SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa, and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Hey man, thank you so much for listening to my episode with Glenn and Phyllis Hill. They are so incredible. They are the authors of the Connection Codes, the blueprint and tools for creating the relationships you crave. And I really think this can be a game changer for many of you, especially in the context of couples. We have all experienced disconnection. And many of you are familiar with the idea that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. But what is connection? What causes disconnection and how can we reconnect with ourselves, with each other? How do we process emotions and meet the unmet needs underneath? In this episode, you will hear Glenn and Phyllis tell their incredible story. They'll share more of the science of connection and demonstrate what it looks like to use a core emotion wheel to connect. Enjoy the episode. I am so thrilled to be introducing you all to Dr. Glenn Hill and Phyllis Hill. Actually, some of you probably already know them because I've heard from multiple people that we need to invite Glenn and Phyllis. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:29

What an honor. Yes. We hear a lot about your community and about you specifically, Drew. And so we're thrilled to be here today, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39

Yeah, it's good. Why are you so passionate about connection?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Because when you live without it, it sucks. What we do now, as far as presenting the connection codes, is born out of our pain. We've celebrated our 43rd anniversary a few weeks ago, but we've been married probably about 12 years. And we missed each other so bad. Because if marriage is about a relationship, well, then the loss of that relationship, I don't know what you want to call it, but it's not marriage. So we were, and we've always cared about each other since the day I met her. We've, you know, we've mattered each other. We just didn't have any tools and we had no idea how to connect deeply. So to live in that disconnection day after day after week, after month, after year, after year, after decade, is pretty intense and pretty brutal. And we realize that our research says about 91% of people self-report, this is not my observation or my criticism, they self-report that their marriage is unsuccessful. That's pretty bad, pretty bad success rate. So we're just on a mission to change this because we know what the pain is.

SPEAKER_04: 2:48

Well, and what disconnection leads to, right? So not being connected, like not being connected to yourself, not being connected to other humans, it it's a very destructive path. And I and I think that if you look back, you go, yeah, when I was 12, my goals were not to destroy my life. That was not my goals.

SPEAKER_01: 3:08

And never met that person.

SPEAKER_04: 3:10

Yeah. And so it's it's kind of the idea of how did how did we get here? And for us, like in our marriage, we thought we had all the right ingredients. And we, you know, we met at a Bible camp, we loved God, we poured into scripture together, like we loved reading the word together, we loved praying together, we, of course, did ministry together, church together. So it's like we thought we had all the right ingredients.

SPEAKER_01: 3:36

And that's what everybody said. Yeah. And we didn't believe what we did.

SPEAKER_04: 3:39

Like we followed all the rules to have the perfect outcome. And then when we didn't, right away, it was almost shocking. Like this was a lie. This was what in the world happened? You know, you feel you kind of just feel almost this shell shock of this was never supposed to turn out this way. And then, you know, the pain comes in, the pain sets in, and it's the the disillusionment, and there's so much pain in that, and then you start making really bad choices, trying to find peace, trying to find happiness, trying to find connection somewhere out there. And, you know, I think that for years we would still always come back to each other, as in I still want you and you still want me, but we just didn't know. And, you know, now, all these years later, and all the work that we do with connection, it's really phenomenal to see how destructive it is when we aren't connected. There's so many things we can be involved in and be busy with, even a job. And you go, yeah, but nobody really knows me here. And so we're not deeply connected with other humans, and that leads to a tremendous amount of loneliness. And then in that loneliness, we choose all kinds of things to make that go away, make that feel better. And that's what we found.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

Yeah, and for us, it basically we went and bought a brand new car. We got home with it, the brakes didn't work, the steering wheel didn't work, the seat just kept wobbling, it wasn't buckled down. You know, most of the time the car wouldn't even start. That was our marriage. And we're like, wait, this is a brand new car. It's supposed to go somewhere, and it's the steering wheel is supposed to work. It's like, well, you know, I mean, and we were always just oh, well, marriage is hard. Marriage is hard work. And I remember on my wedding day, that was not part of our vows. We're not like this is gonna be hard work, you know. We were excited about Happily Ever After, and literally 48 hours later, we were like, oh my gosh, what happened? But we didn't know, we didn't understand, and you know, we didn't know if it was gonna last for a day or two days or a week or a month, that this pain that we were experiencing. Of course, we had no idea it was gonna last over a quarter of a century. That's a long time. We I was 20 years old, I didn't know how long a quarter of a century was. If you told me on my wedding day, hey dude, buckle up, it's gonna be a quarter of a century of misery. I'd be like, wait, what? You're the worst wedding attendant ever. Uh who invited you? But that was true. But we didn't know, we had no idea. And it again took a long time for us to get a clue.

