Curt Storring 0:00

Welcome to the Dad Work Podcast. My name is Curt Storring, your host and the founder of dad work. This is episode number 7510 habits and practices to develop mindfulness for dads. This is a Friday reflections episode where I will talk about something that is real in my life tips, practices, thoughts, ideas that have worked for me to go from really an angry, miserable, scary and yeah, just just feeling like a little kid to be honest, to a calm, confident leader of a man and a father. So I hope this is useful for you guys, this is 10 habits, I hope you can either stack together, I find that habits like this, or more useful when you are actually doing multiple multitude of them at the same time. As long as it's not overwhelming. Or if there's just one you haven't heard of before, or one you haven't put into practice in your life. Hopefully this is useful for you. These things are things that I have done and continue to do to become a better dad, honestly. So these are tried and tested. These are only the ones that were sort of most impactful for me. I hope you get something out of this. And guys, it is April 1. No April Fool's jokes don't like that kind of stuff. Don't like pranks. Anyway, April 1, it's Friday. That means that literally this evening, April 1 2022, we are kicking off with a community kickoff call inside of the village. This is our private member's community. For dads who are doing the work together to become better men, partners and fathers. We're gonna be diving into a community call tonight. Next week on Wednesday, we've got an amazing workshop with Lael stone, we're going to be doing a workshop on how to raise emotionally intelligent kids. We have got q&a calls with me. We've got more calls with other coaches next month, we've got an amazing workshop on creating intentional space in your life with a personal operating system. The month after that we've got a workshop on initiation for sons and their fathers. We've got a whole bunch of other ones in the lineup on relationships, marriage, porn, addiction, everything else that is going to be super impactful. And guys, that I didn't even mention the online discussion forum that we use to connect every single day when ever you need support as a father or a husband or men drop in there and every other member is going to have your back. We can also set you up with a member led men's group where you can meet weekly, bi weekly, or whatever is convenient for you, in order to get real support and feedback to be seen, heard, supported and even challenged by other men who have your back who have been there before who want the best for you. If you want to join us, this is literally your last chance before we kick things off seriously. Go to dad.work/village. That's a dad.work/village. I've tried to make this as no brainer as I can. If it is terrible, and you hate it, then guess what? You're out $47 It's only 47 bucks a month guys, that's like a third of the cost of a one hour coaching call in most other settings. And look if I have totally screwed up and you don't get any value and you really hate everyone in there. Okay, well, you're out about half the cost of a tank of gas these days. But if you do like it, if it is useful, what kind of price do you put on becoming a better man, partner and father for you, your wife, your kids, I don't think there could be anything more important than investing in yourself especially when you are a father. And obviously that sounds salesy. But guys, I am walking my talk, I have spent 1000s of dollars over the last 10 years, working with coaches taking courses, doing all sorts of different events and trainings in everything I could get my hands on because I knew it was not acceptable for me to behave in the way that I was behaving or even feel the way I was feeling. So anyway, I'm not saying this is the be all end all. I hope it works for you. It's going to be working for all the men who are already in there guys who have already signed up. I really appreciate you I see you. And I'm so excited to get to work with you. Anyway, this is the last chance if you're listening to this in the morning, sign up at Dad.Work slash village and try and get in there for a call tonight. Otherwise, we'll see you on Wednesday for the workshop with Lail alright guys, all that being said, Here is the episode, Friday reflections number 75 of the How to Work podcast 10 habits and practices to develop mindfulness. For dads Here we go.

