you explain things so well, and I'm going to have to link to our previous episodes together. But you still have so much more you could share and teach. So where would you like to direct us all to be able to follow up after this conversation? [00:44:26] 

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, there's two websites that people can go to. Secretsofsexandmarriage.com, the book website has a lot of resources there, including, you know, for those that experience pain, trauma, where to find additional help if they're struggling in this area. We've got articles on that website there.

That will also link over to my primary website, IntimateMarriage.org, where some of the teaching is available. They can get some of my streaming courses there. The blog posts that link to various podcasts and stuff that we've written is all on IntimateMarriage.org.

Laura Dugger: Well, perfect. I will add links to all of those places in the show notes for today's episode. And you're very familiar we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Dr. Mike, what is your savvy sauce?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I would go all the way back to the beginning of that seduction. And if I could give one key ingredient to that sauce, it would be, stay curious. [00:45:29] Curiosity, you know, we did an entire chapter on it. Curiosity is so profound in its ability to change and to help couples to communicate well. So in being seductive, if they can work on being curious about each other rather than demanding or critical of, it really adds rich flavor.

Laura Dugger: I love that. Dr. Mike, I'm so grateful. I've known you for well over a decade now, and I've been able to witness you lead and teach with humility. And your humility is even apparent from the intro of this debut book of yours. And it was, again, apparent throughout our conversation today. So thank you for handling this topic with care and in a posture that exudes the fruit of the spirit. Thank you very much for being my guest.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You're so very kind. I love what you're doing. Always happy to be a part. You're a really good interviewer too, Laura. [00:46:29] 

Laura Dugger: Aw, thank you. That means so much. 

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:47:31] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:48:31] 

And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:49:34] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

 

 

217 Tween/Teen Females: How to Navigate Changes during Puberty with Dr. Jennifer Degler

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes adult content and is not intended for young ears.

 

217. Tween/Teen Females: How to Navigate Changes during Puberty with Dr. Jennifer Degler

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Psalm 142:1+2 (NIV) "I cry aloud to the Lord;

I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.

I pour out before him my complaint;

before him I tell my trouble."

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. Emotionally, what changes can we expect from our daughters as they go through puberty, both what we may notice externally and what they are experiencing internally?

2. It seems like these years can be full of ups and downs, but how can we identify when it is more severe and we need to seek outside help?

3. What do you notice parents and daughters struggling with most during this time?

 

Dr. Jennifer Degler is a Psychologist, life coach, author, and speaker. She is known for her frank, funny, energetic seminars which weave together practical information and Scripture with real life examples from her clinical practice and her own marriage and family. She loves audience involvement and keeping a group on their toes, meaning no one gets sleepy during her talks, and everyone goes home with apply-it-now tools for successful living, satisfying relationships, and improved emotional health. 

 

Audiences say she could’ve been a standup comedian, but Dr. Jennifer prefers helping people through her central Kentucky counseling practice and writing books like No More Christian Nice Girl and the Deck of Dares: 40 Dares to Make Your Marriage Sizzle. Her fabulous adult children, Josie and Jake, delight in telling their friends that their mom runs a sex shop when, in reality, she founded CWIVES.com, a ministry to help Christian wives make their sex lives sizzle. When she’s not podcasting and blogging about emotional wellness, relationships, sex, and spiritual growth on the JenniferDegler.com website, you can find her teaching a women’s Sunday School class, kayaking, and enjoying her empty nest with her high school sweetheart husband, Jeff.

 

Fan the Flame

Dare of the Month

 

Dr. Jennifer Degler's Previous Episode on The Savvy Sauce:

Episode 186 Sex Series: Enhancing Female Pleasure and Enjoyment of Sex: An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Degler

 

Other Recommended Episodes:

Episode 182: Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Child Became a Teenager with Dr. Gary Chapman

 

200 Planting Seeds of Faith in Our Children with Courtney DeFeo

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor:  Sam Leman Eureka

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18] <music>

Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at LemanGM.com. 

Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message. 

Dr. Jennifer Degler has been a popular guest previously on The Savvy Sauce when we discussed how to enhance females' pleasure and enjoyment of sex. Today, we're shifting to discuss a much different age group, tween and teen girls, and what to expect as their bodies change and they enter puberty. [00:01:19] 

This is an incredibly helpful conversation for both parents of daughters in this age group, as well as for the daughter herself. It's a gift to gain self-awareness and understand what changes are taking place in their bodies and their minds. So I hope people of all ages get to listen to this episode and glean wisdom from Dr. Jennifer Degler. 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Degler.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Thank you so much, Laura. I just love your podcast, and I'm excited to be able to share with your listeners again.

Laura Dugger: Well, I have to say that your previous episode was truly one of my all-time favorites, so it's such a joy to get to have you back today. For anyone who missed our previous chat, will you just share a bit about who you are and what kind of work you get to do?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Sure. I am a clinical psychologist. I am in Kentucky, and I have a private practice here. I see a lot of individuals and couples. [00:02:23] 

I also have a ministry called CWIVES, which stands for Christian Wives Initiating, Valuing, and Enjoying Sex. I'm kind of known as the sex lady. I speak on sex and have a website to help Christian wives help make their sex lives sizzle. We offer the dare of the month to help them initiate creative sexual encounters, just have lots of fun resources that are safe for Christian couples to access to help in that area.

Then I also do a lot of trauma recovery work and speaking on anxiety and sort of a variety of things that I do. I'm a wife and a mother of two grown children. My son just got married last weekend, so we've launched them both, and just enjoying empty nest life with my husband.

Laura Dugger: Wow. Congratulations on a wedding in the family.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Thank you. They are someone else's responsibility now, which is really fun. 

[00:03:22] Laura Dugger: Oh, I love it. And you are so gifted with the work that you do. So I'll make sure that we include a link in our show notes that can direct us back to that original episode when we did address married women. 

But today we're actually going to discuss a much different age group. And I want to hear your insight on teen and tween girls. So as a clinician and as a mom, what is a broad overview that we can expect if we have a daughter this age?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Some of the best times of your life and some of the most challenging times of your life as you raise a girl. Overall, I think what many parents experience when they're raising a girl is that those elementary age years, particularly 6 to 10 years of age, we call those the golden years. 

Girls are oftentimes just really a delight. They want to be with you. They think you're the most amazing adults in the world. They want to please. It's a really fun time. [00:04:29] 

Then about two years before your daughter starts her period, there are changes happening hormonally in her body. And so oftentimes the average age of beginning menstruation, menarche is the technical term for that, is around age 12 in America. 

When girls are around 10, which is typically somewhere around fourth grade into fifth grade, you begin to see a shift and she may become more emotional, more moody. You just notice, Okay, this child isn't quite as delightful as she used to be. Even while her personality is continuing to develop, you may see just more emotional changes and more conflict can begin. 

Then as they begin their period somewhere around 12 and then go into middle school and into high school, oftentimes for daughters and mothers, that can be some of the rockiest times because you have two women, both of whom are still riding that roller coaster of hormones. [00:05:37] 

Your daughter is trying to figure out who she is as a person while also still wanting to stay connected to you. So it's a time where we as moms need to be really strong in who we are as people, because you'll tend to get a lot more pushback and just sometimes negative feedback about yourself from your daughter during that time period. 

It can be quite a shock, Laura, to go from being just adored to where they want to be with you all the time, to where to them you're the most embarrassing person in the world. And watching her body develop, watching her deal with body image issues, perhaps can stir up things inside of you as a woman if you also have body image issues. And so it can be quite a roller coaster.

Laura Dugger: I think that's a great description. As our tween or teen daughters age and they're going through what you've explained about their hormones changing and fluctuating, are there any other symptoms or effects that we might see as a result? [00:06:48] 

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Girls follow steps of physical development that can kind of let you know, Okay, here's what's going on inside them. The pattern is as they're approaching puberty, the first thing you see in girls is breast buds. So instead of having that completely basically flat chest, they begin to get those little breast buds.

Then next is the appearance of pubic hair, followed by a big growth spurt, then armpit hair, and then their first period. So breast bud development happens earlier. It can happen as early as eight years old. Usually, it's around 10 years old, so typically around fourth grade. 

It's important that we tell girls during this time period, you know, it's normal for one breast to be smaller than the other as they develop, because sometimes girls will see a difference and they'll think, Oh, my gosh, I've got breast cancer or something like that. [00:07:51] It's just going ahead and letting your girl know that.

Pubic hair typically is happening around age 11, but it can happen as young as eight. Then there's this growth spurt that typically starts around age 10, typically peaks at around age 11. And that's when you're just noticing, oh, my goodness, her shoes don't fit, her shorts don't fit anymore, shirts are too tight.

The armpit hair, typically that's happening in the 12th year. Armpit hair is the best indicator that your daughter is about to start her period. Usually, that first period will occur within three to six months if she hasn't already started her period.

Sometimes they start their period and then they get armpit hair. But typically, once you see that, you know, Okay, the menarche is coming. Typically, as I said, menarche is most commonly happens during the 12th year. It can happen as early as eight. It can happen much later into the teens for girls as well. 

A hundred years ago, the average age was around 17. [00:09:01] It just has gradually as nutrition has gotten better, as there's more hormones in what we eat. Unfortunately, it has started earlier and earlier. But that breast buds, pubic hair, big growth spurt, armpit hair, first period, those are the things to be looking for in between, girl.

Laura Dugger: That is so helpful to have this timeline even to share with our daughters if they're listening to this episode alongside us, just to kind of know what to expect. But also, I'm curious, is there anything you're aware of where the daughter is likely to start around the same age that her mother experienced her first menstrual cycle?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Yes, Laura, you're absolutely correct. The age you were at the time you started your period is really a great predictor of about when your daughter may start as well. [00:09:59] And kind of knowing that, like in your family, about what age did your sisters, your mother, your aunt start their period?

It's also interesting to know that from your husband's genetics are contributing there, too. Like with his family, were they around 12 or were they early or were they late? And then just kind of knowing, Okay, it's kind of a kind of a combination of those two things.

Sort of like birth weight. You can take your husband's birth weight and your birth weight, assuming we're both full-term babies, and average them and you kind of get a pretty good idea how much your babies are going to weigh. 

So that's why it's important that we're not just talking about this sort of thing with our girls, but also with our moms. Like we need this family information so that this becomes something that the women and our family just talk about. We just share this type of information rather than thinking it's something that we need to keep hidden or that we're ashamed of. [00:10:58] 

Laura Dugger: I love that point. Because even beginning these conversations early, I'm assuming this would also help set them up well to have ongoing conversations about anything related to sex.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Exactly. You know, hopefully the conversations that we're having about our bodies, we start those from when they're old enough to even understand language. So even when we're changing their diapers and when we're helping them potty train, we're using the correct names for their body parts.

One thing I'm seing now, Laura, is that they're trying to use more correct terminology for genitalia. But sometimes the entire female genitalia is referred to as the vagina. That's not correct. You do have a vaginal barrel and that is the birth canal. But the whole genitalia is, you know, we're referring to your vulva and the labia. So to understand that there are different parts. [00:12:00] 

So we have to educate ourselves as moms and that we can begin to talk about these things. When your kids are young, you don't need to hide your pads from them, your tampons from them. That should be just something that's in your bathroom and that they understand in a very developmentally appropriate way what that is for.

We hide things we are ashamed of and we're uncomfortable talking about things that we're ashamed of. So that's why I know for me... I mean, I had to practice. My mom had one conversation with me about sex when I was in third grade, and that was only because I point-blank asked her. Then there was never another conversation. And what I learned about my period, I learned about in fourth grade in public school when we had our health class and never really had any other conversations about that. 

So understanding this isn't just one talk that you have. [00:13:03] It should be just a continual thing as your child is growing up that you periodically come back to and you talk about. Then that's really what makes your child feel like I can come to you with my questions. It's not I never talk to you about any of this, then I have one talk with you and I say to you, "Now, I want you to always come to me if you have questions." They're not going to. They will not.

Your lack of conversation about this over the years has made it clear this is something we just don't talk about in our family. So keep having those conversations from an early age.

Laura Dugger: Well, then I would think another conversation once our daughters are having their menstrual cycle. Is it common for all of the women in the home to sync up with each other or even friends who are around each other a lot?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: So funny question. [00:14:02] Laura, I used to say to my daughter when she would go away to college, and then our cycles would no longer be lined up and then she would come home in the summer, she would totally mess up my cycle. And I would be like, "Your young hormones are coming in and overwhelming my old hormones and they can't fight back. You're messing up my period." But yes, it's interesting, Laura.

We were referring earlier to things that are possibly accounting for the fact that girls are starting their period earlier and earlier. And a huge thing is better nutrition. But it's interesting, though, we can't see the effects of hormones of us just being around one another.

But girls' periods do tend to kind of line up over time. Like if you have a dorm full of girls and they're living around one another and then a lot of times their cycles will begin to align more. [00:15:02] But there has been some interesting research to show that girls who live with a stepfather instead of their biological father start their period a few months earlier on average than girls who were raised with a biological father.

So there is something about being around a man who is not 50% of your DNA that actually will bring on your period a little bit earlier, too. Again, that's not in any way to say that it's wrong to have a stepfather in the home or whatever. But I share that just to say there are things happening that we can't see.

We don't need to get all worried about at what age our daughter is going to start her period and did we do something right or did we give her this milk that had hormones and then... Don't stress out over that. [00:16:03] 

The main thing we need to do is just be prepared as moms and that we've had conversations with our daughters and that whenever it does happen, then that's the right time. You don't need to stress about that. It's the right time. 