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

And that feeling of disillusionment and disconnection is what so many people feel when their marriage falls apart due to porn. Yeah. It's a crisis of disconnection, and I can't think of a better lifeline than the connection codes. We've talked about how disconnection creates the setup for so many unhealthy choices in addiction, and and it's often what many of us experience every single day. I love how you're taking brain science and making it more understandable. So, from a neuroscientific connection codes perspective, what causes this connection?

SPEAKER_01: 7:12

Well, that's a a long story, or I can try to make it concise. It's an identity issue and it's emotion.

SPEAKER_04: 7:19

Even that terminology, I think, is is confusing for faith-based people because they only have heard this with identity in Christ. So when we talk about identity, we're not questioning your identity with Christ. We're talking about the identity with each other. So the loss of identity means that I don't feel that I have value or that I exist or that I matter. There's moments where we can have a loss of identity. And Glenn and I had one of those on Wednesday where we had a big project come in. We didn't know it was coming in, but we had to do it that day. Really, it meant Glenn had to do it that day. And he immediately felt a pain in it. I did not recognize his pain. And I made just a very small comment, like, oh, we can just we can just knock this out really quick. Well, for him, that was such a la loss of identity for him instantly. It felt like a stab, like this is not quick. He knew it wasn't quick. He knew he had to rewrite the script, the whole thing had to be re rewritten that day for filming the next day. So his loss in that identity, he crashed in that moment. Like he felt like I don't exist to you, I don't have value to you, I'm never good enough. And it wasn't my experience, right? I didn't experience it that way. I'm just like, okay, we got to get it done, let's knock it out. Because I'm I'm a very task-oriented person. And it didn't strike me that way. But I didn't slow down with him. I didn't try to hear his experience. And so for him, it was an immediate loss of identity, which is like I can't get oxygen. Like that's how we describe it. Like when you lose identity, it's like you can't get to oxygen fast enough. And in our relationship, you go, oh wow, how often does that happen? You know, sometimes it's your family of origin. Every time you go back home, grandma makes some horrible off-the-wall comment and you lose identity. You know, your parents still treat you like you're 10 years old and they don't recognize this man that's in front of them and all the achievements. And so there's this loss of identity. And it's like you can hardly breathe when you go back home, and you're like, what's wrong with me? Well, it's that loss of identity. So when there's a loss of identity, you kind of go, okay, what do we do with that? And it's it's the connection, right? We lost connection on Wednesday. So we had to find each other again. He had to express the emotion, like the pain he felt. And I had to sit in that and make room for that and hear that. So that means I had to slow down, not just defend, but I had to slow down with him. And you know, it's interesting. I know, Drew, you do a lot of work with pornography. We talk about this a lot. We, of course, hear these stories a lot, and just for many men, it started in teenage years. And there's a lack of connection. All of a sudden, they're entering puberty and they don't feel connected any longer to their dad, to their mom, to their siblings. It's like they're going through something within their bodies all alone and they don't know how to talk about it, and nobody's talking to them. And so there's some huge disconnection that happens really young, and then they bring that into their adult life and into their marriage often, that horrible disconnect that they felt at a young age.

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

It could be the loss of identity with other boys, it could be the loss of identity with girls. And at home, maybe feeling like I don't matter, I'm all alone. Who cares about me except porn?

