From the moment we are born, we begin participating in personal relationships with family and authority figures.
As we grow, those relationships widen and include romantic relationships and even to a wider circle of friends.
Many sought after interpersonal skills have been lost by the masses.
So where do we pick up these valuable tools?
In this episode, we continue the conversation of revolutionizing your relationship status.
And later in the episode, we have an amazing and insightful interview with one of the key voices on relationships.
Welcome to Keep It 100 Podcast with Sean and Christa Smith.
Join us in this space where we take on real issues with real insight and real inspiration.
This podcast is for those not looking for temporary relief to change circumstance, but revelation to forever change lives.
Keep It 100!
Hey everybody, welcome to the Keep It 100 Podcast with Sean and Christa.
Hey, hey, what's up y'all?
Hey, we're so excited about this week. I know for me, like relationships is one of my favorite things to talk about.
And so we gave this topic, revolutionizing your relationship status, two weeks.
And today is the finale episode.
And we felt like it was so important because there are so many relationships that are in like major pressure cooker right now.
We are in such unique times, 2020 is like the strangest year ever.
And unfortunately, we're seeing that come out in a negative way for a lot of marriages.
So we wanted to give two weeks really focused on people, whether they're in a relationship right now or they're in between or they're stepping into.
We wanted to give some really practical tools for people to navigate the uniqueness of this season.
And relationships are important. In fact, the first book of the Bible God establishes in Genesis,
he says that it is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helpmate suitable for them.
And we also recognize even the most reclusive of people need human attachment.
That's why solitary confinement is such a successful form of torture.
We're simply wired for attachment since the moment we came in the world.
You know, before we dive into the meat of this episode, Sean and I want to start off with a voice that we really trust.
Her name is Katie Johnson. She's a licensed life and marriage family therapist.
She's someone I really trust. I love the wisdom that she walks in.
We wanted you to hear from her today. We asked her a key question that I think she does incredible at answering.
And the question is this, is there one thing that you have seen that contributes to deepen relationships?
Let's listen to Katie.
Thank you so much, Christa. And I just feel so excited.
You know, I really spent a lot of time thinking about the question.
Is there one thing that I think really contributes to relationships going deeper?
I spend a lot of time thinking about my professional life, what I see as a therapist,
how I experience the relationships that are in my own life with family or friends or my husband.
And you know, like, what is the one thing I had one chance to say?
And you know, I really couldn't land on one thing because I really believe it's a thousand little things.
And what I mean by that is, you know, it's the idea of laying down the phone and being present.
If my partner comes home and it's a big, huge sigh to take the opportunity to turn off Netflix and say,
Hey, are you okay? You want to talk about it? Can I do anything? Do you need some alone time?
And I think it's in those like thousand choices on a pretty regular basis that really contribute to a relationship,
building connection, building trust and developing into something that is deeply satisfying.
And connected for both people. And I know that sounds kind of overwhelming, you know, like a thousand little things.
But I think John Gottman kind of sums that idea up beautifully and he calls that turning towards.
But I've also seen the benefit of turning towards making those little tiny decisions on a daily basis to reach out for my partners.
Hand to ask about his day to give him alone time. You know that those things really show that I know him.
I trust him. I understand him and that I'm here for him.
And on the other hand, you could make a thousand other choices to kind of withdraw or not authentically communicate
what's happening for you, what you need, what you're seeing in your partner to not be present, to hold on to resentment.
And I think you're really going to see that as I make decisions to withdraw or to be unavailable or don't prioritize the person
I want to connect with deeply across from me, you're really going to see that that relationship is going to start having a divide
and that the two people are going to start separating from each other versus moving towards each other.
And this is for, you know, some general advice for people in generally healthy relationships.
I feel like it's important as a therapist to kind of clarify that, you know, if you're in an abusive relationship or a toxic relationship,
this really isn't for that. This is more for people who have something that's generally positive, want to go to a deeper place,
want to feel more connected. It's really, to me, I would sum up the most important thing that is going to contribute to consistent,
long term deep connection is those thousand little choices.
I mean, come on. Was that powerful or what?
I love how she simplified it but brought such great wisdom.