And not to feel guilty. I feel like moms today, sometimes we get so much information that we just begin to beat up on ourselves and think, Oh, this should have happened at a different time. It happened too early or happened too late. Or my daughter was away at camp and she started her period and I wasn't there and I missed this big moment. No, no, no. You have lots and lots of moments to parent your children. Hopefully, you have been having some conversations along the way so that she's not caught off guard when her period does come.

Laura Dugger: Now a brief message from our sponsor. 

Sponsor: Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi Family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago. [00:17:09] 

If you visit their dealership today, though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did with honesty and integrity. Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle.  This is why they do everything they can to make the car-buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible. 

They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple "welcome to Sam Leman's". Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different.

I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. 

Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you and they appreciate your business. Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com, or visit them on Facebook by searching for "Sam Leman in Eureka". You can also call them at (309) 467-2351. [00:18:14] Thanks for your sponsorship.

Laura Dugger: And even though we've experienced this as moms ourselves, can you just kind of remind us emotionally what's going to happen with our daughters as they're progressing through puberty? What may we notice externally and what are some things that we can expect them to experience internally?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Because all of a sudden there are those sex hormones that are starting to produce those secondary sex characteristics that we mentioned like breast buds and pubic hair, along with those come interest in the opposite sex. Most of us as parents, I would say almost all of us as parents, we're not quite ready for our child to be interested. Like, Oh gosh, she's getting a little crush on boys or something like that.

So being able to just kind of talk about some of those things. That maybe you have a girl who's never really been interested in boys and all of a sudden she is. [00:19:16] Maybe she's always been really comfortable just like, you know, playing with the neighborhood boys, and all of a sudden she's getting more uncomfortable around them and feeling more aware of her own body or embarrassed, more modest.

That is one thing that as those sex hormones begin to develop and those secondary sex characteristics develop, girls oftentimes will become more modest. And so normally maybe it was no big deal to them if they were taking a bath or a shower and you came in. But now all of a sudden they don't want you in their room when they're changing clothes, they're embarrassed. They want their door closed. That's normal to feel that sense of modesty and that desire for privacy. 

And then as well, just more of the moodiness. It's this push me, pull me thing emotionally where part of them often, I still want to be a little girl. And so, yeah, sometimes I do still want to sit in your lap and I want to put my head in your lap and I want to be a little girl. [00:20:21] But then there's this other part of me that's pulling "I want to be more like an adult" and trying to separate from you, which is part of that normal identity formation through the tweens and through the teens, especially figuring out who they are, what their opinions are. 

But at the same time, in order to do that, they kind of need to be pushing you away. So maybe the things that you like that they've always kind of been like, Oh, yes, this is cool because mom likes it, now, all of a sudden they're like, "Well, I don't like that. The way that you dress, mom, it's so embarrassing. You're not cool. Walk behind me at the mall." 

They maybe wanted to hold your hand as they were walking through the mall when they were in third grade and now all of a sudden they're embarrassed and they want you to walk behind them. They wanted you to come for lunch at school and then all of a sudden they're like, "No, no, that's embarrassing." [00:21:18] 

And so understanding that push me, pull me thing that you experience from them where they're pulling you towards them. But then they're also pushing you away from them. That is normal. It can do a number on you as a parent if you're not ready for it. You feel like, Okay, I'm being rejected and this is what it's going to be like for the rest of our life. It's not. I promise you they're going to come back around again and you're going to develop a new adult relationship with your child that can be really neat and really special. But being aware that they need to do that push me, pull me during these tween and teen times.

Laura Dugger: You've warned us that it's going to be a season filled with ups and downs. But how can we also identify when it is more severe and we need to seek outside help? [00:22:18] 

Dr. Jennifer Degler: That's a great question, Laura. I always encourage folks... They're always asking, Okay, how would I know if I need to take them for counseling? I encourage them to kind of look at their child's life and say, "Is my child struggling, really struggling in two or more areas?" 

For instance, if they're just going through a patch where they're maybe struggling with some friendships, but they're doing really well academically and they're doing great at church and they are at home, they're getting along with their siblings and in general they're obedient and they enjoy they're laughing with family and whatnot, you probably don't need to take them for counseling.

It's when they're beginning like, Okay, I'm getting reports back from teachers that are troubling. And then we're also seeing at home we're having a lot more conflicts at home. Or so kind of think about is this showing up in two or more areas of their life at the same time? [00:23:22] Because that often can indicate they just need some more extra support.

Laura, what I encourage folks to do is when you're talking to a child or a teen about going to see a counselor, they will be probably most receptive to it if you kind of broach it like this to say, "You know, sometimes we all need some extra kind of coaching. Just like, you know, if you're playing soccer and maybe you need extra coaching around a skill or something like that. I've just noticed, you know, you've had a couple of challenges with school or maybe you're at home and I'm just wondering if you might be interested in a one-time consultation with a counselor. You could just go just this one time and just see this is a counselor that they specialize in talking to kids your age or teenagers your age. And you would just go one time and just see if this person has anything to offer you. And if you think it's helpful, we can make another appointment. And if you think, you know, they don't have anything that I'm interested in, then we'll drop it." [00:24:34] 

In that, Laura, making it like a one-time consultation. A lot of times kids will then go ahead and say if they actually are needing some extra support, they'll say, Okay. Because otherwise, they feel like I'm going to go talk to this person for the rest of my life. I don't want to do that. And it's weird. 

So giving them some control in the sense of you're going to go and you are going to check this counselor out. Not that this counselor is going to check you out, but you're going to check out the counselor. That a lot of times will get them in the door. And then many times if your child actually does need some extra support, then they'll be like, Yeah, I think I'd like to go back again.

Laura Dugger: I love even hearing that script. It's so practical and very helpful as a parent. But then I'm also wondering on the other side, when we may be overreacting as a parent and if we're very concerned with, like you said, the moodiness. [00:25:36] I've heard somebody tell me before that normal adolescent behavior for females is equivalent to what is diagnosable in adults.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Would you say that's true in your experience as well? And let's not just characterize girls. Adolescents in general, there's just a moodiness that can be so frustrating and confusing. So I don't know whether I would call it diagnosable or not. 

But if you just start reading through symptoms of different psychological disorders, I would say as a parent, if you're concerned, then you go and have a one-time consultation with a counselor or talk to their pediatrician and say, Okay, here's what I'm seeing. Is this normal? Is this just a normal rough patch that my child is going through? Because 99% of kids at some point will hit a rough patch and most kids will hit multiple little rough patches, whether that's friendships, whether that's academically, whether that's a teacher that they don't like or they don't get along with or a coach or they'll run into a rough patch with parents or with their siblings. [00:26:55] So understanding a rough patch can be just that.

Your job is to get them from childhood to launching them into adulthood. And there's a point at which when we start out, I'm kind of in control. And then over time, as we go through adolescence and we move you towards launching you into adulthood, more and more, I become more of a consultant to you instead of being somebody that's in control of a lot of things. So helping us make that transition. 

And if at any point you feel like, I think this is so rough on my child that they need extra support, then you go and get a consultation with your pediatrician or with a counselor. And the two of you, based on what you're describing, can help figure out, do we need to bring somebody else in for a period of time to help my child? Whether that's a tutor, whether that's a counselor, whether that's a youth minister, an aunt, an uncle, someone that needs to come alongside for this period of time to help them navigate. [00:28:00] 

Laura Dugger: If we look at big picture, throughout her development, are there certain foods or specific lifestyle choices that can support healthy development?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Oh, absolutely. Right off the bat, do not give your daughter a smartphone until she is like 16. The epidemic that we're seeing of girls especially struggling with depression and anxiety, and so much of that I think is related to their phones, to too much exposure, to so much material through social media.

We did this with our kids and they were not happy about it at all, our daughter in particular. But now that they're adults, they understand why we did this. And this is something that they've said they want to do for their children as well. 

Because daughters especially, their friends, oh my goodness, so much access to their friends and what their friends think of them. [00:29:04] You think about before there were smartphones, when your daughter came home and her house, her house could be a safe haven, but her friends aren't there. And if she's getting along with her friends, then she misses them. And that's great. But if she's not getting along or if they're saying mean things to her, or there's a lot of comparison that's happening with all the images on Instagram or TikTok or whatever it might be, then she brings that home with her, it's there in her bedroom with her as she looks at her phone. 

And all of that is stirring up so much of the anxiety-related hormones. So all of a sudden, all this cortisol is flowing through your child's system that doesn't need to be there. That would be number one. 

Another thing is just thinking about nutrition-wise, if anything is good for the heart, it's good for the brain. Their nervous system, the brain is the largest part of your nervous system. Your nervous system runs through your entire body. [00:30:02] 

And that's the seed of emotion. So what your daughter is eating, is that feeding her brain or is that actually making it harder for her brain to operate in a healthy way so that she can process emotions more easily?

So things like making sure she's getting omega-3 fatty acids. So you might want to, again, check with your pediatrician and make sure this is safe for your particular daughter. But maybe taking some fish oil or some krill oil supplements, making sure, you know, are they eating things like salmon? If you could get them to eat salmon, leafy green vegetables. If all they're eating is junk, that is not helping their nervous system develop in a way that is going to help them emotionally or hormonally. 

And likewise, getting exercise. We know getting out in a green space is really good for your brain. It's really good for your emotions. If the only exercise they're getting is like you go to soccer practice and that's it. Now that's great that they're going to soccer practice. But they need time to play. [00:31:14] 

Play is a child's work. When a child is playing, whether they're playing with stuffed animals or playing make-believe, that is their work. That's when they're processing through emotions, understanding things, working through things. And so giving them plenty of time to play.

And taking the screens away so that they will play. That they actually get bored. Bored is a good thing. Because when we're bored is when we turn on our imagination.

And for kids and for tweens in particular, that's when they're doing this work that they need to do emotionally. So I would say keep them away from screens as much as you can. Don't give them a smartphone. Just do not give them a smartphone. Feed them healthy foods that are going to feed that nervous system. Then as well, lots of play and being outside.  [00:32:13] 

Laura Dugger: Again, that is so practical, which is always helpful because I think that that leads to transformational lives. I'm also wondering, even the spiritual life, when you look back with your daughter, is there anything when we're approaching this holistically, anything that you did to encourage her walk with the Lord?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Oh, yes. Thank you for bringing that up. We are mind, body, and soul. God is a trinity. We are created in God's image. So we are a trinity as well.

So thinking of our children as these image bearers of God, mind, body, and soul, that those parts of them are what are we doing to help encourage healthy development in all of those areas? 

And so spiritually, having conversations. And it's normal when kids, particularly as they get into middle school and to high school, they're going to be meeting more people that you don't have control over who they're meeting. [00:33:15] 

When they're very young, we have a lot of control over who they spend time with. But then as they get older, we don't. And so they're going to be hearing different viewpoints. They're going to be talking to people who see the world differently than they do, who may not have a Christian worldview. 

So to not be presenting those people as those are dangerous people that you don't need to talk to. But already from an early age, talking to your child about, you know, there are people in the world who believe a lot of things that are different than what we believe. And here is why we believe what we believe. 

And then asking your child, what are you thinking about? Do you have any questions that are coming up in you about the Bible, about God, about Jesus, about church? Are there things that you're hearing other kids say? Because that's inquiring after their heart, which is so important in all three of those areas: mind, body, and soul. [00:34:18] 

Not that we're just telling information at them or just talking at them, but we're inquiring after their heart. Like, what are you noticing in your body? Do you have questions about your body? Are there any fears that you have around your body? Are there any fears that are coming up inside of you about God or about religion or about church? Inquiring after their heart trains them to do the same thing. And it shows that they have value.

One of the things we did with our kids is that we really tried to be fun parents at church. I know my husband, he and I both loved to chaperone youth trips, and we made sure we were fun parents. Now, you know, we still had boundaries and made sure if kids needed to go to bed at a certain time, they needed to go to bed and that sort of thing. But we were fun. So our kids wanted us to be on those youth trips with them for church or to be a chaperone at youth camp. [00:35:21] And so we got to be a part of that. That was really special. It was hard. We did not get a lot of sleep. And we were there. We were part of the youth ministry. And, you know, we're there, whether my husband was helping run sound or I would work the snack table.

But just that we were there and we were showing them, we think your spiritual development is important and we're going to be a support role of that. 

Then, of course, praying with them. Our daughter went through a stage kind of around 10th grade where she was taking an AP class in, I think, World History. And she just began to question, like, "I don't know if the Bible is really true." Part of me wanted to freak out, but part of me knew “don't freak out”. That's one of the most important things you can do as a parent is don't freak out. Instead, you need to learn to say, wow, tell me more about that. And listen. 

And then also I begin to pray about, Okay, Lord, help. She's heard from me for years, but I need other people speaking into her life about the importance and the truth of the Bible. And God provided that. [00:36:38] 

But she also knew at home it was a safe place to talk about doubts. We wouldn't freak out as she wrestled through her own faith that it was a safe place to do that. Just like it's a safe place to talk about, hey, all these weird things are happening in my body. What's going on here?

Laura Dugger: Have you checked out our library of articles available at TheSavvySauce.com? New posts are added multiple times a month related to parenting, intimacy and marriage, personal development, habits, and other topics connected to what we discuss here on The Savvy Sauce. If you sign up to join our email list, you're also going to enjoy little extras delivered straight to your inbox. 