SPEAKER_01: 11:19

Yeah, and that's something we uh always present, and it's not just porn, but it can be many things. It can be alcohol, substances, whatever. But those are actually the solution. We're not saying they're a good solution, but they're the solution. They're not the cause. And loneliness is often the cause or fear. You know, we use terms like stress and overwhelm, but those are result words. They are emotion words, but they're actually the result of unprocessed emotion. And uh I always say that the Jay boys are the most reliable friends you'll ever have: Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Johnny Walker. You can depend on them. You you know that you can trust them. You know, now they don't take you where you actually want to be, but they're safe in the moment. They're a very short-term, immediate comfort. And so people turn to that. I'm not voting for it, I'm not saying it's a good solution. Well, the same is true with pornography. Now, pornography is a is a hoax, it's a big scam because it's a computer screen. In my day it was magazines, but you know, it's a computer screen. Well, that's not real, but our psyche kind of doesn't know that. You know, if you if you met this woman that's on the screen in a coffee shop, she wouldn't even talk to you. But our psyche doesn't know that because what it looks like is she's saying, Hey, I'm safe for you. You can trust me. I, you know what? You're we're so connected, I'll even take my clothes off in front of you. I'll even do sexual stuff in front of you. Well, the individual who's feeling so much loneliness is like, oh wow, so this, you know, Bambi is my friend. You know, she obviously cares about me and she doesn't. It's a hoax, but it feels like she does. And that's the great appeal there, especially if the individual, male or female, but typically the male, doesn't know how to connect deeply.

SPEAKER_00: 13:08

So if porn is a sexualized solution for unprocessed emotions, then what creates real connection?

SPEAKER_01: 13:21

Authenticity and vulnerability. We're born doing this really well. Every 12-month-old on the planet, assuming they're not in some catastrophic scenario, knows how to connect deeply. We're born this way. Uh, we have 12 grandchildren. My grandchildren are superior to most uh grandchildren, but whatever. But they're just humans. Kidding. But they know how to connect. And you watch people out in public, you know, go to a mall and everybody's drawn to the babies. You know, you see somebody strolling along with a little baby, and everybody's like, oh my gosh, look how cute. And that baby, if the individual feels safe to them, will tune in and they have this bonding moment. Well, that's because the baby doesn't know any differently. And somewhere along the way, unfortunately for most of us, we lose that. We we we get lost from ourselves and we don't present ourselves authentically and vulnerably. I broke my arm when I was five years old. I never told anybody because I knew I wasn't allowed to. It was three days later my mother realized I didn't use my right arm anymore because I couldn't. I couldn't move it. Again, I'm not mad at my parents, but I'm like, what is happening in a household where a five-year-old breaks his arm and doesn't say ow? That's weird. Something funky's happening here. Well, there's not safety. He has been told you stop experiencing what you're experiencing and you shut up about it. And they didn't say those words, but that's the message that was given. That's certainly the message that I received. So I learned just don't say anything. You break your arm, well, too bad. You don't say anything. So as that continues, five years old, eight years old, 12, 15, 18, 20, that person, me being that person, just doesn't know how to convey authentic and vulnerably. But I did when I was born. I did when I was six months old, I did when I was 12 months old, but fairly early in life I learned not to. And that's her story too.

SPEAKER_00: 15:08

Authenticity and vulnerability are essential for connection. If we don't have those, connection's impossible. Right. Yeah. And yet really being vulnerable is absolutely terrifying. I'm thinking about the guys who have sexual secrets that they've never told anyone before. And I'm also thinking about some of the wives listening who have been hurt and deceived and betrayed, and who have their own reasons to not be vulnerable. It seems like feeling safe is so important, and yet vulnerability often feels unsafe.

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

Yeah. That's the connection codes protocol is I don't want to be vulnerable with you until I know you're safe, but I'll never know if you're safe until I'm vulnerable. So we're stuck. We're at an impasse, and somebody has to take a risk.

SPEAKER_00: 16:09

Phyllis, I remember you talking about how you didn't realize fear was driving you as an adult, too.