Alright guys, I'm going to talk about 10 habits and practices you can use to develop mindfulness as a father, and we're just gonna get into it. So I'm gonna start with is, okay, the habits we keep betray our values and the commitments we have to those values. If your habits are on mindful habits that you simply fallen into, like inertia, whatever you've been doing your whole life, that's just what you do. They're likely not serving you well. If your habits are negative and destructive, they're not serving you or your family, but habits built mindfully and consciously helped to direct your attention and enhance your commitment to the values you've chosen to uphold in your life. So not only do your habits define you, but they are what your children will use to define you which in turn will come to define them as they look back on what you taught them consciously or unconsciously because guys they are watching what it meant to be a man and a father. Your habits end up being what your life is, is what I'm trying to say h ere. And so when we first moved overseas, we went to Thailand and then Bulgaria back to Thailand, it was a lot of travel in Asia, a little bit in Europe. And that was for two years, I let my carefully constructed habits fall by the wayside, and the consequences were immediate, and severe. Without healthy habits, I was lost, irritable, less grounded, empty of the fuel that comes from self care practices, I attribute my failure to keep up my habits as one of the main causes of bottoming out like hitting rock bottom, shortly after we arrived in Asia. And since then, I've cultivated habits that are growth oriented, keep me healthy, and provide my mind with a peace and calm I need to show up daily for myself and my family. So I'm going to give this list to you guys not to say you have to do all this or that, you know, you have to do any of these things. But as men as fathers, we have to develop habits to breathe life and energy into our physical, mental and spiritual life, if we're going to show up as good fathers for our children. And so, because of that, I'm going to share these with you. And if one of them works, please take it if all of them work. Great, fantastic. One thing I want to say before I jump in here, is as I have progressed on my healing journey, I've noticed now that a lot of habits, a lot of tactics, a lot of parenting styles or strategy, if you will, they acted as crutches to me, what I was really needing, was to heal the deep pain that I was feeling. And that was a core wound, that was a feeling of abandonment, that was the space in my life

that was empty, from the longing for a childhood, if you will, that I wasn't gonna get, I wanted my mom and my dad to be there for me, I wanted this, I wanted that, and I was never going to get it. And yet, in my immaturity going through, you know, early fatherhood, I didn't even know I, you know, this was, this was deeply unconscious. I did the work to get here, but I didn't even know that was important to me. And so I until I got there, I honestly needed every one of these habits and I needed a parenting style, we used ride parenting, it's called ri e resources for infant educators, I highly recommend Janet Lansbury, his blog, Janet lansbury.com, if you want to get into that, that changed my parenting life, and all these things, I do them now I am very regular with myself care, but I don't feel as though they are the thing that's making me a good dad now. Because I would still lose it. When I was doing these things, I would still get triggered. And one little thing would really blow up the entire, no matter how long you've been doing these habits, the fundamental issue underneath was that I was still feeling broken. And now that I'm not, these things help and they make me you know, they make me excel. And they make me excellent a lot of things. And they're not the end all be all for me. I get to now feel into who I am as a father, I get to just be a dad, be a husband be a man, I get to live my life without being like, Oh, if I don't meditate, today, I am going to lose it. I'm going to scream I'm so worried. Oh, no, that's just not me anymore. And it's because I was able to heal the break underneath. Now, I don't think I ever would have been able to heal that break underneath. If I didn't have these habits, crutches, whatever you want to call them. Think of it like this. Without knowing that we have these wounds, Father wounds, Mother wounds, shame, guilt, whatever from childhood usually, we are walking around on a broken leg. And no wonder it hurts right? No wonder we yell. No wonder we're angry all the time. No wonder we're miserable. No more. No wonder we try to numb. Of course you don't want to feel that break. That's so painful. And then it's like, Okay, here's some habits. Here's a little parenting style, here's how to like mindfully consciously raise your kids. Oh, thank goodness, it doesn't hurt quite so much anymore. And these are like crutches that I get to use, even like a cast here and there. And that's good. And they work then stops hurting so much. And yet when you put the crutches down, or when you bump up against something like you get triggered, for example, man does a broken leg ever hurt. And so you're gonna lash out. Makes perfect