Our hope is to encourage you to have your own practical chats for intentional living. So these freebies will include things like questions that you can ask on your next date night, safe resources to read to promote enjoyment in your intimacy and marriage, or questions to ask your kids to connect at a more relational level. [00:37:38] We hope you check out all the available reads at TheSavvySauce.com under the "Articles" tab. 

As we continue to think of our daughters in this phase, what would you say is a healthy role of friendship during this time?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: They're so important because they help normalize things for kids. Because particularly from about 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade, it's normal for kids to feel like I am the only person in the world who's going through this. I am weird. Everyone else is normal and I am weird because of all these things that are happening inside them, so emotionally. 

That's what the role of friends do during this time is they see their friends are going through that too, and they can have conversations about that. So friendships are so important, but they can also be really tricky during this time. I think they can be particularly tricky for girls because oftentimes what we see in middle school with girls is a lot of cattiness or relational aggression. [00:38:46] It can be really painful. 

And so it's important as moms that we walk beside our kids, but that we also don't get in and over control that too much. The role of friendship is really important. But your role as a parent, even though your child is spending more and more time with friends, talking more and more about friends, wanting to perhaps emulate friends more and more, your role is still very, very important.

Even when your child acts like your opinion is not important, your opinion is still very important to them. Your approval is still very important to them. That's why as parents, we need to have our own friends during this time so that we have a support group to help support us as we're supporting our daughters as they go through this.

Laura Dugger: Okay, that's a great point. Then as we flip it for parents during this phase, what are some ways that you recommend that we continue to take care of ourselves so that we're the healthiest version and holistically prepared to support our maturing daughters? [00:39:57] 

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Great question, Laura. I'm surprised how many times parents have not sought out other parents of kids who are going through the same thing they're going through. It was so helpful to me.

My sister-in-law, her son had some of the same struggles that my son did. And it was really helpful for us to get together and just... not that we necessarily even planned out "today we're going to talk about our sons". But as we were kind of doing life together or having dinner together, to be able to talk about this is something my son is going through and to be like, yeah, my child is experiencing that too. And to talk about all the feelings that come up in you, the sadness, the disappointment, the anger, the confusion. 

That really helps you as a parent keep things in perspective and take care of yourself. [00:40:55] Many times parents are hiding that their child's going through a struggle or that they're struggling with their child. I think social media can put this pressure on us that everybody else's life looks so perfect and we forget that social media is everyone's highlight reel. And so being willing to be honest and be vulnerable. 

I think it's also helpful to get yourself extra support. If you need to go and talk to a counselor or a mentor to have older women in your life that have been through this. Laura, back when Jake was in kindergarten, he was six and I started going to a Bible study and there were small groups of women that would meet and then we would all come together for a bigger group.

And I was put in a group because I kind of joined late in the year. I was put in the group that had room, which was women who were all 10 to 20 years older than me and none of them had kids in elementary school. [00:41:53] At first I was so ticked off because I was like, "I don't want to be in a group of these old women." I wanted to make some friends with women that were my age. 

Well, God knew what He was doing because that was the year that Jake was having all this testing done, was being diagnosed. We were getting him an individualized education plan. He was going to be in the resource room, tutoring was a lot. And those older women, as I would share about what I would cry about what we were going through, they would come to me privately and say, "Oh, honey, our son went through that" or "our daughter went through that and they just started college and your son's going to be okay." They were such an encouragement to me that this rough patch would not last forever and that my child would be okay. 

I'm so grateful now to have had them in my life because they helped give me perspective that moms my age couldn't give me because they were in it too. [00:42:54] So I think having that deep and wide support network and being willing to be honest as a mom about how hard it can be to be a parent at times.

Laura Dugger: Oh, that's so good and memorable, deep and wide. Well, Dr. Jennifer, what do you notice parents and daughters struggling with most during this time?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: I think it's because it is such a transition time. You know, we forget that while our daughters are changing, we're changing, too. So if you have your children when they're babies somewhere in your 20s, early 30s, then as they're developing and becoming young women, you're getting older. And things are changing in you hormonally and the way you look changes. [00:43:52] Your relationships change. Your relationship with your parents, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with career, your relationship with God. 

We put so much energy and effort into raising our kids that it can be easy to forget stuff's going on with me too. That balance of taking care of your children, but not losing yourself while you're raising children. So I think that whole struggle goes easier when mom has a life of her own. 

Dads tend to have a life of their own because most dads do work outside the home. But not all moms work outside the home. And even if they are working outside the home, there's so much pressure on moms. Motherhood is so idealized and idolized in American culture. [00:44:53] It's an incredible amount of pressure on women. And it's easy to lose yourself in it and then to feel like, Okay, my child is struggling, so I've done something wrong when in fact it's normal.

If your child doesn't have some struggles, I'm like, "Really?" Because I just don't hardly know anybody whose child didn't have any kind of struggles at all. That's why you as a mom get a life for yourself.

Make sure you're doing things for you that you have interest. That you're not just making sure your kids get enough exercise, but that you get some exercise. It may mean and often does mean that you say to your children, no, you can't do that third activity that you want to do because that will mean... not that you say this to your child, but you're thinking, "I will be running you so many different places that I won't have time to go to the gym myself. I won't have time to go for a run. I'll never be able to have a girls' night out. I won't have any energy left to have sex with your father because I've expended it all on child rearing or maybe child rearing and my job." [00:46:08] 

The whole process of raising your kids will go smoother if you hang on to you and your life, whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're divorced, whatever it might be, to keep some energy in reserve and time in reserve for you. So that when your child does have their struggles, you won't personalize it so much and think, "I've done something wrong." You'll be able to have some objectivity to take a step back from it and realize, "Okay, my kid is having some struggles right now. I'm going to keep an eye on it. I'm going to support them. I'm going to get some other people if we need some other people. But I'm going to make sure I keep taking care of me." 

Because that child will launch, that child will go... whether they go to trade school, whether they start a job, whether they go to college, they will eventually launch. [00:47:05] And we want you, mom and dad, to be in as good a shape as possible so your child will launch the best if they know you're going to be okay. Because mom has an interesting life. She's going to be okay.

Laura Dugger: That is so encouraging. It makes me wonder if you've seen any other specific patterns for families who seem to be navigating these years well.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Definitely, if you're married, to keep investing in your marriage. That is such a great foundation for your child. I see it as if you think about a diving board, and your child is going to hit that diving board and launch into adulthood. So we want that diving board to be as resilient and springy as possible so that when they launch, they launch well. They can launch on out of our basement. We don't want them living in our basement playing video games when they're 35 years old. [00:48:06] So thinking about, okay, what can I do to make this springboard as resilient as possible?

Well, my marriage needs to be strong. I personally need to have an interesting life. They see that I have friends so that they're not worried, gosh, is Mom going to be okay when I go off to college because she doesn't really have any friends? Or Mom and Dad's marriage is not going to be okay if I'm not there to be the buffer between the two of them. 

So the patterns that I see, some of them are that mom and dad continue to make themselves... They have an interesting relationship. They do things without the kids at times where they just invest in their relationship, where they have hobbies, they have their own friends that they do things with.

And that as well, the family times that they have together, that they continue to do those. For instance, like what you did with your kids when they were little? [00:49:07] Maybe they love to go to Build-A-Bear or something like that, that flexes. So now they like coffee. So now we have coffee dates at Starbucks. And now what they're liking to do is this. And that you flex. Again, you're this springy, resilient springboard and they see that you can adapt and that thy learn that from you. 

Because what we want to do is create these resilient adults who can bounce back when hard times happen and that have a strong inner core. So the best thing you can do for your kids is make sure you are okay. That's why we keep working on ourselves, mind, body, and soul.

Laura Dugger: Wow. Are there any other helpful questions we can ask our daughters? Or do you have any other specific information or encouragement that you want to make sure to share that we haven't yet discussed?[00:50:11] 

Dr. Jennifer Degler: Well, I can tell you something fun that I did with my daughter in her period that she loves. This idea did not originate with me. I got this off The Cosby Show. I saw where the mother on The Cosby Show when her daughters would start their periods, she called it Now You're a Woman Day. As they began to learn, you know, a couple of years before their period even started, but they're learning that this is going to start. 

And this is what I told my daughter. I said, "Okay, when you start your period, we're going to have a special day. And it's called Now You're a Woman Day. And if you're in school, I'm going to take you out of school that day. And we're going to have so much fun that day. We're going to do things that women do." 

If you start your period in the summer, you know, I won't be able to take you out of school, but we'll still, and it'll be a surprise to you. Now, it probably won't be on the day you start your period, because I've got to do some planning. But just so you know, that's something you can really look forward to." [00:51:11] 

My daughter loved that, because it was like... because starting your period, it sounds really... It's scary. You know, this idea, all of a sudden this blood's going to come out of me. So letting her know, you know, blood's not going to gush out of you. That's not what it's going to be like. But we're also going to have this fun Now You're a Woman Day. 

So what I did with Josie, she started her period in the summer, so I couldn't take her out of school. But I had this special thing planned. Let's see. We went to a tea room here in town and we had like tea with the little trays of pastries. And then in downtown Lexington, we have horse-drawn carriages. And I took her on a horse-drawn carriage ride. And oh, she just loved it. And I was like, this is what women do, and now you're a woman. It was just a really sweet time. She still talks about that as something that she wants to do with her daughter that is special. [00:52:10] 

So this isn't all so heavy, but is a fun thing as well. And so you're celebrating because this is a normal, healthy thing to have happen to your daughter.

Laura Dugger: I love that so much. It's so fun and such a creative way to celebrate that rite of passage. So thank you for that idea.

Dr. Jennifer, you just have so much more to offer. So where can we go to learn more from you after today's conversation?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: You can go to JenniferDegler.com. Typical spelling of Jennifer, and then D-E-G-L-E-R, JenniferDegler.com. That's also the home of CWIVES.com. Both of those will take you to the same website. 

If there are wives that want to maybe sign up for the Dare of the Month or learn more about how to make their sex life sizzle, there are resources there to help people have emotional health, spiritual health, relationship health. [00:53:10] We look to just help people be holistically mind, body, and soul whole people as believers, really reflecting the full image of who Jesus Christ is.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. I will make sure we get links to all of those places in the show notes for today's episode. You may remember that we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, what is your Savvy Sauce?

Dr. Jennifer Degler: So I will make this savvy sauce have to do with raising a girl. My savvy sauce is for you as a mom raising a girl to really work on loving yourself and strengthening yourself and to keep pouring into yourself. 

More is caught than taught. And what your daughter sees you do, that she sees that you go and buy yourself some fun clothes every now and again. That she sees that you move your body. [00:54:21] That she sees and hears you talk positively about yourself. That she sees you do interesting things for yourself. That she sees you be assertive and speak what you need and ask for what you need. That she hears you talk about your faith journey.

That is ultimately what is going to really help equip your girl to navigate through these tween and teen rough waters at times. So the savvy sauce is you keep working on you and then your girl will so benefit from that.

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Degler, you must do that well because you are so vibrant and knowledgeable, kind, and approachable and just truly such a delight to spend time with. So thank you for encouraging us how to navigate these years with grace and wisdom. And thank you for being my returning guest.

Dr. Jennifer Degler: You're so welcome. This was really fun. [00:55:22] 

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:56:22] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:57:21] 

And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:58:25] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

 

 

Special Patreon Re-Release: Personal Stories of God’s Provision with Hope Ware

Special Patreon Re-Release: Personal Stories of God's Provision with Hope Ware

 

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.” -1 Samuel 7:12 

 

Hope Ware is a writer and public speaker. She blogs at underthemedian.com, dispensing tips and strategies for cutting expenses, raising children on a shoestring budget, and (most importantly) living with a spirit of joy and abundance. Hope believes that telling our stories of God's provision is one of the most powerful ways to pass faith and financial principles to the next generation.

 

Hope worked in Christian radio, writing and producing programs and commercials. As a private freelancer, she has provided vocal talent for a wide variety of projects, including voiceovers for prestigious companies like Pioneer Hybrid International and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. She has written guest posts for Money Saving Mom (Crystal Paine), and Change Your Finances.  

 

She is a frequent and popular speaker at the APACHE Homeschooling convention, held yearly in Peoria,  enjoys teaching in the high school department at Peoria Cooperative Academy, and is a second soprano and featured soloist for the highly acclaimed Heritage Ensemble. 

 

She has a degree in radio and television broadcasting. 

 

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.  

 

Hope Ware’s Blog

 

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

216 Enriching Sexual Function, Part Two with Dr. Kris Christiansen

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes adult content and is not intended for young ears.

 

216. Enriching Sexual Function, Part Two with Dr. Kris Christiansen

 

**Transcription Below**

 

1 Corinthians 6:12 (NIV) “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. What are a few benefits of orgasm?
2. What is the treatment plan for clients who have never experienced an orgasm?
3. What is Perimenopause?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen is a board-certified family physician who specializes in sexual medicine. She attended medical school and completed her residency in family medicine at the University of Minnesota. She practiced full spectrum family medicine for 10 years and then pursued additional training to specialize in sexual medicine. She works as a sexual medicine specialist at two different clinics in the twin cities.  Her clinical interests include both male and female sexual dysfunction, and she loves working with individuals and couples to restore an important part of life. 

 

Dr. Christiansen is involved with teaching medical students and residents at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and she has presented at multiple local, national, and international medical conferences. She is involved with the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH) and serves on committees, collaborates with other experts to publish articles for medical journals, and edits informational articles for the society’s new patient facing website. She is passionate about teaching patients, students, and colleagues about the importance of sexual health and well-being.    