SPEAKER_04: 16:15

Yeah. Well, I just didn't understand emotion. So I very, you know, commonly would say Glenn has enough emotions for both of us. I don't do emotions. And I didn't say it in a joking way, I really genuinely believed it. And which is just false information. That's not science, that's not how our bodies work. And we all have emotion, it's housed in our brain. We have five regions of our brain that house emotions. And I think even as uh just in our Christian faith, we are really mistaught. We believe we can choose, you choose joy, you choose emotions. And so it's like, that's not science, that's not how it works. Your brain fires emotions. And so then I started looking at all the emotions, fear being one of them. And I very quickly said, Oh no, no, I'm not afraid of anything. And then he broke down Glenn with his words, his research, brought down just what is fear. And I realized, oh my word, I have fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of making the wrong decision. And it was very much tied into my business, you know. And so I was waking up every day gripped with fear, you know, fear of even picking up my phone and seeing how many people called out sick or how many of the jobs got moved around, or, you know, problems that came in overnight, kind of stuff. And I didn't realize how much damage it was doing to my body. And I was just going further and further into myself. I didn't know how to communicate it. I didn't know how to say to Glenn, whoo, feeling lots of fear today. You don't, I just I didn't even know how to touch it. I didn't know how to find it. I didn't know how to listen. I didn't know how to connect with the emotion in my brain. And so it took a minute. And thankfully, because Glenn was doing the work he was doing, he always calls me his It was a very difficult case study. Case study that, you know, some of the tools that we have today and we still use, like the core emotion wheel, came out of that because I needed something really fast and I needed a tool, I needed help to get to my emotion every day, all day long. I needed a visual, I needed something I could just quickly go to and be like, okay, what's happening in my fear region?

SPEAKER_03: 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 18:40

And I I was like, I would, you know, now I'm real fast, but man, in the early days, I would be like, okay, give me just a second here. What's happening in my fear region? But then as I began to find myself, it was incredible to be able to share it with others and to be able to be in a safe place where people weren't trying to fix me or correct me. That was so huge. Because for me to be able to say, Oh, I feel fear, you know, I have to call Mr. Jones in a minute. People weren't going, don't be fearful. I mean, he's not gonna be anything but grateful. You know, I didn't have those people around me. Thankfully, I had people that were going, Oh man, I I hear you, I hear that fear, you know. What what do you need? And I felt so supported instead of judged, which was incredibly helpful.

SPEAKER_01: 19:30

Yeah. And and frequently, and it's from a good intention, but we faith-based people are horrible about it. We constantly tell people, don't experience what you experience. It's a gentle, subtle way of saying, shut up. Stop experiencing what you're experiencing and shut up about it. And of course, we don't say those words. We're like, Well, no, I don't say that. Well, that's the message that we're giving. We're going, what, fellas, don't choose faith, not fear. Well, fellas isn't choosing fear. That's she's that doesn't make any sense. Nobody's that dumb. Nobody gets up in the morning and it's like, what am I going to choose today? I think I'll choose fear. I'll live in fear all day. Nobody does that.

SPEAKER_00: 20:06

I've never met that person. You created this core emotion wheel as a way of sharing our emotions, processing them, and connecting. I'm gathering that that restores a sense of identity with each other when we do that.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

Yeah. All of us want to be seen and heard. Every human on the planet wants to be seen and heard. And when I'm able to present my authentic, vulnerable self and she's able to be present and safe with me. Yeah, I mean, it's just indescribable. That that's what we all want. That's what we wanted when we were 12 months old. We just wanted somebody to tune into us. And we we older babies want the exact same thing. We just had a whole bunch more birthdays, but that coding inside of us never changed. So should we try it out?

SPEAKER_00: 20:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 20:49

That'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 20:51

I mean, you've done it thousands of times, but let's model the core emotion wheel.

SPEAKER_01: 20:56

Yeah. So the whole goal here, there's eight core emotions, and the research, we can go into all that boring part, but the research shows there's just eight of them. Every other emotion is a level of or a hybrid of these core emotions. And so when we get to the core, the authentic, real, vulnerable self, that's our goal right here. So there's a two minutes, you can time us if you want. It should take us two minutes or less each. Who's going first?

SPEAKER_04: 21:19

I'll go first.