Right. I mean, a thousand little things. Isn't that so true? It's often not one big thing. It's all these little things that we can do to lean in,
lean toward. I love that verbage, leaning toward our loved ones and our significant relationships in our life.
So speaking of leaning toward, speaking of really addressing those places in our life that long for connection,
trending and having over 37 million views is the conversation at the red table with Will and Jada Smith.
I know that's a lot of people and a whole lot of people chimed in their opinion on the relationship.
And I've got to say that I've so enjoyed Will Smith over the years from obviously the first Prince of Bel Air to Independence Day
to proceed at happiness, hitch, all the movies. And it's funny because you know this, I've had so many dreams,
probably more than any other celebrity. I had dreams of Will Smith where I was helping him connect to Jesus.
And so I so pulled for him.
I mean, they were really courageous to take a very private conversation, super private matter within their marriage.
And they brought it to a very public conversation. When you're having over 37 million views of your private conversation,
obviously they're making it public and they're doing that on purpose because it was such a spin in the media.
It really was. It was tremendously brave. And obviously it started because of the fact that Jada had,
she said an entanglement but a relationship and affair with a musician.
And in the midst of having this affair with this musician, it became public.
I think there was some sort of social media leak of this.
And now they're bringing it to the table and bringing it in a sense to all their fans to see a window into their marriage.
The thing that stood out for me is you could see the pain in Will's face.
I mean, he's got such charismatic, smiling. He even jokes a couple of times.
But you could just see in his countenance there was such a pain, which obviously is the ultimate indicator that he has longing
for relationship, which is obviously one of the great longings of the human heart.
And you could tell, I mean, whenever there's been a violation in an affair and there has been that breach of trust,
the level of pain that that can cause in someone that is so longing to be known and not only to be known,
but to feel safe. And what an affair does is it robs the safety.
But what was interesting is when Jada began to describe and give an explanation for why she found herself in the affair,
she really began to discuss some key things that I feel like are really important for us to address today.
She began to talk about the childhood traumas and the significant traumas that she went through as a child.
She found herself in a cycle of always wanting to fix those around her and she found her worth by fixing.
She titled it, Co-Dependency, When You Are Sabotaging Your Own Worth and Value in Order to Help Someone Else's.
It's at your own detriment. And she began to see this cycle, but she was so broken that she found herself in an affair.
And in that process, she attributed it to the patterns and behaviors and choices as an adult,
a result of what happened or didn't happen as a child, which I think is incredibly powerful.
And for us to understand, many of us living today, many of our Keep It 100 Try Possibly are going to be listening today.
And they're going to hear some things that are familiar, that are actually things that are living out,
behaviors that they are living out, decisions that they are making are based out of their childhood experiences.
So true. And there is actually kind of a theory in a talk about it that these are called attachment bomb theory,
which came together by a guy by the name of John Bulby.
But he says the attachment bomb theory simply states that relationships between children and their parents
or primary caregivers in the beginning are responsible for shaping all our future relationships.
So to break it down, so many people are having difficulties in relationships now based on their attachment types
that were formed as a result of their early childhood.
For us to really understand, those first five years of your life are so key and formative as to how we attach to people.
And so if people were born into abusive situations or neglectful or super busy atmospheres or or parentals where it was very like hands off,
there was another primary caregiver, but it wasn't the bond was never created with mom or dad.
You're often going to see unless those things are dealt with, unless you're actually owning your dysfunction
and you're you're recognizing your lack of ability to bond or attach with people,
you're going to see that play out as an adult and you'll see that sabotage behavior often or the dysfunctional behavior
like Jada was describing in her own life.
She's very vulnerable to come to the table and talk about her issues and her challenges.
Our issues might look different, but all of us have challenges because of things that have happened to us,
some through our own choices, some through the actions and decisions of other people.
We are all affected by those families we were born into, the environment we were born into and the culture we've lived in.
We are a result and all of us as adults are product of those environments.
So true. We're going to describe attachment styles and keep it 100 listeners.
I want you to see which one you fall into because if you help identify your attachment style,
it can lead to a place of you being positioned to have more healthier relationships.