 

In her free time, she started her own business called Intimate Focus which provides information and quality products to enhance and restore sexual health and wellness. She also enjoys shopping, hiking, and spending time with her family.

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen's Website

North American Menopause Society

Women's Sexual Health Information

ISSWSH Website

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

[00:00:00] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:17] <music>

Laura Dugger: Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message. 

Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this amazing nonprofit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org. 

This week we are continuing part two of an interview with a sexual medicine expert, Dr. Kris Christiansen. Don't miss last week's conversation about hormones and the real story behind hormone therapy. And now today, we're going to discuss common dysfunctions that motivate people to seek treatment. She's going to teach us what to expect and how to work with our bodies to make the most of perimenopause and menopause. [00:01:20] 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Christiansen. 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, thank you, Laura. It's great to be back. We had so much fun last week and looking forward to our conversation this week. 

Laura Dugger: We really did have a great time. I hope anyone listening today makes sure that they go back and listen to last week's episode first because you laid so much groundwork and we covered a lot of topics. 

But let's just continue the conversation today. You've worked with men who have low testosterone and women who have low sexual desire. So what have you learned about these specific topics over the years? 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, as we mentioned last week, men with low testosterone often have several symptoms like fatigue, low sex drive, trouble with erections and orgasm, irritability, and depressed mood. [00:02:20] It can affect cognition, too. So sometimes they're just not thinking quite as clearly. 

They may even have hot flashes, night sweats, and sleep problems just like women in menopause. You may have heard the term andropause, pausing with those androgens, and it's very similar to what women experience. 

Along with feeling crummy, many studies indicate that men with low testosterone have an increased risk of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and osteoporosis. And treating men who have low testosterone often makes them feel better, but it doesn't work for everyone. So it's not the fountain of youth like people hope for, and it's definitely not without risks. 

There are side effects such as oily skin, acne, hair loss on the top of their head, which they don't like, and hair gain elsewhere. It can also cause increased breast size or man boobs because indirectly it increases their estrogen levels. [00:03:24] 

Testosterone treatment can decrease testicle size, decrease sperm count, and increases the risk of infertility. So young men who want to have children should not use testosterone. There are other treatments, just not testosterone itself because of the risk of infertility. There's also a risk of potentially blood clots and cardiovascular events in older men. 

Testosterone doesn't cause prostate cancer, just like estrogen doesn't cause breast cancer. But it often increases the PSA, that's the prostate cancer blood screening test. Unfortunately, prostate cancer is relatively common, like 1 in 8 men. So we have to monitor men more closely for prostate cancer when they take it. Not because the testosterone causes it, but we just need to watch it because potentially the cancer could grow faster if it's there and if they're using testosterone. [00:04:25] 

Besides, feeling crabby and fatigued and having sexual problems may not be due to low testosterone. These are fairly common issues and they can certainly be attributed to other problems, like pressures of work, work stress, pressures of life, and relationship issues. So just because they may be having some of these general symptoms doesn't automatically mean that they're a candidate for testosterone treatment. 

As for women, I see women all the time in my clinic who come in with low desire. I kind of have to play detective to see what could be the underlying problem to their low libido. We talk about a biopsychosocial model when it comes to sexual function and dysfunction. So we have to ask about all these different aspects of the biopsychosocial model. 

For example, the bio aspect refers to the biological and physical components, like hormones, pain, medications, side effects, and chronic medical problems. [00:05:28] Pain is often a common factor in low desire. And it's not uncommon for my patients to have always had pain with sexual activity, intercourse, or penetration, so she thinks this is normal for her. But pain is not normal. It's never normal. And who would want to have sex if it hurts? 

So we have to figure out what's causing the pain and fix that before we can help the libido. And sometimes that's all we have to do. 

Fatigue is also a very common factor. So if you're working and you're working 40 hours a week, you come home, you have to make dinner, you clean up and put the kids to bed, then you just don't have any energy left over for sex. 

And for stay-at-home moms who have the most important job in the world, they don't get lunch breaks, days off, or break from the daily routine, so it's ongoing. Sometimes they just need a little help or a little break and reserve a little time and energy for sex because it's often not there. [00:06:32] 

Women usually don't have sex at the forefront of their brains, our brains. Our brains are not bathed in testosterone like men's are. So we're not thinking about sex all the time like guys often are. Not always because sometimes women have higher libido than their husbands. 

But we divide desire into two different kinds. There's spontaneous desire and responsive desire. Spontaneous desire is when we're thinking about sex, want to engage in intimate time with our partner and initiate the encounter. 

However, more often, women are not the initiators. A common scenario is for desire to happen after sexual intimacy has begun. And we refer to this as responsive desire. So once you're engaged in that intimate time and you can relax and it feels good and say, "Oh, I wish we would do this more often." But then that more often doesn't happen. [00:07:34] 

So when we're young and the relationship is new and exciting and sex is exciting, we look forward to it and we initiate it. As the relationship matures, sex is still a wonderful way to connect with our spouse. But we're not thinking about it all the time like we did when things were new and fresh. So as that relationship matures and as we mature, that's when responsive desire comes into play. And it is a completely normal response. 

For example, when dinner's done, dishes are put away, kids are in bed, and your husband starts to rub your back, and then you think, "Okay, this is nice." And the back rub turns to more intimate activity. And that's when your desire kicks in. And that is a totally normal response. 

So even if you don't have desire at the get-go, if it comes along, then it's okay. So it's also important to know that all back rubs don't have to lead to sex. Some women, they're afraid to hug or they're afraid to be touched because they think that touch is going to lead to sex. So we need to know that non-sexual touch is very nice. And it's okay to stop there. Just because you get a back rub doesn't mean that it has to proceed to that next step. [00:08:52] You can just enjoy that touch for what it is. 

Laura Dugger: That's really helpful because if you say that many women do experience low sexual desire, you're not saying that if you don't have spontaneous desire that would be low sexual desire. That would more so be diagnosed if you are even into the act of sexual intimacy and into those arousing touches, but you're still not experiencing desire. Is that right? 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: That's right. There's a diagnosis called hypoactive sexual desire disorder. It's common in women for sure, and it also happens in men too. But hypoactive sexual desire is low desire that causes personal distress, and that distress can be exhibited as frustration, grief, loss, sadness, sorrow, and has a negative impact on the relationship. [00:09:56] 

So if we have low desire but it's not causing any problems, it's not an issue. Not everything has to be treated. It's when the low desire is actually causing problems within that person, the personal distress or within the relationship, that's something that we need to address. 

So if we don't have the spontaneous desire where it's at the forefront of our brain, yet the responsive desire is happening and both parties know that and it's okay, it's not an issue. But if it's causing an issue, then we can look into it, see what's contributing to it, and try to help. 

Laura Dugger: And if this is the most common sexual dysfunction in women, then how can women identify if they are experiencing this? 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, you may have hypoactive sexual desire disorder if you just don't think about sex, don't desire it, and don't enjoy it once engaged in sexual activity. [00:11:02] There was a big study published years ago, 2009. They looked at 31,000 women. So big study. They found that 44% of women have some sort of sexual problem in their lives. 44%, it's almost half of us. But we only call it a disorder or a problem if it causes distress. So if we take distress into account, then the prevalence is more like 12%. 

When it comes to low desire, depending on the study that you read, anywhere from 30% to 50% of women will experience low desire at some point in their life. But it's only an issue if it's causing distress, and that happens in about 10%. 

Sexual desire decreases as we get older. Not for everybody. Like I said, I got women in their 80s coming in. And we know that sexual problems are most common in the middle years, like 45 to 64. So if you have low desire, it's causing problems, and you want help, know that there is help out there for you. [00:12:12] 

There are subtypes of HSDD. We talk about situational versus generalized. With situational HSDD, this implies that certain factors are affecting the low libido, such as relationship issues, stress or fatigue, medications, pregnancy, recent childbirth, menopausal symptoms, or other sexual issues like pain, decreased arousal or orgasm problems. 

Sometimes it's a matter of our partner's sexual problems, which then spill over and affect us. So if we can improve these contributing factors, then libido often improves. Sexual pain, decreased lubrication, and arousal problems often go along with the low libido. So if a woman simply just does not experience pleasure with sexual intimacy, meaning she's not experiencing arousal or those pleasurable feelings, she's probably not going to participate in sexual intimacy in the future. [00:13:22] 

We know that many women engage in sexual activity just to feel close to their husband. But if she's not getting any pleasure from it, why does she want to do it? We also know that foreplay is an absolute must. It takes time to warm up, time to get aroused, and it takes longer as we get older. 

I heard of one podcaster referred to sex without pleasure like mushy steamed broccoli. So if sex is like mushy steamed broccoli and you really don't like mushy steamed broccoli, then you're probably going to avoid it. So we've got to fix the mushy steamed broccoli. 

Other things that can affect libido, chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, thyroid problems, urinary incontinence, MS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and cancer, especially breast cancer and other gynecologic cancers. [00:14:24] 

So treating those underlying medical conditions can be helpful, and the better that we can manage them, like with our blood pressure and cholesterol and diabetes, the better our bodies work, both men and women. 

Medications can affect sexual function like blood pressure meds. We talked about hormonal contraceptives last week. Spironolactone. Spironolactone is a water pill, but sometimes women take it to treat acne or to treat facial hair, especially in women who have PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome.

The reason spironolactone works for those issues is because it's an antiandrogen. Androgens have to do with testosterone. So if this spironolactone is treating our acne and treating the facial hair, which is great, but it's antiandrogenic, meaning decreasing our testosterone levels, it's going to affect sexual function. [00:15:25] 

Other medications, antidepressants, other mental health medications, and most definitely breast cancer treatments. 

Other factors. Depression and anxiety have a huge impact on sexual function and libido. And we know that the medications that we take to treat the depression and anxiety, they cause sexual side effects.

However, the anxiety and depression often have bigger effects than the medications themselves. We also know that having depression increases the risk of sexual dysfunction by 50% to 70%. So if you have depression, you have a 50% to 70% increased risk of sexual problems.

The reverse is true. Having sexual dysfunction, whether that be low libido, orgasm issues, or guys with erectile problems, having sexual dysfunction increases the risk of depression by 130% to 210%. [00:16:26] And stress and fatigue are really common problems.

So, if you go on vacation, you get adequate rest, and you escape the stressors of life, and you find that your libido is much improved, well, then I guess you need a permanent vacation. So send me an email, I'll give you a doctor's note, and let's make sex better. 

That's situational HSDD, low libido that's due to specific situations. 

There's also generalized HSDD. This is where there are no other contributing factors like pain or medications or whatever, but libido is still low. This means it also occurs in all settings, so whether you're home or whether you're on vacation, and with all partners, but hopefully you just have the one lifetime partner.

HSDD that is not caused by contributing factors is thought to be attributed to an imbalance of brain chemicals, like depression. [00:17:26] Sexual desire is regulated by key regions in the brain through the action of various neurotransmitters. So there's a balance of excitation and inhibition, and the balance of the excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters impacts sexual function.

Sexual excitation is mediated by the chemicals dopamine, melanocortin, oxytocin, vasopressin, norepinephrine. So these are all good positive sex steroids or sex hormones that help with sexual function. The inhibitory ones are opioids, so pain meds, so people who are on chronic pain meds has a negative impact.

Serotonin, which comes in many antidepressants. Serotonin can have a negative impact. Endocannabinoids, so cannabinoids, meaning THC, negative impact. And prolactin, these are all associated with sexual inhibition. [00:18:27] 

So prolactin is a big factor in breastfeeding women, because when you're breastfeeding, that prolactin level increases because it causes milk letdown. But prolactin decreases dopamine and libido. So, again, it's a natural function, and I think it's God's way of making sure that women don't get pregnant right away. 

You know, we don't understand all the biological causes of HSDD, but we think that the generalized acquired HSDD involves either this predisposition towards inhibitory processes, which shuts everything down and results in decreased excitation, or there are some women with increased inhibition where those other neurochemicals have too much of an inhibitory effect, or it could be a mixture of both. 

The other breakdown of the HSDD is acquired versus lifelong. So acquired means previously libido was normal, it was good, it was not a problem, and then something changed. [00:19:30] Lifelong HSDD is when libido has always been low, it's never been high, and there can be many different factors contributing to this. 

We do have several treatments available. And the treatment really depends on what type of HSDD the patient has. So if it's situational HSDD, meaning attributed to a specific underlying factor or factors, then we've got to try to fix those, whether it's addressing relationship issues, trust, pain, medications, or other sexual problems. 

Sex therapy is very helpful, regardless of the type of HSDD. Sex therapy is talk therapy, trying to peel back the layers of the onion and figuring out what's contributing to it and dealing with some of these problems. 

When it comes to generalized acquired HSDD, we have a number of ways that we can treat it. [00:20:33] That's really good news. Part of it is just education, talking about normal sexual functioning and understanding the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. So if you don't have spontaneous, it doesn't mean that you're broken or something's not working. As long as that responsive desire happens, that's totally normal. 

The role of motivation in sexual desire, making sure that he or she is well-rested and the experience is good and pleasurable and other things that contribute to the positive aspect. 

We have to talk about the importance of adequate stimulation. This is where foreplay is really important. Stimulating the clitoris, starting with non-sexual touch or whatever is important and arousing for the person, and it's different for everybody. And what's arousing one day may not be arousing the next, so it's really important to keep those lines of communication open. [00:21:34] 

We also need to address any modifiable factors, such as depression or anxiety or self-esteem or body image problems. So if a woman feels really self-conscious and just can't be comfortable, is uncomfortable being without clothes in front of her partner, that can be a big impact. Addressing stress or distractions.