SPEAKER_01: 21:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 21:21

Let's see. Felt a lot of guilt on Wednesday, just not hearing you, not slowing down with you, and just hearing the pain that you were experiencing. Shame in that, too, that I missed so badly with you, and it affected so much of the day. Just core level anger that projects are we're so short-staffed that so much gets piled on you, and also on Tira, and so just gotta make some changes there. So this kind of stuff doesn't happen last minute. Let's see, I would say hurt. I did experience hurt as well because it knocked us off course so badly, and I just kind of got sucked into my own pain in it, my own hurt. Let's see, yesterday, sad saying goodbye to the staff because we're going to Europe for five weeks. So yeah, they were all sad, and then it just kind of hit me too. And I think even with our kids and grandkids saying goodbye to them this weekend, I know I'm already projecting just some sad, but tons of joy that we're getting to go to Europe and that we're getting to teach connection codes all over Europe. So much joy. But yeah, some fear being out of the country for that long and getting on and off planes and trains and automobiles. So and sleeping in many, many different beds. Little fear there. Lonely. I do feel the lonely in travel that I'm the one who keeps up and makes all the decisions on where we're going and how we're getting there and where we're sleeping. So I do feel just some lonely in that. And I think I got one.

SPEAKER_01: 23:09

Wow. Amazing. Thank you. Yeah, for me, yeah, a good bit of fear. This is the longest tour we've ever done. And I think it's gonna be amazing. I feel a lot of joy about it, but some fear because we don't know what each situation, you know. Are we gonna be sharing a bedroom with our hosts or you know, maybe sleeping at the foot of their bed? We don't know. I hope not. But just having to readjust to you know, situation after situation after situation. Yeah. And even with the packing, I felt some fear like we gotta carry all this luggage around with us, so we're pretty limited. Uh but again, tons of joy. This is gonna be a wild, crazy adventure, and I love it that I get it to do with you. It's just uh amazing. Uh there's some shame in that. You know, I feel high maintenance at times, just that my my stuff, you know, just trying to do things, you know, in one small suitcase, narrow everything down. A lot of guilt about Wednesday, just missed so badly uh with you. Uh there's a lot of hurt in that. Sad and lonely. You know, I knew I had to get this stuff done, which we did. We got it done, and yesterday was really, really successful. There's a ton of joy in that, but it was it was a tough route getting there. A lot of anger. I love your anger, just that we we're we gotta get we gotta shift in this. This is too much. And I feel really driven to okay, come on, people. We're smart enough to figure this out and hire some people to get the help that we need.

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

All eight emotions.

SPEAKER_04: 24:42

That was all eight.

SPEAKER_00: 24:43

I think it was. Let's talk about what just happened there.

SPEAKER_04: 24:47

What does that mean? Ask away.

SPEAKER_00: 24:49

Here are some observations I made. One is that you all focused on sharing feelings, not judging you what you're experiencing or judging the other person in any way. It seemed like you had some safe boundaries about the way that you shared. And then I also noticed a lot of nonverbal signals from the person who was listening. You're even doing it now, the and yeah, and and maybe even some safe touch as well, in order to not just have the sharing plop on the other person, but feel a sense of being received, seen and heard.

SPEAKER_01: 25:30

Yeah, and that's some of the connection codes tools, is what we call the ooh or what you're referencing as far as we call it audible listening, which sounds like an oxymoron, but where I'm audible, what the research showed was if I'm silent, I could be listening to every word she's saying, totally tuned into her. But if I'm silent, typically it would tickle the pain center of her brain. It becomes a lonely experience. Uh and we were in Mexico City recently, and our translator, I just thought it was brilliant. And as he's translating it into Spanish, he said, think about being on a telephone. And he said, if you're talking to somebody on the phone, if they're silent for about 20 seconds, you can't stand it. And you're like, are are you still there? Hello? Can you are you did you know, because you think the call got dropped? Well, the same thing is happening that if I'm not audible with Phyllis, about 15, 20 seconds in, she's like, I know you're here geographically. Are you here with me? You know, or are we uh together? And even as we're talking, you know, Drew, you you ooh us. You you are audible. Well, that just lights us up. And and and we're just human, it's just like everybody else. And if you were silent the whole time we're talking, at some point I'd be like, I think he checked out. I think he's thinking about what he's gonna do this afternoon, or he wants to go skiing or something. I don't know. And we learned that from a number of sources. The still-face experiments with Dr. Edronic from way back in the 1970s was a big part of that. So all of the rules, the guidelines, or the connection codes are very, very research-based, and they're on purpose. They're not just random ideas we thought of around a campfire one weekend. We researched it for years and years to figure out what makes this work. And even you know, the whole sharing of emotion. Emotions happen to you. Phyllis is not trying to feel fear. She's not trying to fear, feel guilt. She's not trying to feel shame. She just does. So I can tell her not to. I can tell her she's wrong and stupid, which again, that's the message we convey to people. We don't say those words. But I'm like, what, Drew? No, man, don't feel fear about that. You're wrong to feel fear. And Drew's like, well, but I do feel fear. And I'm like, well, just don't, just stop it. Because now I'm telling him he's stupid. Drew, you're just stupid to feel fear. And so Drew walks away going, Okay, I guess I won't be sharing with Glenn anymore because he told me I was wrong and stupid, and that didn't help me.