And that's really our heart. So the first attachment style is secure.
Now what's interesting is the gentleman who did the study broke it down statistically on where these four styles land.
The first one is secure and he says 50% of the people land within the secure style.
And the secure style is talking about a person that was born with parents that maybe of course are not perfect.
No parent is perfect, but they were good in the sense of they created a reliable and safe environment for the child.
And the people that grew up in this type of secure environment tend to be more satisfied in their relationships.
And overall is a more secure and connected person.
They also understand what it is to give freedom to their partners or loved ones.
They're not controlling or manipulating and they realize that even when they're setbacks or let down,
that doesn't mean it leads to a shutdown.
So they have a resiliency and a bounce back within them because there's a security and a stability that they were born into
and became their normal.
The second attachment style is avoidant.
And avoidant people, they experienced parents that were dismissive of their emotions.
So perhaps those parents were a bit over involved in their work or their own issues and problems.
So they didn't really take the time to help maybe the child who's now an adult process and hear their emotion.
So they felt heard and seen.
People that have this avoidant attachment style, they have a tendency to be emotionally distance themselves from their partners.
They sabotage the relationship.
And perhaps one of the more blatant things that avoidant attachment styles manifest is that they unconsciously attempt to make sure
they never go through what they went through without initial caregiver.
And so they're driven by some unhealthy fuel and statistics say this makes up 25% of our population.
The next attachment style is anxious.
And this makes up 20% of the population.
So see if you fall in this category, they had unreliable parents.
And really maybe a better word is that they were inconsistent.
That these parents were available one moment, but unavailable the next.
So these people that grew up like that, they never internalized enough security to go out in the world feeling really solid about themselves.
So these people tend to be more desperate in relationships.
They form more of a fantasy bond.
They're looking for their partner to rescue them.
They also find it hard to trust others in adult relationships.
This is the type that the emerging language of the day would call the thirsty type.
So you think about it, the anxious and avoidant make up 45% almost half of the population.
But perhaps in this emerging generation, those statistics may not be as accurate.
I would agree.
You know, as a woman, I'm just going to speak to women right here, although I think it applies to both genders.
I've seen so many women really live from a place of that anxious attachment.
And what I mean by that is I know so many women that really struggle with, you know, being able to financially provide for themselves.
So they're like constantly looking for either loved one friends or families to really take care of them.
Or they're always in a relationship and living with a partner, but they're willing to compromise their core values and beliefs in order to find kind of this facade of security.
Because I know so many women that are living with men or allowing men to take care of them and they're sleeping with them.
And there's this compromise and it's all for the sake of false security.
And I think there's so many women that live from a place of anxiousness and they don't live from the place of God given identity.
And I really feel like there's breakthrough for those women because if they really allow God to be their source, there is going to be such a fulfillment.
But the good news is, is that Jesus is the answer.
Give us some good news.
Jesus is the ultimate attachment restore.
The Bible says he's the repair of the breach.
Come on. I mean, how many times have I worked with young men and women, their parents prostituted them out so they could pay their mortgage.
And these women where I saw them lean into Jesus and Jesus did a restoration on a foundational level with them on an attachment level.
They were able to bond. They're now in happy marriages thriving.
They are parents and they have great relationships with their kids and they're serving God and they're, they're this beautiful picture of restoration.
But they have not allowed the dysfunction of their childhood to become the dysfunction of their adulthood.
There's the key is we can have dysfunction in our childhood, but it doesn't have to define us all the way to our adulthood.
Jesus can come in and restore and heal everything.
There's somebody listening right now. It's just so important that you know that if you come to Christ or as you have come to Christ, you're a new creature in Christ Jesus.
The old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new.
The Bible talks about Romans 5.5 that he gives a hope that is not disappoint, but it goes on to say he sheds his love abroad in our hearts.
The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter because he's ready to comfort you.
But I love and look for the Bible says of Jesus, he is anointed to bind up the broken hearted.
Now God can use other people, but if you're looking for some other person to bind up your broken hearted, you're going to be more broken hearted in the end result.
Because Jesus alone has the anointing to bind up the broken hearted.
I am so excited to keep it 100.