sense. And so guys, what these allowed me to do was to actually heal the broken leg. I finally went okay, why? Why do I need crutches again? Oh, right, something underneath is deeply broken. And so I was able to heal that leg through, you know, time and deep work and working with coaches and men's groups and all this kind of stuff. And so, sometimes do you still need crutches? Well, you don't need them when you don't have a broken leg. But now these things are not quite like crutches, I've transformed into tools, I transform them to things that normally you know, my leg doesn't need them to feel better anymore. And this, you know, continuing on with this example. But man, maybe I can run faster. It's almost like a running shoe. Now. You know, I don't know how far I can take this, this example but let's let's just be let's just leave it there. So guys, these will help you if you need crutches if you need to, you know, develop habits and parenting styles and stuff like that. They're gonna stop you from breaking that leg nearly every single day and screaming at your kids for example. But, you know, once you do these, they give you space to go deeper. And that's what this work is all about, do these things, whatever ones work for you, and then go deeper heal that inner wound that core wound. And hopefully we can help you with that as well either following along on Instagram, or our free 14 day email course better man better Dad, that's Dad.Work slash email. Or you can join the village, our online men's community for dads. There's training, there's brotherhood, there's online community, there's workshops, there's calls, there's a whole bunch of stuff in there. And that's probably the most accessible thing if you want to commit. That's Dad.Work slash village. All right, so what are these habits? Number one is meditation. Guys, you don't have to do this. Sure. You don't have to do it the way I did it, sure. But this single thing, changed my life. It wasn't even started in my case, because I wanted to be, you know, better. As a father, I started meditating because of business. I have been an entrepreneur for the last 10 plus years. And I was following along with this guy who had an entrepreneurial blog, and he's like, man, I've been meditating with this app. And I'm way more productive. And I was like, sweet, I want to be more productive, I want to make more money, let's just start meditating. So I did this 10 day meditation course from headspace. And at the end of the 10 days, came into my office, my oldest son did something that otherwise would have triggered me, I would have yelled at him. And I didn't, I was able to notice the feeling that I had. And then I was able to stop. And then I was able to choose my response. And I went, Oh, no, the only thing that this could possibly have been, is meditation, because nothing else has changed. And so from that, it was just like this mind blowing realization that meditation could actually work. And there was an actual way out of my misery, which I just thought I was going to be in for the rest of my life, because I didn't know how to fix it, I didn't know you could get better. And if you're listening to this podcast, obviously, that's not where you are, you know, you can get better, you know, there are things you can do. But man, this absolutely changed my life. So usually every morning, like for years, I had like a little two or three year streak of meditating on the headspace app, and I, you know, kept going every day, I wanted to make sure I hit it. And you know, I'll talk about that in a later time. That's not the best way to go about doing it. But it keeps me grounded across every other aspect of my life. So every morning before I exercise, after I stretch, I do like 10 minutes of meditation. Sometimes I'll do breathing, which we'll get into a little bit later. But if I'm feeling particularly stressed or anxious, I used to do like a quick unguided meditation to bring myself back to just breathe, notice my breath to count, you know, one in breath to it, one out, breath, two in breath, to breath, three in breath, three obrah, just notice my body, let the thoughts settle, and just not judge that really helps to reset. There's a variety of ones that I've done. Any mindfulness practice that you're comfortable with, though, can really help set the tone for the rest of your day, and just settle your body down. It's even if you just sit for 10 minutes and do nothing. That is a great meditation. If you walk without listening to anything, that can be a great meditation, if you just get into your body and feel the sensations and not be so caught up in your mind, if you get out of the head and into the body. I think that's a successful meditation. And you know, I guys, the first part of meditation, I was like, looking for something I was going to say, when do I transcend? When do I just feel this, like psychedelic nature, like it never, it doesn't get there. That's not the point. The point is just like going to the gym, every time you bring your scattered attention back to whatever you're focused on the breath, your body sounds, whatever it is. That's like a rep. That's a repetition, for catching your attention going from the head, which is just telling you a whole bunch of crazy stories into