SPEAKER_04: 27:54

I think we also have our uh phrases that we use, you know, like if you're sharing with a friend who will feel a lot of fear about finances, oh brother, God's got you. He's gonna provide, it's gonna just come in. You just wait and see. Well, what that actually that sounds great, except it really shut you down and it actually just reactivated your fear. It doesn't help at all. It doesn't help. And I mean, if you were hooked up to a brain scan and these people would come into the room and you would say the exact same thing. I feel fear about finances, depending on how they responded, you could watch the brain scan. So it's like, wow, that words of encouragement actually just reactivated the fear and it spiked higher.

SPEAKER_01: 28:40

But it's from a good intention, that's the problem. Right. Because the person's not trying to harm you, the person's actually trying to help you. We say it's a good intention, it's a bad application.

SPEAKER_02: 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:49

Because it seems to make so oh man, I'll pray for you. You know, God's got you, Drew. And that sounds good to me. I just helped Drew. I actually hurt him, I made it worse. And we don't realize that that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04: 29:02

And we do this in our closest relationship. I just was saying a friend. Yeah, but if you're married, this happens all the time where your spouse shares something, and so quickly they learn. Like if you shut them down, even with words of encouragement, they then go back into themselves. They're like, I'm not gonna share it next time. I'm not gonna share when I feel fear about our finances. I'm just gonna keep it to myself because when I share it, you shut me down with you know scripture, even like something that you go, but that's a good thing, right? And it's like, well, no, not in that moment. That wasn't the experience they needed. They needed the space to be able to say, just like what we just demonstrated, we didn't make that up. That actually happened on Wednesday. We didn't write that out, you know. That our disconnect on Wednesday, we're sharing with you and your audience. Like that happened, that's real. And it was really painful. And And disconnect is very painful. And we just want to shorten shorten the time when it happens.

SPEAKER_00: 30:08

What was it like for you to uh share with each other even for two minutes?

SPEAKER_04: 30:13

For me, it's very healing because I feel heard by him. What knocked us off course were my first words. But then for him to also make space that I in the I felt hurt as the day went on. Like I felt pain. You know, you we could sit here and talk about all the logistics and prove that it really wasn't that bad. That does not connect. Logistics don't connect. And I think in most marriages, you're going into a courtroom proving I never said it like that. I never even said those words. But the other, that never helps. It just never does.

SPEAKER_01: 30:50

Yeah, but I would suggest that, and I get what you're saying, but I would suggest that what knocked us off course was my hurt and shame that I experienced because she could have said those exact same words to someone else, or maybe in some other setting to me. And I wouldn't have felt hurt and shame. But in that setting, I did. And we forgot the connection codes. You could have called us, Drew, and reminded us of the connection codes, that would have been helpful. And yeah, we're just pilgrims on the journey. We're just like everybody else. When we use the connection codes tools, we connect. When we don't, we don't. We don't get a free pass just because we wrote a book about it, which I feel like we should, but we don't. Because we're just humans. And when we use the tools, the point is, you know, if you're whatever, if you're a carpenter and you pick up a brick or a rock and start trying to drive a nail with it, I don't care how long you've been a carpenter. It doesn't work. And I'm like, Drew, dude, here, use this hammer. And Drew's like, oh yeah, I forgot. And then I give you a nail gun and you're like, phew, that works. I remember I was a contractor for many years. And I remember when I bought my first nail gun, and I felt like I was cheating. I was hoping God didn't notice because it felt illegal. It's like, oh my word, we can do in 10 minutes what it used to take us an hour and a half to do. My gosh, this is this has got to be illegal, you know. It's at least unethical. And that's what the connection code tools are. They're cheat codes, which is the human condition, is what we're supposed to do. This is what we do with babies. We walk in the room and we're immediately audible with them. We go, oh, hey, buddy. We're not saying anything. We're just audible. We're not conveying any information. Well, that's what the baby needs. And I've done this research with all 12 of my grandkids. Walk into a room of the baby and be silent. Just stare at them and watch what happens. It's not very long, 30 seconds or less. They get lit up and they get activated and they're like, what are you doing? It's like, what? Drew's standing right there. Yeah, but he's silent. And when he's silent, this baby doesn't know what to do. And again, we're just older babies who had a whole bunch more birthdays.