You want to make sure that you have that privacy and can be comfortable in this situation. A history of abuse can have a lifelong impact. Substance abuse, self-imposed pressure for sex. So if we're imposing this pressure that we have to have sex or if our partner is imposing that pressure on us, that's not going to lead to a very positive experience.

Lifestyle factors, relationship factors, and even beliefs about sexuality. God talks about sex and intimacy throughout the Bible. It's a gift that He created for us, and He wants us to be able to enjoy that with our spouse. And that's the way it's meant to be. [00:22:43] 

But if we kind of forget that factor and still think of it as being dirty or off-limits and, you know, you shouldn't engage in that and you shouldn't enjoy it, that's going to have a definite impact on sexual function. Other factors, making sure we've got adequate lubrication and addressing arousal problems if they happen. 

Sex therapy, like I mentioned above, is really effective. Sounds weird, people are reluctant, but talking through these issues with a trained therapist is really helpful. 

The other good news is that we have two medications approved by the FDA for the treatment of HSDD in premenopausal women. These have been approved just in the last few years, and they work on the brain chemistry.

We talked about the excitatory versus the inhibitory aspects of these neurotransmitters, and that's exactly what these medications are addressing. [00:23:43] They're approved for use in premenopausal women, but they've also been studied in postmenopausal women, and they are safe and effective. It's just that they don't carry the indication because it would take another billion dollars for all the studies to get them approved by the FDA for postmenopausal women.

I still use them off-label in my postmenopausal women. I probably use them more often in my older patients than my younger ones because they work. They work by either activating those stimulatory pathways or reducing the inhibitory pathways that regulate desire.

And when they're effective, which honestly they work in about 45% of women, not 100%, women say that the medication gives them that want-to-want back. And that's what so many of them are missing. It's like somebody turned off a switch in their brain, and as much as they want to, and they really want to be close to their husband, they just can't bring themselves to do it. [00:24:44] This is when the medication can be helpful.

Medication doesn't help relationship problems. It doesn't help other medication side effects and such, but it just restores the brain chemistry. 

One of the medications, the first one approved, is a pill. It's called Addyi, A-D-D-Y-I. Flibanserin is the generic name. It's a pill that has to be taken every day, taken at night, and it takes about six to eight weeks before we see the full effect. Kind of like an antidepressant. It takes time to restore the brain chemistry. 

The other medication is called Vyleesi, with a V as in victory. The generic name is bremelanotide. This is an injection. It comes in a pen, a single-use pen, much like an insulin pen, so you never see the needle, and the needle's teeny tiny, and it really doesn't hurt. So you give yourself this injection in your abdomen about 45 minutes prior to sexual activity, and it's going to be effective for 10 to 12 hours, so it's not like you have 45 minutes. Clock is ticking. It does give you some time. [00:25:49] 

For our late perimenopausal, postmenopausal patients, testosterone can be helpful. So actually giving women testosterone. It is off-label. Unfortunately, we don't have an FDA-approved treatment for testosterone in women, but again, we use it quite often, and it can be an effective treatment.

There's no approved product, testosterone product, for women, so we have to use male products in female doses. Again, we have about 10% of the amount of testosterone that men do, so we use 10% of the amount of the testosterone gel or whatever. These improvements are gradual, and sometimes it takes a few months before they take full effect. 

So please know that HSDD is treatable. There are treatments, there are options, and bottom line, there is hope.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor. [00:26:49] 

Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank exists to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually. They are a food charity with a desire to demonstrate God's love by providing help to those in need.

Unlike other parts of the world where there's not enough food, in America, the resources actually do exist. That's why food pantries and food banks like Midwest Food Bank are so important. The goods that they deliver to their agency partners help to supplement the food supply for families and individuals across our country, aiding those whose resources are beyond stretched.

Midwest Food Bank also supports people globally through their locations in Haiti and East Africa, which are some of the areas hardest hit by hunger arising from poverty. This ministry reaches millions of people every year, and thanks to the Lord's provision, 99% of every donation goes directly toward providing food to people in need. The remaining 1% of income is used for fundraising, cost of leadership, oversight, and other administrative expenses. [00:27:56] 

Donations, volunteers, and prayers are always appreciated from Midwest Food Bank. To learn more, visit MidwestFoodBank.org or listen to Episode 83 of The Savvy Sauce, where the founder, David Kieser, shares miracles of God that he's witnessed through this nonprofit organization. I hope you check them out today.

Laura Dugger: Well, I love learning more about the intricate and brilliant way God designed our physical bodies. So with that in mind, what are a few benefits of orgasm?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: There actually are several benefits to orgasm. One of them is that it can boost mood. So with orgasms, we get the release of neurochemicals or hormones that make us feel better.

Those hormones can be oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins. [00:28:56] So oxytocin is also known as the love hormone and the bonding hormone. It's released 500 times the normal amount with orgasm and plays a role in sexual arousal and ejaculation for men. It also increases when you're hugging someone or breastfeeding your baby. 

It has other non-sexual roles. It causes uterine contractions in labor and childbirth. And like I said, it's involved with breastfeeding and allows the milk to be released. 

It also impacts human behaviors and social interactions like recognition and trust and that romantic attachment. So that's why that snuggle time as part of sexual intimacy is just so valuable. It connects us. 

Dopamine is our feel-good hormone. It allows you to feel pleasure and satisfaction and motivation. [00:29:58] And it plays a role as the reward center. So when you do something pleasurable, your brain releases a large amount of dopamine. So you feel good and seek more of that feeling, whether it's sex or junk food. Dopamine is also that hormone that gets released as part of that runner's high that just makes you feel good and makes the pain go away. 

Other benefits. Orgasm can strengthen relationships, improve sleep, increase body confidence. And it helps to reduce stress by releasing that dopamine and strengthening our pelvic muscles. It helps relieve pain with those endorphins.

Laura Dugger: Wow, that is incredible to kind of hear it summarized in all of the science behind it. But then it also makes me consider people who have never experienced this. So what is the treatment plan for your clients who have never experienced an orgasm? [00:31:00] 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: The first intervention is usually education because orgasm often comes from the clitoris. There are a lot of women who just really don't know what it is and where it is. But God gave us a clitoris, and it only has one function, which is sexual pleasure.

So we think of it as being just that little pea-shaped structure that you can see and touch. But it's actually much larger and much more involved than just the little pea-sized glands clitoris that we think of. 

It's a deep structure. It's made up of mostly erectile tissues and nerves, just like the penis. And it reaches deeper into the pelvis. It encircles the vagina, and it goes all the way around. It has kind of like legs that extend on either side. 

Boys and girls start with the same genital structure as the developing embryo, and then we differentiate into the different male and female genitalia. [00:32:07] So our clitoris really started looking like a penis, or vice versa. And it's a glans clitoris, or what we think of as the whole clitoris, but it's just that small glans, which is the same structure as the glans penis, the head of the penis. So our clitoris is really like the head of a penis. 

The female equivalent of the penile shaft is the cruse, or the legs, and the vestibular glands that extend down and around the vagina, just inside the labia majora. So it's much larger than what we anticipate. And stimulating just the labia majora can be quite pleasurable, because it's part of the clitoris. 

There was an article published in the New York Times just last October, and it was entitled, Half the World Has a Clitoris. Why Don't Doctors Study It? We really don't know that much about the clitoris, because nobody's really looked into it. [00:33:07] So this article talks about how little we know about it. 

Shortly after that article came out, there was a study published in one of the medical journals that noted that the clitoris actually has more than 10,000 nerve fibers. Actually, 10,281 to be exact. 

Previously, they were basing the knowledge, we thought it was only 8,000, based on a study that looked at bovine or cow clitorises. Anyway, most women, up to 70% or 75%, are not able to reach orgasm with just vaginal penetration. 

Most women need direct stimulation to the clitoris in order to be able to experience orgasm. And a lot of women don't know that. A lot of men don't know that. So we think that just penile-vaginal intercourse should lead to orgasm, and it doesn't. [00:34:07] 

It also doesn't happen spontaneously. That only happens in the movies. Unfortunately, movies and media just do us all a big disservice. So there's a reason that God tells us to guard our hearts and our eyes. But intimacy is all about intimate connection with giving and receiving pleasure.

So if we keep that in mind, that it's giving and receiving pleasure and connection, and not about the goal of reaching orgasm. Because if that's the reason you engage in sexual intimacy is just to reach orgasm, it's not going to happen. Your brain's not going to let you go there. You have to be able to relax and let go, feel vulnerable, and be in the moment.

There are a lot of issues that can contribute to difficulty with orgasm. One of the biggest ones is anxiety. So if we're anxious about not being able to reach orgasm or if we're placing pressure on ourselves, that's one of the biggest deterrents. [00:35:11]

Other factors are medications. Antidepressants, especially those SSRIs, like Prozac and Zoloft, and Paxil, can cause sexual problems, especially orgasm issues. In men, if they have premature ejaculation, we often prescribe those medications for that reason because that helps delay ejaculation at least a few minutes.

Other meds which we may not know about is the birth control pills. I think we talked about that previously and the negative impact that birth control pills can have in some women.

Other issues: hormonal issues, especially when our testosterone levels decrease, that can be an issue. 

Medical problems and physical trauma like injury or surgery or radiation to the pelvic area. Emotional trauma and relationship issues. [00:36:10] So, again, if we don't feel safe and can make ourselves feel vulnerable, orgasm probably is not going to happen. 

Hypertonic or really tight pelvic floor muscles also play a role. 

Age is a factor. So there are normal age-related changes, and women often have decreased lubrication and need increased time for stimulation and lots and lots of foreplay.

Nerves just become less sensitive, and then when you also are dealing with medications and circulation issues and the decreasing hormone levels, unfortunately, that plays a role. However, it doesn't mean sex isn't pleasurable. 

In men with orgasm, they experience, you may have heard, andropause, because their testosterone levels decrease with age too. And so just like women, men often need more time and directed stimulation in order to maintain the erection and be able to reach orgasm as they get older. [00:37:15] So if things change, it doesn't mean that we have to give up on sex. It just may look a little differently as we age.

It's also important to use a really good lubricant. Using a good lubricant can actually increase your ability to reach orgasm by 70% or 80%. As far as treatment options, besides education and learning about our bodies, sex therapy is really helpful.

It combines a cognitive behavioral therapy and often sensitive focus exercises. And sometimes it's just plain communication between spouses and expectations. Experimenting with non-coital, non-vaginal intercourse type of activities, such as massage or oil or manual stimulation, and using a vibrator.

So a vibrator provides additional stimulation and helps overcome the problem of decreased sensation because those nerves aren't as sensitive as we get older, especially with medications and problems like diabetes, which affects the nerves. [00:38:24] So using a vibrator with partnered play can be really fun. 

Again, keeping in mind this is giving and receiving pleasure, and our spouse often gets a lot of pleasure about giving us pleasure. So changing things up, changing your routine, say the location or time of day, changing positions. 

So if we usually wait until bedtime to engage in sexual intimacy, we're tired and our bodies don't work as well when we're tired. So trying to carve out some time earlier in the day or reserving some energy for that fun time can make a big difference.

There are no FDA-approved medications for orgasmic disorder, but we often use off-label treatments, which is a lot of what I do in my specialty, to help different things like with arousal and orgasm. [00:39:26] One of the things we may try is Viagra or Cialis in women. So yes, this is off-label, and insurance usually doesn't cover it for men, and it most definitely does not cover it for women, but there are ways to get it really, really cheaply.

Anyway, so Viagra and Cialis, they don't help with desire. For men, it doesn't really help with desire either, except that it gives them the confidence that they may get a better erection. So the way these medications work, they increase blood flow to the erectile tissues, which is our clitoris.

So by increasing blood flow, it may work a little bit better and help with arousal and orgasm. There actually have been a few small studies that show that it is helpful, especially in women with diabetes or taking antidepressants. 

Other treatments may include an arousal cream, which is compounded. [00:40:25] It does require a prescription, and you have to get it from a special pharmacy. But this arousal cream often has something like Viagra and testosterone and a few other things in it to help increase blood flow. 

There are over-the-counter options. One of them is called Zestra, Z-E-S-T-R-A. It's a mixture of some botanical or herbal supplements that are meant to increase blood flow. Another one is Arouse Serum by Rosebud Woman, which can be helpful. 

Like I said, a vibrator or there's such a thing as a clitoral stimulator that acts directly on the clitoris that can be helpful. You know how men have a vacuum erection device to help with erections? Well, there's a similar device for women. It's called Eros, E-R-O-S. It acts like a little mini vacuum device that goes over the glans clitoris and it pulls blood into the clitoris to help with the arousal and orgasm. [00:41:30] It basically works like the erection device for a penis. 

Sometimes orgasm just comes down to learning your own body and discovering what feels good. So like we mentioned, you've got to be completely relaxed, uninhibited, and be able to let yourself go.

The more you try to reach orgasm just for the sake of reaching orgasm, the less likely it's going to happen and your brain really just won't let you go there. So I want to try to not engage in goal-oriented sex. The goal is to reach orgasm and once you reach orgasm, you're done. You don't want to do that because we have to be able to relax and enjoy the journey. So remember sexual intimacy is about intimate connection and giving and receiving pleasure.