This mighty man of God has written a book 21 ways to prepare for marriage other than dating.
He is now one of the leading voices in the relationship vein.
He has launched a membership site, one university that has helped over 100,000 students prepare for marriage.
Featured in Forbes magazine, he's the founder of Miller Global Enterprises.
Keep it 100. I want you to get ready for Jamal Miller.
Hey Jamal, what's going on my brother? How you doing?
Man, I'm doing good, Sean. It's so blessed to be a part of this man. I'm doing great. Glad to be here.
Hey, Keep it 100 tribe. This is a great friend.
He and his wife Natasha are precious. Isn't there two baby daughters? What's been going on with you, bro?
Man, we're just in this thing, bro. Just continuing to, you know, space that fast and purpose and destiny.
And raising our girls through all the stuff that's happening in our world.
But all in all, man, we are blessed and no complaints at all.
That is so true, man. I mean, we are in the strangest, most peculiar, unprecedented times ever, right?
Absolutely, man. It's just such a crazy time. But I believe you already know, man, anytime where there's craziness like this,
there's opportunities that just cannot be mustered up.
I believe the divine opportunities for God is definitely still moving powerfully through all of this.
And he's just waiting for those people that are in the right position to be used.
And I think that's what's happening right now in our world, man, that God is raising up some really strong men and women to use heavily during this time.
I love that. I love that thinking. That's a nugget right there.
Well, hey, Jamal, you are in fact, at one point in time, it could have been said you were an emerging voice in this era of relationships.
Now you are a leading voice. And man, I've been so blessed by you and your wife.
So I'm going to jump in this if that's okay.
Maybe you could begin, bro, by telling us how did you and your wife, Natasha, meet and how did it lead to 100,000 people being helped by one university?
Yeah, man. So it really started off with me, you know, after I give the beginning of the story, what really launched me into a place of valuing relationships and valuing marriage was right around the time of 16, 17 years old,
that I was just living that identity less life where I didn't have much identity, didn't know my purpose was I grew up in a semi Christian home.
My dad wasn't safe. My mom was. So it was one of those where it was like coming, you know, we go to church every Sunday and Wednesday and we see people living the Christian life at church.
But then we come home, parents are arguing, dad is living a different lifestyle. Like it's just all over the place to where I kind of had to figure things out on my own.
And I remember, you know, one time my mom, my dad were arguing and my mom, you know, pulled me in after they get done arguing and she says, Hey, Jamal, I want to tell you right now as a young man, when you get married, that's how you don't treat your wife.
And just that moment was so sensitive and vulnerable for her to tell me that it just marked me. It marked me as like, you know, I just kind of like her words are so powerful because it almost like prophesied my future in regards to doing it different.
And from there, you know, I just was like, yo, like, I'm going to do it different. I'm not going to see I don't want my marriage to be like this because I know there's got to be more. Right. And then that leads into one day I was messing around with a young lady almost did some stuff that I would regret it.
And the Lord broke in in that very moment and said, Jamal, either you give me everything you have or you don't give me nothing at all.
And it was in that moment that I saw my future flash before me and I saw myself on my wedding day. And I saw like, wow, like in this moment, this woman is not my wife.
This is not my wife. And I'm already doing what my mom said, don't do. And so that moment I like really kicked the girl out of my room. I said, Hey, we can't do this. You got to go.
I got before my face with God. And I said, God, if I'm going to do this, I need your help. If I'm going to remain a pure man and do this the right way, I can't do this alone.
And that's when I gave myself fully to God. So then fast forward. I didn't date. I didn't do anything. I gave myself to Jesus off to college.
And then once I graduate college and I moved to Chicago, that's what I was like, okay, God, I've done everything right, man.
I've got the virgin, I've got the job, I got the degree. I'm living on my own. Like I done done this for you. Like, where is my wife? You know what I'm saying? Like, where is she?
And that's where God took me on this journey. He said, Jamal, you're so focused on getting married, but you have no idea what it takes to stay married.
Wow.