the present moment. And so it's great if you get distracted, because that means you have more opportunities to bring yourself back. So whether you tried meditation or not, it's one of the few hills I'm willing to die on when it comes to must have habits to reduce suffering and improve your quality of life. A few of my favorite favorite meditation resources, I use the waking up app by Sam Harris. I have used headspace and I actually have my own meditations that I've recorded for you on Insight Timer. I think if you just search Meditations For Dads or Dad Work, or Curt Storring, on Insight Timer, I'll actually probably link to them in the show notes, Dad.Work/Podcasts. You can find all them there, but you'll find some my own meditations. The second thing is journaling. So I love to journal usually it's just you know, whatever comes to mind, I just write it down because my head feels like a tornado, it feels like a whirlwind. When everything is going like crazy in there, and I need to get it down so that I can just let it go. And then it gives me clarity. And then I can just pick and choose what I need to from the journaling session or nothing or I can just let it go. And so I do this, not at any particular time of the day, other than something that I'm about to tell you. But I will journal in the middle of the day at the start of the day whenever I need to whenever I feel like it and writing things down just like talking about it. For some people writing things down for me, helps me process things. Now I've also done things like inner child meditations where I talk to my inner child and try to reparent him that is that can be pretty intense. So you can look into more of that you can Google it. I think I've probably put some stuff on the on the blog about that I've talked about in the past at least. So that is something that I would suggest along your healing journey. So keep that in mind, but otherwise, just grab a journal guys and just start writing what ever you need to write, talk about your feelings write down all the times of the day that you were angry. So you can find a pattern. You know, write letters to people that you don't want to send, but that help you process the emotion so that you can respond better than reacting. Now, at the end of the day, I use an app called Daily Oh, and you can use whatever you want. But I like this because it lets me choose, you know, how was my day? Good, bad, terrible. Okay, you know, excellent. And then I get to select what I did that day. So you know, did I work that I work out was a good father based on, you know, certain parameters was a good husband based on certain parameters. Did I hang out with friends? You know, did I eat late? Did I drink alcohol? Did I do whatever I can just, I pick like, you know, a bunch of stuff from like, 100 different options. And then the bottom, there's a note section, I

just journaled. What happened today. How do they feel about it? What am I worried about? What sorts of things do I need to go to look into tomorrow? So I have been doing this speaking of streaks, I think I've been doing it for like 1500 days straight or something like that. So I also love not only is it a habit now not only do I just like get to brain dump before bed, so I'm not thinking about things. It lets me sleep more peacefully, honestly. But I can look back now I can be okay. In the parts of my life for the last like four years or however long has been when am I most happy? When do I have the most good days? Oh, it's when I hang out with friends. It's when I play hockey? Oh, okay. Obviously, when do I not have good days? Okay, what months are bad? Does does? Does the weather affect it? Does this affect it does that affect and you can drill down and figure out, you know, what you've been doing, how it affects you and all those kind of things. So I highly recommend journaling, whether or not it's sort of just you know, stream of consciousness or directed or just the end of the day with daily Oh, doesn't matter. Definitely, definitely journal. The third thing is exercise, the more your body can do, the more freedom you have to try new things to stand up for yourself to have energy to do what you want to play with your kids to think better. This is a non negotiable for me as, as the effects are profound exercise have proven to have immense benefits across a wide range of mental health markers. Not that you need to study to prove it to yourself, if you've ever done any sort of sports or exercise, but guys, it is legit. If you do not have a regular exercise practice, you got to start, a lot of guys go like I don't have time for that. It is not selfish to do that. It is not something that you need to like, I don't have time, I'll just like I don't know, maybe I'll do like some push ups. No, you should be including this as part of your daily structure that is non negotiable, you will show up as a better man better father and a better husband. If you feel good in your body, your mental state will be good, you will have more energy, I guarantee it. This is one of the simplest things, but it is one of the most heart, one of the most difficult things to start, you can just start walking, you can just start lifting weights, you can go to the gym, you can get a program, going read