Laura Dugger: Thank you. That was a very holistic response, which I appreciate looking at various angles to help with this. [00:42:32] Even I think I've shared on the podcast before, one woman shared with me that when she and her husband are engaging in sexual intimacy, if she is having difficulty, like you said, just getting there, relaxing enough, spiritually, she will just pray silently and ask God to help her. She said the results... I can't remember the exact quote, but are miraculous or supernatural. So I love the holistic approach. 

And then also it just made me think when you were talking about different physicalities that I would recommend if anyone's listening and they are struggling with this right now, there are so many reasons to seek out a professional like Dr. Christiansen, who we're talking to today. Because even things that we wouldn't think of like back injuries, where something has happened and... I don't know all the science behind it. You wouldn't know this better than me, but where the brain can't interpret what is going on in the genitals. And I'm not sure if it's spinal cord severing, but sometimes people with back injuries have said they have more difficulty experiencing orgasm. [00:43:43] So there's just so many things to unpack. And that's why you're such a brilliant resource.

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, and that's so true. And it really is the spinal cord because those same nerves that come from your clitoris track all the way up your spinal cord to your brain. Even just, you know, say a herniated disc or a small tear in the disc or some injuries can impact sexual function. And if you tell that to a neurosurgeon or an orthopedist, they're going to say, No, that doesn't impact it. But it really does.

Laura Dugger: How did you find out about The Savvy Sauce? Did someone share this podcast with you? Hopefully you've been blessed through the content. And now we would love to invite each of you to share these episodes with friends and help us spread the word about the Savvy Sauce. You can share today's episode or go back and choose any one of your other previous favorites to share. Thanks for helping us out. [00:44:42] 

Well, kind of on a different topic, we have over 50 Savvy Sauce episodes that are related to sex, but we have not yet covered perimenopause and menopause in depth. So let's just begin with a definition. First, what is perimenopause?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Perimenopause is the transition phase from our reproductive life where we're experiencing regular periods to the point where those periods stop. And it may begin 8 to 10 years prior to menopause. In some women, it can last up to 14 years.

So it often starts in the early to mid-40s. Menstrual cycles become irregular and unpredictable. The only predictable part is to expect it to be unpredictable. [00:45:43] 

Our periods can become heavier, lighter, closer together, or farther apart. You know, so we just really don't know what to expect. They can be heavy and frequent and lead to excessive blood loss, and sometimes women become anemic. So if that's the case, if, you know, heavy frequent periods, please see your provider because there are lots of things we can do for this. 

Other symptoms can also include the psychological and other physical symptoms. Psychological symptoms may include anger, irritability, mood swings, depression, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, brain fog, mild memory problems, and some trouble with word finding.

So, you know, we may think we're going crazy or whatever, but it's just really... It's perimenopause and our fluctuating estrogen levels that just don't let our brain work as well as it used to. [00:46:44] 

Other physical symptoms may include hot flashes, night sweats, decreased libido, weight gain, urinary problems such as urgency, frequency, and incontinence, and vaginal dryness and painful intercourse can often happen. We often think of this as menopause, but these symptoms may start happening as early as our early to mid-40s.

The reason behind all of this, it's due to fluctuating and decreasing levels of estrogen. So some days our ovaries may be working great, giving us plenty of estrogen, we feel pretty good. The next day they're taking a break and we're not feeling like ourselves. 

So even in perimenopause, estrogen, systemic estrogen can be helpful. So as long as we don't have any contraindications like breast cancer or history of blood clots, a little bit of estrogen can make us feel normal again. [00:47:43] 

Laura Dugger: Wow. Is that something you would recommend? Do you begin going to your OBGYN if you're experiencing difficulty sleeping and brain fog and these different things that you've talked about to check if you are anemic or if you're in perimenopause or need some estrogen? What would be the next step?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Yes, absolutely. Starting either with your primary doctor or your OBGYN, if you're still seeing one, that would be your next step. But I would recommend going on the menopause.org website. That's a national organization for menopause. 

There's a list of providers on there who have a special interest or even certified in menopause treatments. So menopause.org, click on Find a Provider, and you put in your location to find someone in your area who would be a little probably more well-versed in menopause and perimenopause treatments. [00:48:45] 

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. Now, what all can you teach us about menopause?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Menopause is defined as 12 months after the last period. So it's just like 12 months one day... it's a mark in time. It's a normal, natural event in a woman's life, and it can occur naturally or due to surgery, like removal of the ovaries.

Sometimes we just don't know when menopause occurs because a woman may not be getting her period in her 40s because of birth control pills and IUD or a gynecologic procedure such as an endometrial ablation or hysterectomy. So if she's not getting her period in her 40s and 50s, we don't know exactly when it happens. We do know the average age is 51, and it usually occurs somewhere between the ages of 45 and 55. [00:49:45] And it's all due to the reduced functioning of ovaries and decreased levels of estrogen and progesterone. So it marks the permanent end of fertility. 

Like with perimenopause, a lot of women experience symptoms and physical changes, and they may include hot flashes, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes, weight gain, slowed metabolism, hair becomes thinner, skin may become a little drier, and loss of skin elasticity where wrinkles are a little more prevalent, loss of breastfulness, and even some mild memory problems.

Not to mention, though, hot flashes and night sweats can be really disruptive, especially if the night sweats don't allow us to get a good night's sleep. They tend to be worse in perimenopause and early menopause. They affect like 50 to 80 percent of women and more common in Black and Latino women. [00:50:46] 

Cigarette smoking increases frequency and severity. So one more reason to stop smoking. Hot flashes resolve in 85% of women within about five years. But 10% to 15% of women may have persistent flashes throughout their lifetime. They usually last about seven years, and up to 30% of women can have them for 10 or more years. So they can last a while, but in most people, they do get better and go away.

A very common problem is also what we call the genitourinary syndrome of menopause. We call it GSM. It's very common. It affects up to 85% of women in menopause. And unfortunately, that issue gets worse with time. 

So GSM is a collection of symptoms caused by the lack of estrogen and affects the vulva, the vagina, and the urinary system. [00:51:46] We used to call it vaginal atrophy, but because we know it also affects the urinary system, they broadened the term. 

So the vulvovaginal symptoms may include vaginal dryness, loss of elasticity, painful intercourse, vaginal atrophy, tight nips, shortening of the vagina, vaginal itching, and thinning of the vaginal tissues, which can make it prone to tearing.

It affects sexual function with decreased arousal, decreased sensation, trouble with orgasms, and tearing of the tissues, which causes pain and bleeding. So those urinary symptoms may be urinary urgency, frequency, painful urination, urinary incontinence or leaking, and even UTIs.

Laura, I can't tell you the number of women I see with these problems. And most of them say, no one ever told me this was going to happen to me. [00:52:44] And these problems get worse with time, unfortunately. Like those hot flashes, they get better and go away. But our GSM symptoms, they don't get better, they get worse. The good news, though, is that we have great treatment options for GSM, so it doesn't have to happen.

Vaginal estrogen is highly effective and it's extremely safe. The vaginal estrogen acts locally just on the vulva and the vagina and the bladder, so it doesn't get absorbed and affect the whole body. More importantly, we have studies to show that it does not cause breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, or blood clots.

If you get a prescription and you read the package insert, unfortunately it does say it has these risks, but the drug companies have taken these risks associated with systemic estrogen, like pills and patches that increase our blood levels, and they apply that same risk to the vaginal treatments as a class effect, but this is totally not the case. [00:53:53] Unfortunately, it scares women away from a very safe, very effective treatment. And you can use it until you die. There's no reason that you have to stop it at any point. 

And it's not necessarily just about sex. It's about vaginal health because urinary urgency and frequency incontinence is really bothersome. There are several over-the-counter vaginal moisturizers that can be effective, especially if you start using it when your symptoms are mild. 

You've got to use these vaginal moisturizers regularly and consistently, like every few days in order for them to work, and it may take a month or two before you see the full effect. So they don't work if you're just using them right before intercourse. Vaginal estrogen doesn't work that way either. Both of these, they have to be used regularly and consistently if you want to see the benefits. 

With the over-the-counter moisturizers, though, you have to be careful. There's a common one called Replens that you can buy in just about any grocery store or drugstore. [00:54:55] But that Replens has propylene glycol in it, which can actually be irritating. So you don't want to use anything that's going to make the problem worse.

Three ingredients that I recommend avoiding in lubricants and moisturizers are glycerin, parabens, and propylene glycol because they can cause irritation.

Back to menopause, I think it's important that we look at this time and embrace it and enjoy it because it's a change in life. It's a new chapter. Some women may feel a sense of loss or grief as we no longer have our menstrual cycle or reproductive ability, and our experience changes with aging, of course. 

Society, as we know, places a lot of pressure on women to stay youthful and vivacious, and using our youth makes us feel less desirable or less valuable. [00:55:55] Obviously, this is a harmful and false narrative, so we must look at aging as a gift and embrace it as a gift from God.

A lot of women feel a renewed zest and look at this season as an opportunity to try something new, new hobbies, interests, ministries, or goals that had previously been elusive because we were too busy. It's a great time to seek the Lord and learn what He has in store for us.

Laura Dugger: I love that positive perspective. It's always helpful to hear the good news. One of the most common questions that couples ask related to their sex lives, and I would say especially Christian couples, will ask, is this okay? I realize this is a sensitive and controversial topic, but from your vantage point, Dr. Kris, as a Christian and as a clinician, what is your opinion on sex toys? [00:56:58] 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: That's a great question. I get that also: Is it okay? You know, it really is, I think, a condition of the heart. If we're looking at sex toys as a way to just experience great orgasms or to pleasure ourselves and not using them in the context of the sexual intimacy that God has intended for us, that's probably not the most ideal setting.

But if we look at sex toys as a tool to help us enjoy our sexual intimacy with our spouse, I look at it as a tool and as an aid, because as we get older, our sexual function changes, our bodies change, and using, especially like a vibrator, increases that sensation, it increases the arousal, and it allows us to be able to continue to connect in various ways. [00:58:08] So as long as we're not looking at it as a way to replace our partner and it's a way to enhance our intimate time together, I think it's okay. But again, it's a condition of the heart.

Like Paul says in 1 Corinthians, I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both. The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. 

I think as long as we're using them in the context of our loving, intimate relationship with our spouse and they're there to help enrich the experience, I think it's okay. But again, it comes down to the condition of the heart. [00:59:08]

Laura Dugger: Thank you for sharing your perspective on that. I know there have been previous episodes with authors who have even given questions as filters and kind of used this same scripture. Is this beneficial to your marriage? Is this something that in your heart you feel is God-honoring? So I love that recommendation that everybody takes it to the Lord themselves and see where He convicts them. If it is something He says, yes, enjoy freely, or provides a word of caution, and maybe it's different for different couples.

Well, Dr. Kris, where can we go after this chat to learn more from you?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: I have a business that I started. It's called Intimate Focus. The website is www.intimate-focus.com. I started this company because I wanted to provide a place where women and couples can learn more about sexual health, sexual wellness, and purchase quality products to enhance their sex lives. [01:00:19] 

In my medical practice, I often recommend getting a good lubricant or a vibrator which can help with stimulation, but obviously many women are reluctant to go to an adult store or order something like this from Amazon if other people are looking at their purchase history. Like with lubricants and moisturizers, you can buy them at Target or the grocery store, but they often contain ingredients that can be irritating and contribute to pain, so you have to be really careful.

So I wanted to provide a safe, comfortable space where people can get good information about sexual health and wellness and be able to purchase quality products. From that website, products will arrive in an unmarked box from IGH Focus, not even Intimate Focus, so nobody will suspect anything crazy. 

But God planted the idea of this business in my heart, and I consider my business and my medical specialty as my ministry, because God designed sexual intimacy, and we need to be able to provide a platform where it's safe, it's not shameful, and it's okay to talk about it. [01:01:34] 

So I want to help educate and empower women to take away the shame associated with sexual intimacy and pleasure. I believe that sexual health and function and pleasure are God-given gifts, and we should be able to enjoy sexual intimacy throughout our lives.

However, as we've discussed, there are a lot of factors that can negatively impact sexual function, and people need to know that there is help available. So if you go to the website, intimate-focus.com, and you click on Contact, right now it's just me, so that email would come directly to me, and that's a way to reach out. 

On sexual health concerns in general, especially if you need a sexual medicine provider, please go to the ISSWSH website, stands for the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, isswsh.org. [01:02:35] And on that website there is a "Find a provider", so you can type in your location and see if there is a provider near you.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will provide all of these links in the show notes for today's episode. Dr. Christiansen, I have one final question for you. We are called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge, and so as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Dr. Kris Christiansen: One verse that comes to mind is James 1:19 and 20. "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce a righteousness that God desires." 

So, if we could all take James' advice, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and definitely slow to become angry, we would do a better job of understanding others, have empathy, love, and compassion. [01:03:49] I try to do that. Can't say I'm always really good at it. That's one of my savvy sauces.

Laura Dugger: Oh, I love that. Dr. Christiansen, I just want to again say thank you for educating us on these sensitive subjects and doing so with kindness and gentleness. I am so grateful for you and I just want to, again, say thank you for being my returning guest.

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, thank you, Laura. I have enjoyed this and I really, really appreciate the opportunity because God created sexual intimacy, He wants us to enjoy it. Sometimes it doesn't always work as planned, so we have to provide a place where people can go for help.

Laura Dugger: Well said. 

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. [01:04:52] Therefore, we're separated from Him.

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. 

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. [01:05:57] 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. 