SPEAKER_00: 32:55

That makes a lot of sense. This core emotion wheel is a free resource that you can get at the Connection Codes website. Something you teach, something you use every day. We use similar tools that has a material. Although I feel like narrowing it down to eight probably makes it a lot easier than the feeling wheel, which has hundreds or absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 33:17

I was gonna say, will you do the wheel with us?

SPEAKER_00: 33:20

I'll do the wheel.

SPEAKER_04: 33:21

All right. We would love that.

SPEAKER_00: 33:24

So right now I'm feeling some fear about all the podcast episodes where I'm trying hard to not talk and not interrupt the person and not really emotionally conveying my presence or kindness. So there's that. I think some guilt about that too. I don't really feel shame about it. I do feel some shame, perhaps about not being as familiar with your work as I would like to be, and still interviewing you. I feel joy at what you're sharing and how well it fits with what I've been learning about attunement and sitting with myself and others in the dirt and the mess and the stuck places. I feel sadness for how many of us grew up with our emotions cut off and interrupted, oftentimes in very loving Christian homes and zero emotional connection. It's tragic. I feel sad about how our emotions often get sexualized when we don't have a safe place to share them or process them. I feel sadness about how my own unprocessed emotions sometimes will hurt myself and others. And I'm probably forgetting one. Do I feel anger? I don't feel anger right now. When's the last time you felt anger? Probably yesterday at the IRS. Oh, how many hours I've spent on hold trying to talk with them. And just some of the obstacles that that continue to come up while running a ministry or a business can be frustrating. I also feel very seen and heard, even just by your responses, which is lovely.

SPEAKER_04: 35:48

What about lonely? Did you mention lonely?

SPEAKER_00: 35:51

Lonely exists right now, and I think I'm gonna talk about it somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04: 35:58

You know, for your audience, lonely is a tough one because sometimes we think it's only connected to time with humans, but really to redefine lonely, it's it's when you feel unsupported. And so it's like what I was sharing. I experienced lonely in our travel because I'm really good at the details and connecting with all the hosts. It's kind of like in my wheelhouse, but it's still lonely. And then Glenn expressed lonely because he's the writer. He's the one when we have to do filming, he's the one who has to check all the scripts and he had to rewrite them. So it's when you feel that unsupported kind of like, where are my where's where are my people? You know, who's who's partnering with me to get this project done? Because sometimes I think we uh we misunderstand lonely and we think that the only kind of how what do I need? Oh, I just need to go be with people. Like I need to go to a bar and sit and meet somebody. I need to, I feel lonely, so I'm going to go to this thing instead of wait a minute, what what dig deeper, like go deeper into lonely. What's happening for you and lonely?

SPEAKER_03: 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 37:13

And I think that we miss that with each other often is we don't fully understand lonely.

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

Yeah, and you can feel lonely in a crowd of a hundred people. Uh and getting back to the whole pornography thing, a tremendous amount of porn is driven by loneliness. The person doesn't feel connected, doesn't feel you know bonded with anybody. And so porn's an easy out.

SPEAKER_02: 37:36

Do that.

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

Again, it's artificial, it's a hoax, it's not real, but it's a scam. But the psyche doesn't know that in the moment. And so it feels very connecting, like, oh my gosh, look, these are my people. Again, it's not real, it's not true. It's just a big hoax.

