316 | Living Wholeheartedly, Honoring Your Wife’s Emotions, and Connecting Amid Dysregulation (Jay Vallotton)

DadAwesome

For Jay Vallotton, the turning point in his marriage was learning to connect with his wife through her emotions rather than trying to fix them. Now, Jason urges men to reconsider their approach to emotions, both in marriage and parenting. Tune in as he shares practical advice for repairing mistakes, handling dysregulation in a child, and approaching conversations with the end in mind.

Key Takeaways

• To live wholeheartedly means addressing sin, being present, and fulfilling your God-given call instead of allowing fear to shrink you.
• Your wife needs to feel seen, known, and heard.
• Trust is not built through the absence of mistakes but by how you repair.
• The #1 conversation hack is to start with the end in mind.
• The right time to instruct and discipline is not when your child is emotionally dysregulated.

Jay Vallotton

Jay Vallotton is the founder of BraveCo, a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Bethel Church, and an overseer of the Bethel Transformation Center. He is passionate about helping people discover their God-given identity, find freedom, and walk out their true calling. Jason lives in Redding, California, with his wife, Lauren, and their five kids and daughter-in-law.

Key Quotes

• 3:48 - "One of the prayers that David prays is, God, search me, know me, reveal to me what's going on in my life. Which honestly, is such a scary, dangerous prayer. But on the other side, I think that in order to live wholeheartedly we do have to address those areas in our life that aren't whole, that have cracks or have a little bit of brokenness or doubt, and that's a very challenging thing to do. But what that really means is when I come home and my wife confronts me on something and I dismiss her feelings, I'm not living wholeheartedly. When I come home and my kids want to play and I don't want to be present, I'm actually not living wholeheartedly. The practical application of being. The things that you write on your heart, the things that you write on your wrist, the truth, God's truth.. You have to live those out in your day to day life. And there's accountability inside of that."
• 17:05 - "Trust is not built through the absence of mistakes. Trust is built by how you clean up a mess. Your wife will trust you because she knows you can have a bad moment, you're going to go away, you're going to process through that in a healthy way and come back and give her what you wish you would've given her in the moment. That's more valuable than being able to nail it every time, because we innately know no one's going to nail it every time. But what we don't know is, I trust that you're going to come back and repair what has been damaged. If you can repair what you are messing up, you're adding so much more value than just trying to get it right, perfectly or expecting yourself to. You're not and your wife's not, more importantly, your whole environment, isn't. So, your kids are going to watch you do this process. Your wife's going to watch you do this process, and they're going to follow in this ecosystem that it's okay to fail. It's not okay to hurt each other but it's okay to fail because we can go back and clean up a mess."

Links from Today’s Conversation

• BraveCo
• BraveCo Conference 2024 (Redding, California - June 12-14, 2024)
• 131 | Winning The War Within (Jason Vallotton)
• 145 | Resilience, Servanthood & Showing Up For Others (Jason Vallotton)
• Follow Jason on Instagram
• Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons Podcast
• Make a Donation to DadAwesome
• FATHERS FOR THE FATHERLESS Events

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