So that's when I went on the journey of learning what it takes to stay married as a single man. And I started to think like a married man. Responsibilities-wise, maturity-wise, emotion,
decision, finances, all before I had any woman in my life. And that's where, you know, eventually the Lord broke me of a lot of bad mindsets that I had about marriage, man.
And that's where one day I'm scrolling on Facebook and lo and behold, I see a beautiful black woman talking about Jesus. And that's how I met Natasha, man.
We met on Facebook, a divine setup, but it came after that season of me learning what it takes to be a married man. And out of that came for me meeting my wife on Facebook.
We dated and we're now married.
That's amazing. And you guys did a Facebook love story of you guys coming together and you guys meeting and your relationship. And it went viral. Isn't that right?
Correct. So we actually got engaged. A lot of our friends and our family members besides our, you know, immediate family did not have any clue of one another.
My family didn't know who she was, her family didn't know who she was. And I was like, hey, okay, we're going to be happy to go on tour if we don't do something. You know what I'm saying?
That's great.
Let's just put up a Facebook video. So after we got engaged at my house, we got the camera and we recorded our entire story. And that's when we didn't know that we were doing it for our friends and family, not for the world.
Oh man, I love that. What would you say to those that are not currently dating as to how they can prepare for marriage?
And some people maybe even in a way where they put their life on hold because they feel like life doesn't really start for them until they get in that relationship.
And they kind of feel like, well, once I meet that person, then we work out stuff, then that will prepare us for marriage.
But you bring out both in your one university and your book that you can prepare for marriage before you ever go on your first date. So kind of explain that to us, bro.
Yeah, absolutely. So that's definitely the mindset of the Lord ship with me to in regards to the cold concept of the moment you say I do.
And you're walking out with this person that you now are saying you're going to spend happily ever after with. And you're going to now say this is the person that I'm going to love forever.
And in that moment, the last thought on your mind is that this marriage will end in divorce on your wedding day. That's the last thought in your mouth.
So true.
And the question is, but why is it that 50% of couples of getting married last thought in your mind is divorced?
Something has to be wrong. Right.
And what I began to realize was that a lot of people were marrying unprepared, which shows me gave me insight that love is not enough to keep a marriage because you can love all kind of stuff.
But in the day, just because you love a thing does not mean you have the discipline to sustain a thing.
And that was what I ended up learning while I was in that season of preparation was that everything you do before you say I do is preparation for marriage.
Wow.
And from there, before I ever met Natasha, I began to think like a married man in regards to what are all the things that I need to be doing now that will help me to be able to sustain the love that is created when you meet that potential person.
Because we all know that love definitely has it's a byproduct of action.
And love is not a feeling. It is something you feel what something is done.
That's why we love Jesus because we know he died on the cross for our sins, proving and opening up this feeling, this emotion of commitment and just euphoria for the fact that this man went through this for me.
Wow.
I love him.
And so that was the thing that I began to see was kind of going wrong.
And so for me, the encouragement I have for those that are saying, Hey, I'm not dating right now. What should I be doing?
Well, you need to be doing learning as much as possible about yourself.
Right.
Learning as much as possible.
And that number one reality is that you can't do for yourself everything that you need done.
That's where we have to come to the end of our self and our reality and our needs for Christ.
So good.
You have to come to the end of you before you try to involve anybody else into your life and try to bring anybody else.
And you've got to know that no human being can love you perfectly.
Period.
Wow.
That is the first step in preparing for marriage is coming to a place where you realize that you cannot depend on a human being to feel the whole in your heart that only God can feel.
So that number one is your relationship with God.
So the first prayer I prayed was God, help me to love you more than I ever depend and love on my future spouse.
Because I know my future spouse is going to fail me.
My future spouse is not going to end.
This is the thing that I ended up running into was that the whole concept of soul mates, right?
Yes.
The whole concept of soul mates really comes out of a Greek mythology, which we all know when you hear the term platonic relationship.
Right.
The whole concept of relationship is actually from a Greek God that was created from the concept of us needing to have somebody to complete us.
And from there, what we ended up doing was we actually brought it into the church.
We changed the name from soul mate to the one.
Wow.
And now at this point, it goes from soul mate to the one to where now there's only one person that you can marry, only one person that will make sense for why you went through what you went through.