SPEAKER_00: 37:52

And when I did a survey the other day about what emotion is most likely to prompt someone to use porn, over 50% of people in our community mentioned that that was the primary driver.

SPEAKER_01: 38:05

Yeah, and that's one of the things that we present in our master classes is because we start with what we call foundations, which is the foundations of the connection codes, and because we're going to build on top of that. And then we build dynamic sexual connection on top of that. Because once people are able to convey this, for me to be able to convey to Phyllis that I've felt a lot of sexual loneliness today, because you know, you've been busy, I've been busy, and I just don't feel connected with you sexually. That's a very, very different conversation than me saying, so you want to do it tonight? Which is the way the vast majority of couples, or for me even to say, you know, well, well, obviously you're too busy for me, uh, you know, and apparently you're not attracted to me anymore. Well, those are just attacks, and now we're going to war. There's no that's a no-win situation. There's no way Phyllis has any winnable option in her response. Whereas if a guy, I can just go again, I'm not even blaming her that I feel sexual loneliness. I'm just telling her I do. And she's my one unique sexual partner. So it is connected to her, but I'm not blaming her uh for it. I'm just telling her this is what I'm experiencing.

SPEAKER_00: 39:15

That's a great reframe. I'm excited to connect more people with your resources. And if you all want to learn more about Glenn and Phyllis and the connection codes, you can go down to the links in the show notes. What is your favorite thing about Freedom from Porn?

SPEAKER_01: 39:32

Just the reality of actually having dynamic sexual connection. Uh, it's a lot more fun, and I've heard lots of people present this. I've rarely known people that actually experience it and live it. But porn is pretty mundane because it's a computer screen. So, and again, I'm not saying that there's not an allurement to it, but it's not nearly as fun. I mean, a tiny, tiny fraction of the fun that dynamic sexual connection is. But of course, the reality is most people don't think that's even possible. We did not think it was possible. We've spent decades not experiencing that. So it's not that we didn't have sexual activity, but we did, and I'm not saying there wasn't even pleasure in the sexual activity, but there wasn't sexual connection. And it's not even freedom from porn, it's freedom to have dynamic sexual connection.

SPEAKER_04: 40:26

Porn is such a sh fast, short dopamine hit, and then it's over, and then it's like the guilt rushes in and the shame rushes in, and you know, to be free from that, but to be able to experience incredible sexual connection, yeah, like it lasts, the pleasure lasts, it's afterwards, it's like the the safety, the glow, you know, all the things like the cuddle time that porn never produces.

SPEAKER_01: 40:56

And that's something that fascinates me. And I'm a sexologist, that's my PhD work, so I study this all the time, and I'm so intrigued. There aren't a whole lot of things in life that you can do endlessly, and they become better and better and better. Dynamic sexual connection. Again, for a lot of your audience, probably they don't even know what I'm talking about because sex to them means, you know, whatever, once a week, twice a week, three times a week, they stick tab A into slot B. She feels violated, he feels kind of that she's not even present because she isn't present, she disassociated. And so it's like, well, we did the sex thing, there was dopamine involved, but there's not really any bonding, there's not really any sexual connection. So it just amazes me. I'm 63. Phyllis can say however old she wants to say she's but just a little younger. I I'm just startled that this can be this dynamic and continually get more dynamic. And you know, I can't run as fast as I ran when I was 18, but the the dynamic nature of the sexual connection is just we're we're way past any superlatives. There's just nothing to say anymore. And that startles me because I would think, because we've been together 47 years, we've been married 43 years. I would think by now it would be pretty mundane and pretty boring. And the opposite is true. And I think it reflects the genius of God, but even if somebody didn't believe there's a God, it's still very real and doable and fun.

SPEAKER_00: 42:24

That's the way it's supposed to be. It's really inspiring for me to witness you in that place. And I hope to get there one day. I hope many of us experience more and more freedom, more and more healing, and the way it comes is through connection. Thank you for your role in spreading this message.

SPEAKER_04: 42:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 42:42

So, everyone, you can go down to the description to learn more about Glenn and Phyllis and go to the links, go to their website, connectioncodes.co, and always remember you are God's beloved son, and you, he is well pleased.