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John. [01:06:56] 

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.

215 Enriching Sexual Function, Part One with Dr. Kris Christiansen

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes adult content and is not intended for young ears.

 

**Transcription Below**

 

215. Enriching Sexual Function, Part One with Dr. Kris Christiansen

 

Hosea 4:6a (KJV) "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge,"

 

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. What type of sexual dysfunctions are common for your clients to experience?
2. What all can you teach us about hormones?
3. Will you educate us on hormone therapy?  

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen is a board-certified family physician who specializes in sexual medicine. She attended medical school and completed her residency in family medicine at the University of Minnesota. She practiced full spectrum family medicine for 10 years and then pursued additional training to specialize in sexual medicine. She works as a sexual medicine specialist at two different clinics in the twin cities.  Her clinical interests include both male and female sexual dysfunction, and she loves working with individuals and couples to restore an important part of life. 

 

Dr. Christiansen is involved with teaching medical students and residents at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and she has presented at multiple local, national, and international medical conferences. She is involved with the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH) and serves on committees, collaborates with other experts to publish articles for medical journals, and edits informational articles for the society’s new patient facing website. She is passionate about teaching patients, students, and colleagues about the importance of sexual health and well-being.    

 

In her free time, she started her own business called Intimate Focus which provides information and quality products to enhance and restore sexual health and wellness. She also enjoys shopping, hiking, and spending time with her family.

 

Websites Mentioned:

Dr. Kris Christiansen's Website

North American Menopause Society

Women's Sexual Health Information

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka

 

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

 

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

 

[00:00:00] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

 

[00:00:17] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at LemanGM.com. 

 

Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message. 

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen is a sexual medicine specialist, and we are fortunate to have her as a guest today to share about sexual intimacy and the role of hormones. She will also offer solutions to common issues that arise in this area of marriage.

 

Here's our chat. [00:01:18] 

 

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Christiansen.

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, thank you so much, Laura, and it is a pleasure to be here. I'm honored to be part of your program.

 

Laura Dugger: Will you just start by telling us a bit more about yourself and how you ended up in this somewhat unique career?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: It is a unique career. Well, I'm a family physician, and I practiced full-spectrum family medicine for about 10 years before all this happened. Now, I delivered babies and took care of children and adults of all ages, but I always kind of felt unsettled, like there was something else for me and really didn't know what that was.

 

I prayed to the Lord that he would give me direction where to go, what to do, you know, because after going through medical school and all that time, it's hard to think about change. But what happened was that my husband and I joined a small group on marriage in our church, and we were going through the book, Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerich, which is a great book. [00:02:28] But that first week we met, the leaders asked if anyone wanted to lead a particular chapter. And I'm thinking, "Well, you know, I'm working full-time, I got two small kids, my plate is full, I don't need to add one more thing."

 

But wouldn't you know that my husband raised his hand and said, "We'll do the one on sex." I thought, "What in the world are we going to talk about?" Because, you know, we could have used a little help in that area too.

 

So I went to the local Christian bookstore because I had to get books, you know, I always have to rely on something. Our library grew quite a bit after that trip, which was kind of fun. I had prepared this talk knowing that it wasn't going to be much of a discussion in the small group setting because nobody wants to talk about it.

 

With that opportunity, it was a fun group. And then later, the leaders of our women's ministry asked if I would do that same talk at our women's retreat. [00:03:38] I go to a small church, so here we have, what, 50 women, basically sitting on the edge of their chairs, eyes wide open, taking notes about everything that God had inspired me to talk about.

 

So through that, he just opened my eyes and what a huge need we have in terms of sex and marriage, because we often don't talk about it. There were several things that happened after that where God just opened key doors. I was able to get training in this area. And then a few years later, this is what I do for my sub-specialty. And it's very rewarding.

 

Laura Dugger: I love to hear that. Then I'm curious, what type of sexual dysfunctions are most common for your clients to experience?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Well, I see both men and women, and they have a host of things going on. [00:04:41] As far as female sexual problems go, the most common one is low libido. But sexual dysfunction is usually categorized into four different domains: libido, pain, arousal, and orgasm problems. Women rarely have just one problem. They have two or more of these issues, and each one affecting the other.

 

A common scenario is for a woman, often in her middle years, but I've seen young women, in their late teens, early 20s. My oldest patient was a man who's 95. Yeah. And I have a handful of 80-year-old women in my practice. It's actually quite fun. 

 

But the common scenario for women, low libido, decreased sexual desire. The root problem is usually not just low libido, it's often associated with other underlying problems, like pain, or decreased arousal, or that difficulty with orgasm. [00:05:47] 

 

So sometimes the low libido is just due to the brain's neurochemicals being a little off-balance, kind of like depression. You know, depression isn't necessarily due to a specific situation, but our brain chemicals are just a little out of whack. In that case, there's no specific external factor contributing to the low desire. It's as if somebody just turned off the switch. And no matter how many date nights, glasses of wine, or vacations she may take, she just doesn't have the desire to engage in sexual intimacy. And it can be really distressing for her, and hard on the relationship. So it's also a matter of trying to figure out what else is contributing to it. 

 

Pain is a very, very common concern. And there are so many things that can cause pain. I see a lot of women who've been to several doctors and other providers who basically just brush them off, say, you know, again, have a glass of wine, relax, use more lubricant, and you'll be fine. [00:06:55] But no matter how much lubricant they use, it's still going to hurt. And then if they have that low desire, along with pain, it's just really not going to help. 

 

One of the common causes of pain in pre-menopausal women is birth control. Hormonal birth control like pills, you know, birth control pills, the patch, or NuvaRing, they can have a significant impact.

 

Now, most women tolerate those birth control pills just fine and don't have any problems. But there are a few who experience very significant side effects from these medications. We know that birth control can cause low libido and pain, decreased arousal, and problems with orgasm, because the contraception affects their hormones. These pills significantly decrease our own body's estrogen and testosterone, and that has a huge impact. [00:07:53] 

 

I've seen many young women who have so much pain that they are unable to tolerate any kind of vaginal penetration. I mean, not even a tampon, let alone have intercourse. So these women are in loving, stable relationships, and they really want to be intimate with their husband, but they just can't because of the pain. So you can imagine what impact that has on the relationship. 

 

So if we just stop the pills, it helps, but it doesn't necessarily resolve the pain because these vulvar tissues have undergone changes, often like menopause, and usually needs to be treated with a hormone cream to restore these tissues.

 

These women also have very tight pelvic floor muscles, which contributes to the pain, and then pelvic floor physical therapy can be helpful. So before sending them off to PT, though, we'd like to heal up their vulvar tissues so PT has the best benefit for them. [00:08:52] 

 

As women age, our estrogen levels fall during perimenopause and menopause, and those low estrogen levels contribute to a similar issue with vaginal dryness and painful intercourse. So very similar situation to what women experience with birth control pill problems. 

 

As for men, the most common concern is erectile dysfunction. ED is really common. We know that ED can affect 40% of men in their 40s, 50% of men in their 50s, 60% of men in their 60s, and so on. So by the time he's 95, he probably does need a little extra help. 

 

Our patients have usually tried at least one medication like Viagra or Cialis before they come to see us, but unlike those old commercials used to imply, the oral medications are only effective in about 60% of men, not 100%. 

 

So we offer other treatment options besides just the oral medications, and we also encourage healthy lifestyle habits like adhering to a healthy diet and getting adequate sleep, which is so important, quitting smoking, limiting alcohol, and getting regular exercise because all of these things can be helpful. [00:10:08] 

 

Bottom line, if someone has concerns about their sexual function, they should first talk to their primary care provider. If that doesn't help, then seek out a sexual medicine provider because we are out there, and we're there to offer hope.

 

Laura Dugger: Wow, I'm just in awe of all of your knowledge and the way you succinctly articulate all of this. Just a follow-up question, is it true that women who are nursing can sometimes experience those same side effects as someone who is in menopause?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: That is absolutely true. We know that during pregnancy, estrogen levels rise, so they're relatively high throughout the pregnancy, which is great. Women often feel much better when they're pregnant. And then as soon as that baby is born and when you're breastfeeding, estrogen levels plummet, and they are really, really low, just like menopause. [00:11:09] And you throw in a few other hormones like prolactin, which also decreases sexual desire, it makes sexual function a little challenging in that postpartum period. Sometimes a little vaginal estrogen can be helpful for pain, but also know that it will get better.

 

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor. 

 

Sponsor: Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi Family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago. If you visit their dealership today, though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did, with honesty and integrity. 

 

Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle. This is why they do everything they can to make the car-buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible. [00:12:11] They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple “Welcome to Sam Lemans”. Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different.

 

I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life, and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you, and they appreciate your business.

 

Learn more at their website, Lemanyureka.com, or visit them on Facebook by searching for “Sam Leman in Eureka”. You can also call them at (309) 467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship.

 

Laura Dugger: For the male's side, I'm sure erectile dysfunction, it's too broad to give simplistic reasons, but when you say 60% of men in their 60s and so on, is that often due to the decrease in testosterone that men experience, or is it often related to circulation and their heart health, or are there any other main reasons? [00:13:23] 

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Yes, there are a lot of reasons. Men and women, our testosterone levels kind of decrease, maybe 1 to 2% per year, so not huge amounts, so that, you know, the decreased testosterone does impact erections. But even more importantly, it's all these other factors, like age and the wear and tear on the blood vessels, and things that can impact erectile function, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and being overweight. So the better that we can control all of those factors, the better the blood flow and the better the erections.

 

Laura Dugger: This is a rather broad question, but hormones clearly affect us in so many ways. So, Dr. Kris, what all can you teach us about hormones?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Hormones affect absolutely everything. In women, there are three important sex steroids or hormones. I use steroid and hormone interchangeably. But there's estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. [00:14:33] And we think of estrogen for women and testosterone for men, but both sexes need both hormones. 

 

Women need a little testosterone and men need a little bit of estrogen for their bones. So, for women, we have about 10% of the amount of testosterone that men do, and we need that 10% for sure. It has such an impact on energy and libido and arousal, lubrication, and all those really good things. 

 

Likewise, estrogen has a huge impact on just about every body part. It also impacts sleep, our cognitive abilities, our mood, and definitely the sexual function. 

 

The ovaries start producing estrogen in puberty, and our ovaries continue this production until menopause. There may be some breaks like with breastfeeding, but during our reproductive life, estrogen levels fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle, and they're highest at the time of ovulation. [00:15:38] And we also know that testosterone levels increase a little bit around that time, which then increases desire. So, you know, it's God's way of helping families to continue to multiply and grow. 

 

So at least around that time of ovulation, libido increases. After ovulation, estrogen levels decrease, and progesterone levels increase. So if conception doesn't occur, then the progesterone levels drop in the experience of period. 

 

When progesterone levels increase, some women may feel a little or a lot more irritable, which is that contributing factor to PMS. For others, progesterone can have a calming effect. Actually taking progesterone as a medication in perimenopause, and menopause can help with sleep, which is kind of nice. 

 

So estrogen affects pretty much every organ in the body. In the brain, it affects our body temperature adjustment. In the perimenopause, menopause years, when our estrogen levels fall, that's when those hot flashes occur. [00:16:42] 

 

It can also affect memory function, learning, language. Sometimes in perimenopause, with those fluctuating estrogen levels, we might have some word-finding problems, trouble making decisions, and just experiencing some brain fog. 

 

Estrogen affects our skin, has to do with elasticity, and has an anti-aging effect. It affects our bones, which has to do with bone strength and bone density. So when estrogen levels fall after menopause, you have an increased risk of thinning bones, osteoporosis, and fractures, unfortunately. So it's important to take that calcium to keep your bones strong. 

 

Estrogen also affects our liver, and that's where the cholesterol production is regulated. So some women experience increasing levels of cholesterol after menopause once those estrogen levels fall. 

 

It also has cardioprotective effects before menopause. [00:17:42] You know, the Women's Health Initiative study, way back, you know, 20 years ago, we used to think that every woman should be on estrogen after menopause because it protects the heart. And that is true when we start estrogen prior to menopause, but after menopause, unfortunately, has the opposite effect and can increase the risk of heart attacks. 

 

Estrogen affects our ovaries, and that's where we get the egg maturation release every month, giving you a period or a pregnancy. And the effect on the uterus, it's monthly preparation for pregnancy in pre- and perimenopausal women. So in perimenopause, if you're still getting a period, even if it's irregular, you could still, fortunately or unfortunately, get pregnant. 

 

Then there's testosterone. Testosterone is really important for both men and women. And like I said, women have about 10% of the amount of testosterone that men do, but we need that because it affects things like libido and lubrication, arousal, and orgasm. [00:18:47] It also helps with energy, mood, and concentration. 

 

Fun fact, women have more testosterone than estradiol or estrogen throughout our lives, and people don't realize that. In our reproductive years, the average level of estradiol is 150 picograms per milliliter. That's just the measurement. During those same reproductive years, we have on average 400 picograms per milliliter of testosterone. 150 versus 400. Who knew? 

 

Laura Dugger: Hmm.

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Yeah. After menopause, estrogen levels fall. So after menopause, estrogen levels are in the 10 to 15 picograms per milliliter range, whereas testosterone is about 290. Again, much, much higher. When women have their ovaries removed with surgical menopause, estrogen levels are quite low, but that also drops our testosterone levels down to 110 instead of 290. [00:19:57] So our ovaries are efficient little hormone factories. 