it and find a beginners program, there's a million of them, pick a simple one right now I'm working through the 531 program. And it's great. It's fantastic. I just plug it in my do what it says and I don't think about it, you got to get out there and work and exercise and move your body guys, there's almost nothing compares. One more thing on here is that you can pick a sport that you used to love playing as a kid, join a league, find a drop in and teach your kids how to play. I play hockey. And I usually do that about once a week. And I sometimes do that in the driveway with the kids. And man, I love it and it gets me moving. And it's a great way to make sure I am actually doing something with my body. Number four is eating well. And guys, I know we're not unlike mindfulness practices anymore. But listen here, eating well. Exercising, drinking water and not any other sugary crap will change your life. And I can't think of a thing that has made me feel better every single day when I wake up. I know I've gone through periods where I haven't been doing this. But when I am doing it, and I wake up and I just feel good. Like guys, I wake up almost every single day feeling amazing. You know, if I get more than six and a half, seven hours of sleep, it's even better. And sleep is another thing I should have added on here. And I'll add this as well and sort of this exercise fitness section. Eating well sleeping, moving drinking water, those things are vital, like absolutely vital. So I typically I mean, you can eat whatever you want, obviously, but try to eat whole foods, ingredients that you can pronounce, you know, very limited process stuff. Lots of meat. And yeah, that's it, that's about it, you know, just don't be snacking after certain times of the day. You can look at intermittent fasting. I've done that before not doing it right now. But like, some basics, and I always think like oh, I didn't even know people did that. But apparently, you know, it's popular to eat after dinner and before bed and and that has a huge impact on how you sleep which has a huge impact on how you feel the next day. And there's like the extra calories guys. It's just like, I go follow my friend Dan go. I had him on the podcast. I think it was episode 50 or there abouts. You can look back on on the podcast. And man he has some basic tips for entrepreneurs. For dads. He's a dad himself and he has just like super basic things you can follow. Just go follow him ignore everything I've said and just go follow him. He's the real deal. And I just have to give him a shout out because he's, he's amazing at this. The next thing I want to mention for habits is cold showers. This is it just it's one of those things that prepares you to do hardship. So whether you believe in the physical health benefits Are you just do it to increase mental toughness, they are a hell of a way to start the day. So I do it to train my mind and my body to become calm under stress response, which can come in handy if you're trying to manage urge to become angry in trying situations. Now, guys, I don't know if you've ever been angry at your kids before, but this is kind of relevant to me. At the end of the shower, simply switch it all the way to cold and stand under it for as long as you can. Or you can do it at the beginning I like to do at the end, you know, I'm hot, it's gonna be more intense. And that just put it to cold. Focus on your breathing. Notice the sensations, you can also ratchet it up, you can you know, put the put the water under your armpits. That's another thing I do in cold depths. If you're if you want to go, you know more intense, make sure your arms are a little bit far away from your body so your armpits can get that cold water in them. That makes it even more intense. So each day, just try and stay in for a little bit longer than you did the day before. So

start with like five seconds, the next day. So you can do seven the next day. So you can do 10 And you know, eventually it'll be up in a couple of minutes and it will not be so bad. But it'll still be hard enough that you will have done a hard thing that day and you'll always start your day off. Great. It's a great way to quote callus the mind as David Goggin says. The next thing is learning how to breathe properly and utilizing breath work from basic breathing, like box breathing, which is four seconds in four seconds, hold for seconds at four seconds hold low belly breaths, which is just when you breathe very slowly, very deeply into the pit of your stomach, almost like your pelvic floor depth. You know, sink, alternate nostril breathing, there's a whole bunch of breath holding, there's a whole bunch of ways that you can use your breath to calm down to feel more alive, whatever you're looking for. That's going to be very useful. Now you can also go super intense with breathwork. You can do Holotropic breathwork, you can do conscious connected breathwork. You can do whatever you want to call it there's a whole bunch of different one styles. But they're all basically the same for what I'm talking about where it's basically intentional hyperventilation, and you can go with your breath, places that you otherwise would not be able to go without the use of psychedelics, it can have a profound impact on your