Only one person that will understand you like nobody else understands you.
One person that will make you feel like nobody else made you feel.
And the last time I checked, there's only one person that understands every hair in your head.
There's only one person that knows you from beginning to end.
There's only one person that should be able to complete your soul.
There's only one person.
His name is Jesus.
Snap.
Oh my God.
And we ended up replacing Jesus with a spouse and we didn't even know it.
And so that's the first step is you got to completely get out of your mind that you're looking for a soul mate.
That's not what you're looking for.
You need to look for Jesus first.
And so that's my first step.
Number two, definitely healing from your past, right?
Taking some of these in to truly evaluate the things in your life that hurt you and hit you the most.
And that's that place of delivery.
And we 100% advocate, get some therapy, sit down with some deliverance workers.
If you don't go to deliverance search, definitely go find you a good Christian therapist that can do the work as well.
But in the end, you've got some junk in your trunk.
You got the issues in your tissues that you want to talk through and kind of get a resolve for before you bring somebody into that.
So whatever things you've gone through, whatever things you've faced, hey, let's make sure you take some time before you bring somebody into it that you have a resolve for.
You're not having to come in and be healer and be restore and be all these things that they need to be your helpmate, right?
And helping you to fulfill purpose.
And then number three, big ones here is friendship.
I feel like this a bad friend is mean you're going to be a bad spouse period because friendship is 90% of your marriage relationship.
I say, hey, 10% is the fun part, right?
That's it, you know, in the day 10% is when you get the Netflix and chill, the benefits, the thighs in the bed, the good stuff, right?
But 90% of your marriage is based upon just your ability to be good friends, like your ability to communicate when you're feeling crazy, feeling wrong, your ability to hang out and have a good time together, your ability to share your life together.
That does not require sex.
That does not require connecting intimately.
It does not require those things to have a good friendship with your spouse.
So where does that begin?
That begins in you learning how to be good friends with those that you're not planning to sleep with and planning to share pills with, planning to have tattoos, one other thing about it.
Like that's not like you can learn how to be a good friend well before you get into that level of commitment with your future spouse, right?
So I say like this, you should have healthy friendship well before you're starting to seek for a spouse.
You can say all the time, hey, Jamal, how do I know how to choose the right person?
And I said, well, the same way you choose your friends, you choose your spouse, right?
And if you have not learned how to choose good friends, then you are not ready to choose your spouse because choosing friends is the starting point, the prerequisite, the training ground for choosing your spouse.
Most of the time what we do is for friends, we just choose, we let life choose our friends.
Circumstances, reasons, scenarios.
We don't actually do the thinking and the processing of is this person best for me and am I best for them?
And I tell people, hey man, then it's easy in your time just evaluating your friendship and you will learn a lot about yourself.
So those are some of the, bro, I can keep going man.
Those are some of the three big ones that we see that people just don't think about how incredibly important they are.
Oh my goodness.
But hey Jamal, what are some key principles or advice you would give to people now starting out in relationships?
Now they have that person, they're starting out and they're trying to kind of the theme of this is revolutionizing your relationship status.
You know, so many people on Facebook or otherwise, people ask about their relationship.
It's complicated and you kind of think if it's complicated, it doesn't sound like a good relationship.
So now that you've got that person that you believe you're building a future with, what are some principles or advice you'd give to people starting out now in that relationship?
Yeah, absolutely man.
So the biggest thing I would tell people when they're going into a relationship is do not lean on your feeling.
Your feeling, everyone I've said this is a treatable, quotable, just makes you give me credit.
All the people listening.
Your feelings do not know your future.
Your feelings don't know your future and so much in relationships, we lean into how a person makes us feel versus leaning into the facts of what you know about this person.
The word dating comes from the word data and the word data means to gather information.
Wow.
A lot of times we go into these dating relationships, we're in the focus of just having a good time, some of us, and then some are very purpose driven.
But we're waiting for that moment where we just feel something that we've never felt with someone else and that's the indicator they're able to spend the rest of your life with that person.
Wrong.
I mean, like I said, you can feel something for a dog, feel something for the color paint on your wall.