 

As for men, we know testosterone is really important for them. It affects their mood, concentration, libido, sexual function, muscle mass, strength, endurance, and bone health. If men have low testosterone, they may experience low energy, decreased stamina, decreased libido, trouble with their erections, and trouble with orgasm. 

 

Many of these problems are common and nonspecific. So they might experience these issues and still have normal testosterone levels. So just because they have decreased energy or decreased stamina doesn't automatically mean that their testosterone levels are low. We only want to go about treatment if they have low testosterone levels because there are risks and side effects associated with it. 

 

People often ask how we can maximize our healthy functioning throughout our lives. [00:21:01] Well, it all has to do with just basically taking really good care of ourselves. We should eat a healthy, well-balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, minimize processed foods, and get adequate sleep, which usually means somewhere between seven to nine hours a night.

 

If we're not getting enough sleep, we're not getting that restoration, and it can definitely impact especially testosterone levels. We also recommend exercising regularly. CDC recommends 150 minutes per week. Maintaining a healthy weight is also really important. We want to drink plenty of water, minimize sugary drinks, and minimize alcohol too. 

 

Other things to avoid: tobacco, vaping, excess alcohol, and drugs. We also want to try to minimize stress and have a healthy way of coping with stress because we know problems occur, stress occurs, but if we have a healthy way of dealing with that, it can have a positive impact. [00:22:04] 

 

As a medical provider, you need to see your medical provider, your family doctor, or internist for routine preventative care. It's really, really important. Much better to prevent problems than to treat them because those problems then lead to effects on our sexual function and our hormone levels.

 

There are no specific foods, drinks, or supplements that help with hormones. People ask all the time, what if I take this or what can I eat? Again, it just comes down to the bottom line of eating a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. 

 

I want to caution your listeners about all those supplements that are out there. These supplements, they can make all kinds of claims and promises for miraculous results, but they usually don't have any scientific basis for these claims and they're not regulated by the FDA. So there's no guarantee that what they say on the label is actually in the capsule or pill that they're taking. [00:23:09]

 

There can be ingredients and even medications that are not reported on the label, and these can interact with current medications. So it can actually be dangerous. So I caution my patients to save their money and try to stay away from those supplements that make all kinds of crazy promises.

 

Laura Dugger: There is an exciting project taking place behind the scenes right now, and I would love to invite you to participate. I will give you more details as I'm able, but for now, here's my request. Will you email me your personal story of a specific way God has clearly shown up in your life?

 

Big or small, I want to hear an account of the way he made Himself known to you and maybe received credit for an answered prayer, or a way He worked out a situation in a miraculous way, or how he displayed His power in your life. There's no limit to the type of story to submit, as long as it's true. So please email me your story at this email address, info@thesavvysauce.com. [00:24:15] I can't wait to read your story. Thanks for sharing. 

 

Just as you're sharing these ways to be healthy and how much that affects everything, even our sex lives in marriage, it just makes me think of self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit. God has laid out these lifestyle rhythms that are healthy and support everything. So from my understanding, testosterone is replenished after sleep. And even when we engage in sex, we then produce more testosterone. Is that correct?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Yes. Testosterone levels rise during sleep. So they're highest in the morning and lowest in the evening. This is especially true for men, less so for women. And if we don't get that restorative sleep, our body just can't reproduce or replenish that testosterone, which is really important. [00:25:17] 

 

As for increasing levels after sex, maybe a little bit, but not a huge amount. Sex and orgasm definitely increases other hormones like oxytocin and dopamine, norepinephrine, which is all great stuff. But the increase in testosterone after sex, it's probably negligible.

 

Laura Dugger: Okay, that's helpful clarification. Now that we've kind of discussed this role of hormones, will you also educate us on hormone therapy?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Hormone therapy is the treatment of menopausal symptoms with estrogen and or progesterone. It can be started during perimenopause when you start having those symptoms. And it can be really helpful during that time. It's also really safe. 

 

It was previously called HRT or hormone replacement therapy. But in the last few years, this terminology has been changed to MHT or menopause hormone therapy. [00:26:24] Because we're not trying to necessarily replace everything. We're just trying to address those symptoms, which can be really bothersome for some women. 

 

In 2002, this study came out, the Women's Health Initiative, which was a huge study, like 60,000 women, average ages of 50 to 79. It was that study that scared all women off their hormones, and it scared doctors from using or prescribing it for the next 20 years, which is where we're at now. The pendulum is starting to swing a little bit and we still have a little ways to go.

 

This study, unfortunately, did women a huge disservice because they were starting older women, women in their 60s, 70s, and even 80 on estrogen. And we don't do that now because we know that the risk with estrogen does go up when we start those hormones in older women, which is over the age of 60. [00:27:29] And so if we started prior to the age of 60 and within 10 years of menopause, there are a lot of benefits to it and minimal risk.

 

This study, the Women's Health Initiative, we call it the WHI, you know, it's been analyzed and re-evaluated a number of times. So we've been able to come to terms with some of these issues. The benefits of estrogen, when we start them within 10 years of menopause and before age 60, it's one of the best treatments that we have for hot flashes and night sweats. 

 

It can help with sleep in perimenopause and menopause. It also helps with urinary tract symptoms. It helps with sexual function and improves our skin. Remember, it has that anti-aging effect. 

 

Other benefits. Studies show that there is a decreased risk of developing diabetes, improved blood sugar control if you do have diabetes. [00:28:29] It's great for bone health. It prevents bone loss and reduces fracture risk. There's also like a 30% decreased risk of colorectal cancers.

 

It's also great for your brain. Women who start estrogen earlier on, again, within 10 years of menopause, before age 60, have a decreased risk of Alzheimer's. It's good for the mood. It may help with depression and perimenopause and improve well-being. There are several studies that show a reduced risk of heart disease when we start it early on, too. 

 

So lots of good things. We do have to be careful because there are potential risks. And the risks increase when we start estrogen in older women, older than 60 or more than 10 years after menopause. With that, it carries the increased risk of gallstones, blood clots, cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes, and potentially breast cancer. [00:29:29] 

 

But there was a study published just this past year on looking at whether estrogen really does cause breast cancer. It compared 40,000 women with breast cancer and 400,000 women who did not. And through this study, bottom line was that estrogen did not increase the risk of breast cancer, which is amazing.

 

Let me say that again. Estrogen did not increase the risk of breast cancer. What they did find increase the risk was synthetic progesterone, which is like Provera. And with that, slight increased risk. However, if we use a so-called bioidentical form of progesterone, which is Prometrium, it's the same structure as our own body's progesterone, there was no increased risk. Again, bottom line, estrogen did not increase breast cancer in that study. [00:30:33] 

 

Other risks with estrogen is that if women still have their uterus, you know, no hysterectomy, they do have to take progesterone. Again, we want to take that bioidentical one because the progesterone protects against uterine cancer. Unopposed estrogen, meaning no progesterone, can thicken the lining of the uterus and that can lead to cancer. But taking the progesterone eliminates that risk. Just like we talked about, the safest type of progesterone is micronized progesterone. Prometrium is the brand name.

 

As women get older, you know, they have changes such as vaginal dryness and thinning of the tissues and other problems that we call genitourinary syndrome of menopause. And if it's just the vaginal symptoms that we're treating, vaginal estrogen is highly effective and extremely safe. 

 

So vaginal estrogen is a cream and it just acts locally. [00:31:34] It doesn't have the systemic effect like pills and patches do. It most definitely does not cause breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, or blood clots. 

 

But if you get a prescription for this vaginal estrogen and you read the package insert, unfortunately it lists these risks of breast cancer and heart attacks and dementia and all kinds of crazy things. But the drug companies take the risks associated with systemic estrogen, that's the pills and the patches that increase our blood levels, and they apply that same risk to the vaginal treatments. It's a class effect. This is not the case.

 

I want to emphasize this is not the case because vaginal estrogen is really, really safe and it can basically be used until you die. There's no reason you have to go off it unless you do get breast cancer, which was not caused by the cream. But for that, you probably have to go off it for at least a period of time. [00:32:34] If you don't want to use that vaginal estrogen, then there are over-the-counter vaginal moisturizers, which if used regularly and consistently every few days, it can be helpful.

 

Laura Dugger: Wow, Dr. Chris, I have never heard this WHI analyzed so well. I'm just thinking of a few, I'm gonna paraphrase, just a few scriptures off the top of my mind where the Lord talks about my people, I think he says perish for lack of knowledge. That is so unfortunate that women have been given this disservice with this lack of knowledge. And yet in your unique career you are helping set captives free. Because when you're captive to insomnia and hot flashes and all these unpleasant symptoms, that is incredible that we have healthy and safe options available. 

 

Just to clarify, so when women start over the age of 60, that can have adverse effects. [00:33:36] But these same women, if they started prior to that or within 10 years of menopause, then you're saying they even continue after age 60 and it's still safe if they started before that?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: That is true. And that's what the more current research findings are reporting. Unfortunately, if a woman goes to her doctor and having, you know, hot flashes and night sweats and not sleeping, the majority of medical providers aren't always on top of all this more recent information. So doctors are still afraid to prescribe estrogen.

 

And if you start it early on when it's really helpful and actually protects against all kinds of great things, or protects against bad things actually, it is safe to continue. But the guidelines from years ago say only use the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time needed, you know, try to get off it within five years. [00:34:41] That's still in most providers' minds what they should recommend, but that's not the case.

 

After age 60 or 65, the North American Menopause Society, they say it's an ongoing conversation between a patient and her provider talking about the risks versus the benefits. And if you continue it, and it's important to get your mammogram every year, it's safe to continue as long as you don't have a heart attack in the meantime or a stroke. That would be reasons to have to stop estrogen.

 

Laura Dugger: You're also saying estrogen and progesterone, those you would want to start together, is that right, at the same time?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: If you still have your uterus, you have to take progesterone, yes.

 

Laura Dugger: And at what age approximately would you recommend that?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Recommend starting it?

 

Laura Dugger: Yes. [00:35:40] 

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: When a woman starts having symptoms. I'm a fan of starting it in perimenopause when those hot flashes start, because it can just be so helpful and protective for the heart and the brain and good things. Some doctors, though, may not want to start it until the woman is officially menopausal, which is 12 months after her last period. Bottom line, when a woman is experiencing symptoms, hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, that would be an ideal time to start hormone therapy.

 

Laura Dugger: Okay, thank you for that. I'm also curious, because you said a lot of providers are not aware of this, and I would say probably the general population is not aware of this. So where are some trusted places where you do find this information, or how do you stay current with sexual health and medicine? [00:36:43] 

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Things are changing all the time. Medicine changes all the time and so staying current is important. I think one of the best places to find information on menopause and hormones is going to the NAMS, North American Menopause Society website, which is menopause.org.

 

Laura Dugger: Okay, wonderful. We'll put a link to that in our show notes for today's episode.

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Another great website, which is up and coming, is called PROSAYLA.com, P-R-O-S-A-Y-L-A. This is a website that is directed to the patient people, not providers, but providers can learn a lot from that too. It is supported by ISSWSH, the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. So that's like my AMA, American Medical Association. [00:37:43] 

 

ISSWSH has this new website, just came live last year, that has all kinds of great articles that are based on science. I am on the committee that started this. I wrote a couple of articles that are on the website, and that's where people can go to find absolutely reliable information. I'm passionate about this, as you can tell.

 

Laura Dugger: Yes, well it's so good. I think clearly you just have an abundance of wisdom to share with us. There's still so much more that I want to hear about low sexual desire and orgasm. And just hear you explain perimenopause and menopause, just so many more topics. But we are out of time for today, so can we pause this conversation here and pick it up next week?

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Absolutely. Yes, no, I would love to chat with you again, Laura. This has been great.

 

Laura Dugger: Okay, wonderful. We will pause for now, but until we meet again next week, could you provide your website where listeners could go to find out more about you in the meantime? [00:38:52] 

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Yes. I actually started a business called Intimate Focus, and the website is Intimate-Focus.com. So with this business, I wanted to provide a place where women and couples can learn more about sexual health, sexual wellness, and purchase quality products to enhance their sex lives. In my medical practice, I often recommend getting a good lubricant or a vibrator, which can help with stimulation. But so many women are often reluctant to go to an adult store, for obvious reasons, or order something from Amazon, because of all the data that gets collected, and it shows up on your previous purchases and such. 

 

So I wanted to provide a safe place to do this, and God has definitely planted this on my heart. My medical specialty and this business are part of my ministry, because I want to help educate and empower women and take away the shame associated with sex.

 

I believe that sexual health, function, and pleasure are God's given gifts, and we should be able to enjoy sexual intimacy throughout our lives. [00:40:04] However, as we discussed, you know, there are a lot of factors that can impact sexual function, and people need to know that there is help available. 

 

So from the website, Intimate-Focus.com, you can purchase items which will be mailed in a discreet box, and the business name is IGH Focus, not Intimate Focus, so no one's going to suspect anything crazy. I will also be adding a page of resources and information where there are going to be more scientific-based articles and other information. 

 

Again, Intimate-Focus.com, and if you click on the contact button, it gives you a form to fill out for an email, and that just comes right to me. So I would love to hear from you.

 

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will add all of these links to the show notes for today's episode, and I look so forward to continuing this conversation next week. So thank you for being my guest.

 

Dr. Kris Christiansen: Oh, thank you so much for inviting me, Laura. This has been great. [00:41:05] 

 

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.

 

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

 

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:42:05] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. 

 

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen. 

 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:43:04] 

 

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?

 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John. 

 

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

 

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:44:07] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.