mood, your state of mind and your healing journey. I've done long guided breathwork sessions that have revealed deep insights and help to move significant energy in my healing journey. And sometimes I'll even just drop it into like a so called breathwork micro dosing as I like to call it. It's like a 10 or 20 minute session where you just breathe that way. Even Wim Hof is a great way to get into this right. I've been doing a lot of Wim Hof in the mornings now, and it just feels great. The next thing is, well, I already mentioned sleeping, but I was going to be in here as well. So let's just add that on to the exercise and go follow Dan go about that. But guys, honestly, I've noticed especially because I track it, I've got an aura ring, I've got the daily I can track, when I measure how good I feel, it's always after I get eight plus hours of sleep. Now I get eight plus hours of sleep maybe once a year. But you know, that's just that's just dad like. So try to get close to that as you can, by making sure you put your phone away, I put mine in my office, so I'm not looking at it before bed. And, you know, read, read a paper book, go and turn all the lights down before you're getting into bed. Don't be watching TV cost about don't eat close to bed, and make sure there's a routine for you and the kids that your body knows to start slowing down. Number eight, I guess sleeping would have been seven, eight is men's group. I have joined a men's group almost three years ago, two, two and a half to three, four years ago, whatever it's been now. And you know, there's a point of your journey. There's a point in my journey, at least, when I was amazing at doing all this self healing work alone. And even for me, there was a point where I could not do any more without other men. I love this from one of the podcast guests, Jason Henderson, he told me, you know, most or all of our wounds happen in relationship. So of course they would need to be healed in relationship. And men's group is a way for you to do that. It is an incredible setting where you can come together with other men and get supported, get challenged. See who you truly are, as a man be seen be heard no longer be the so called lone wolf. Which by the way is the stupidest thing. Guys in nature lone wolves. I even looked it up because I was like, I don't know if I believe that. But guys, lone wolves, they either die. They live a miserable existence because they can't hunt big enough game. Or they go back to their pack. So this idea of a strong lone wolf is so stupid. And I wish I knew where it came from. And maybe there's a story about it. I haven't even looked it up. But it doesn't make any sense. And for dads, lone wolves do not raise cubs. I think that's pretty clear. And so joining a men's group is a way for you to be in relationship with other men. It's hard. It's scary. Nobody trained us how to do this. Nobody told us how to be in relationship with men. And yet, there is nothing that I have done that has impacted my life more to becoming a leader in every way in my life to be challenged by my blind spots that I didn't know by men who had my back to be supported when I was feeling down. There is nothing like joining a men's group. I would look locally wherever you're listening to this. See if there's a men's group, an intentional confidential, facilitated men's group or you can join us at the dad work men's group for dads go to Dad.Work/Group.

We might have a spot or two open depending on when you apply Right now we have one or two spots left in our Wednesday morning pacific time group, you can go to Dad.Work/Group to apply. And guys, honestly, this is, you know, meditation was the first thing men's group was the next thing. And this led me to sort of the culmination of my journey where I was initiated myself through men's work, I almost became a man during my time and men's work, whereas before I felt like a boy. So I cannot overemphasize how important this is. And if you want to chat more about it, reach out to me, send me a DM on Instagram, dad worked, Curt, and I'd be so happy to talk to you guys about it. Because you even if you just find a local men's group, even if you don't join mine, I totally don't care. It is so impactful and important for men to be in relationship. Number nine, is reading. President Truman famously said that all Leaders are R eaders. Now, it's not the other way around. But anyone who's leading is absolutely reading, even if your only leadership role is to lead your children in yourself and your wife. Reading allows you to gain wisdom without having to go through every conceivable experience of hardship yourself, is the best way I found to download wisdom and empathy and to be introduced to new ideas, and models of thinking. And I try I have been trying at least over the last few years to alternate, every book between fiction and nonfiction. Also, I read to my children every single night before bed, reading books on men's work, parenting psychology and other mindful pursuits, keeps me engaged in a constant pursuit to become more and be a better man and father. And it's this constant pursuit of greatness that continues to deliver breakthroughs as I continue my journey from an angry and miserable little boy, to a happy content confident, mindful