You can feel, I mean, you got your feelings, do not know your future, they only know what's happening in the present.
So how can you make a future based relationship on a present feeling?
Wow.
Because then if you're facing it off of present feelings with this person giving you, that now becomes a thing that has to be sustained for the direction of the matter.
And we hear it all the time.
I just don't feel the same way I felt for you in your dating.
True.
I just don't feel the same way, like that's what people end up leaning themselves to the moment that feeling goes away.
And what that feeling is called, it's called infatuation truth.
And infatuation is something that every relationship has to go through.
There's no way, like, I'm not gonna, I can't put this back to a difficult sense, but God definitely created it for us.
But what we have to do is we have to balance it with mature emotes, mature decision making.
But I do believe infatuation is the feeling, it's a great feeling.
And God gave it to us for a reason.
So when you do feel that with a person and you're feeling that connection, you're feeling the synergy and you're feeling what they call in the world, the chemistry.
Yes, sir.
Let that be the byproduct.
Let that be the overflow of the fact this person loves God.
This person's committed to purpose.
This person has a great job.
Like, what are the facts that then give you the opportunity?
Give you the confidence to let yourself feel.
Don't let the feelings come first and then you start searching for facts.
This is where one-night stands come in.
Wow.
People have them and you can even have one-night stands emotionally.
People, will you meet someone and you just pour your heart out to them on the first conversation?
No, do not do that.
You gotta be so careful to guard the information because that information can be just as dangerous as pulling down your pants.
It's how dangerous and how powerful information is.
It's because information now is literally the same way you have sex in the physical where it requires you to come together using things that are very vulnerable, which is your body to come together.
It's the same way information is because information carries memories.
It carries time.
It carries vulnerabilities.
In the moment you give all of that too soon, it easily can cause you to become connected emotionally in a way that you are not supposed to.
So be very careful about how much you share and how fast you share because you don't want to fall into a place where you now are not just, you know, how people will stay away.
Okay, I'm not gonna have sex.
I'm not gonna kiss.
But then they are out here just bearing their soul.
Right.
And they're giving everything versus protecting certain things until the right time.
Right?
So those are the key things, man, that I would say are very important for those in our daily relationships.
That is so good.
Jamal, this has been amazing.
I know that keeping 100 tribe, you've got to be jumping up and down.
Final thing for you, Jamal, what is a good way maybe you could even explain because a lot of your principles, I could tell their people are going, oh my God, I want deeper discipleship.
I want to be connected.
They want to follow you and Natasha and just glean from what it is that you guys bring.
Absolutely.
Thanks, Sean.
Yeah, you guys can definitely go to becoming the one podcast.
We just watched this last year.
We have about 10 episodes on that podcast.
So you guys can go and get more content just like this there as well.
You can go to theoneuniversity.com as well.
You can follow us on Instagram at Married and Young or myself and Natasha at Jamal Miller at Natasha and Miller.
Those who are the places that we hang out and love to keep up with everyone as you guys are churning through your season of singleness, jumping over our podcast, jump over to our Instagram and we can have some fun.
Thanks, Jamal.
We sure appreciate and love you and Natasha.
That's awesome.
You know, what I love is he gave so many practical takeaways, but as always, Sean and I always want to give you guys to keep it 100 podcast tribe.
So, what I love about these practical takeaways is today we're giving you three in this episode and these three takeaways today are really for the people who are either in between or about to enter into a relationship.
The first takeaway that we want you to have today is know and honor your deal makers and your deal breakers.
What do I mean by that?
Know your core values.
Remember, this is the person that you want to build family with.
This is the person that you are going to be facing life with, whether it's trials, tribulations, storms, glorious mountain tops, whatever it may be.
This is the person that you're going to build family with.
It is so important that you share on a fundamental level the same core values and I always encourage people.
Don't choose people that are less mature spiritually than you.
Find someone that you're equally yoked with, that you're running the race side by side with.
You each have your own relationship with God and you're going after it together.
Remember, there are deal makers and there are deal breakers.
There are things you're willing to negotiate on and there's things that are that are always going to be non negotiables.
Those non negotiables needs to be starting with character, integrity, their spiritual walk.