father. I mentioned fiction in there too, because I think there's enormous lessons in fiction sometimes, as Jordan Peterson says fiction or myth or story can be even more true than fact. And what he means by that is that there is like, there's a fundamental truth, like math, what is math, it's not, it's not a thing, numbers aren't a thing. They're just this sort of construct, but they are so true, that you cannot lie the entire world with them. In the same way. fiction often contains those truths as well. So don't skimp on fiction. The last thing I'm gonna mention here, guys is a spousal check in. This is where it could be also be a family check in but I suppose we'll check in could be separate. This is a new habit that my wife and I have picked up, we do it on and off. But when we do, it's proven to be a great way to build intimacy and strengthen our relationship, while also increasing my ability to take responsibility for the way I live my life, and how it impacts those around me. So every Sunday, we have been sitting down for about 15 minutes and sharing what we liked about one another each week, what we'd like to see more of and how we can increase intimacy. So I got this from I think Tim Ferriss talked about it on his podcast once, and we sort of, you know, try to check in like this. Now, honestly, we check in with each other so often, part of this maybe, maybe a hacker habit is just like, talk to your wife more about real stuff. Be more vulnerable, open up, ask her for her opinion, get curious about what's going on with her life. How could you support her? How can you breathe joy and vitality into her life. So this is something that I feel we do really well. I never feel like there's any space between us. I never harbor resentment, I always bring things up. So does she. And we're always very close, I think that's been a key to our marriage in the last 10 years of being married, that is better now than it literally ever has been. Anyway, if you want to do this puzzle check in, you can do like I said, once a week, sit down for 15 3060 minutes. Depending on how organized you are, sometimes you can use a spreadsheet, I've tried that my wife didn't like it, I like that. So you're gonna have to make sure it just works, how it's gonna work for you, you can set an intention for the week, which is a great way to have something in your back in the back of your mind to remain mindful. You can also structure it in any way you want. But a couple things that have worked are to start by making eye contact, just do a little bit of eye gazing. It's uncomfortable if you've never done it before, but it is very intimate. And you can just say, babe, something I want you to know is, you know, this is actually something we do in men's group quite a lot to empty the bucket to get to know other men to share about the week. Something I want you to know is and they just say whatever comes up, like oh, yeah, that thing. I want to say that to you. Or I'm feeling really excited right now. Oh, I'm so so happy about you know how things are. Something want to say is I'm pretty like nervous about doing this talk. So that's a great way to just like get into it. You can also tell your partner three things he or she did that you like for the past week. And one thing that you'd like to see more of now, again, credit Tim Ferriss for this wording is as much better than the negative version, which is something I didn't like about you last weekend's so if you just say something I'd like to see more of it's sort of implicit in the background that okay, that that wasn't that good, or I didn't do that enough. Alright guys, now,

there are a whole lot more habits, obviously. But I think these are a great way to start. These ones have impacted my life significantly. And while I think they can all be used and created individually, I find that they end up being much greater than the sum of their parts if you use them together. And don't forget, you deserve to feel good and to suffer loss. Not just because you're a dad, not just because your husband because you are a human being. Creating conscious habits that promote self care will make you a better dad, especially if you're prone to anger. And these habits give me my own space, my own base level of care and I approach my family from a place of abundance after having filled my own cup. first. Alright guys, that is it for today. I hope you got something out of those habits. I hope that you will try them or even let me know what you do that's helped you out on your fatherhood journey. And like I said, you can always send me a DM on Instagram dad work dot cart. Alright, that's it for today and I will see you guys next week on Tuesday with another episode of the data war podcast

that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. It means the world to find out more about everything that we talked about in the episode today, including Show Notes resources and links to subscribe leave a review work with us go to dad.work/pod that's DAD.WOK/POD type that into your browser just like a normal URL Dad.Work/Pod to find everything there you need to become a better man, a better partner and a better father. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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