So good.
We have to understand, you know that someone can be really fun and you can share a lot of hobbies,
but if they don't have the spiritual depth or conviction or value system that you have,
I want to encourage you to reevaluate why you'd want to build family or life with that person.
Facts, because if you use the wrong bait, you're going to catch the wrong mate.
Oh.
The next call to action is don't be in a rush.
I see so often that certain times we allow the calendar and the chronology of our life
to dictate to us an urgency that's unnecessary.
Yes.
That we start getting a certain age that we think in our mind that we should already be married,
we should be hooked up, we should be this, we should be that.
But the bottom line is, is don't be in a rush.
Because whenever you're in a rush, you're going to leave something behind.
And what you don't want to do is get ahead of Holy Spirit.
And I believe a principle there also is so important.
Because one of the best ways you can prepare for a fulfilling relationship in the future
is to lead a fulfilling life right now.
Oh, say that.
Don't think that you'll be fulfilled once you get that partner, once you're in that relationship,
once you have that family, once you're in that next phase of your life.
You got to recognize the best preparation for fulfillment then is fulfillment now.
And you have to find your fulfillment in Christ.
And as you find your richness of the fulfillment in the season God has you,
then you'll be prepared to step into the next season.
I cannot aim in enough that point with Sean,
because someone like myself who waited until I was 39 years old to get married,
I tell you what, there were so many times I could have settled along the way.
I was tempted to settle along the way in the sense of you get tired of waiting as you age.
There is a biological clock and you can feel the pressure of the ticking clock.
But if you just refuse to settle and you allow God, the author of time to be your clock
and you remove the pressures of society's timeline.
And so what if you get married a little later?
I think we can all agree.
I'd rather get married later and have a wonderful marriage.
They get married young and be miserable.
And so whatever your timeline, there's going to be people that get married when they're young and it's God.
There's going to be people that the Lord has weight and they get married older and it's God.
Allow God to write the timeline of your life.
Takeaway number three.
Choose someone who you admire and respect rather than someone who only offers the eye candy excitement.
Can I get an amen?
Amen.
Because we all know someone can be super hot and then you can have an attraction to them,
but there is no internal, there is no emotional, mental, spiritual connection or even stimulation.
And so we want to tell you listeners that we're not, we want to encourage you not just to look for someone who you're attracted to,
who you're sexually attracted to.
Yes, you want chemistry.
You're going to be having sex with your spouse.
They need to be attractive to you, no doubt.
But that is not the only thing, because we all know beauty fades.
And as Sean says.
And it sags too.
Facts.
And so you have to recognize that as life evolves, this has to be someone that you can go through the decades with.
And so as much as beauty is important and attraction and chemistry is real and it is important,
it has to go much deeper and beyond that.
Recognize again, like I went back to my first point, you're building family and life with this person.
Go beyond the external and go for the internal spiritual.
We hope you enjoyed this two-part episode on revolutionizing your relationship.
We had so much fun gathering these experts, gathering these voices to speak into your life.
And so we want to just encourage you, continue to subscribe and share it with your friends and family,
because we want you to catch every new episode that comes out because we are doing this for you.
And here's what's really fun.
Last week we had our first giveaway and this week, can I get the drum roll please?
Come on.
We had our first giveaway winner and the winner is Amanda Simon.
Amanda.
And it was about $65 worth of product.
We were so excited to bless her, so into her.
And we're going to be having more giveaways in the future.
So stay connected to us because we want to continue to connect with the Keep It 100 tribe.
And as always, I'm going to continue to ask you to rate, review and refer us.
We want as many people to be impacted by this podcast as possible.
Check us out at www.SeanAndChristasmith.com and as always find us on Facebook
at Sean and Chris Smith Ministries as well as all social media platforms.
Stay connected because we want you to know Keep It 100 tribe.
We're doing this for you.
Our next episode that will be dropping is going to be amazing.
We're going to talk about sustaining spiritual taste amongst contrary cultural thirst.
It's another way of saying, keeping the right appetites even in the middle of the modern world.
And so you do not want to miss next week.
And so until then, we sure love you guys and...
Keep It 100!