Jeremy:
Hey guys, Jeff and Jeremy here for another Five Minute Fatherhood and we have a question from our Facebook group. Go check that out on Facebook. Ryan asked Jeff and I, what do you guys do for self care as dads? And I think this is such an important topic. So I want to do a quick back and forth between Jeff and I, give you five ways to do self care as a dad or ways that we do it. So I’m going to start. One of the things that I do every single morning when I get up as part of my just time with the Lord, I have a place I go for me, I go to a coffee shop, I sit down, but the thing that I think is really important is for me to journal through my emotions and work through what happened the previous day.

So whatever I’m like, ugh, if there’s something that’s just really stirring in me, I want to make sure I process it out. You don’t want to let things accumulate. And so there’s certain things you have to learn to do when you are very busy trying to manage lots of things. And one of the things that you don’t want to let happen is unprocessed emotions. And the last thing I’ll do if I’m journaling out an emotion is I make sure that I end, if I need to have an action step, a next step to try to resolve that emotion, I’ll write that down and I’ll be very clear to do that.

So if things are certain up, maybe you got in a fight with your wife or you’re frustrated with one of your kids or you can’t figure out the answer to some question, or whatever. It could be relational, it could be whatever. But that’s a big deal. Journal it out, get to an action step. What do you got Jeff?

Jeff:
Yeah, mine’s similar in the sense of I would say the way I kind of like to say it is I protect our mornings or protect my morning. For me, being able to read, have space to think, and sometimes that’s the Bible and journaling. Sometimes that’s just a book on my Kindle. But just being able to have that alone time to kind of anchor me in my day is huge. I think for dads, if we’re empty, then we’re only going to give emptiness. So if we want to give something of value to our kids, to our marriage, to our wife, to our work, I think we have to we have to be coming from a place of fullness. And so that’s what I like to say is like, man, I have to have that time in the morning where I’m being filled.

And for me that’s usually like personal, introverted time, thinking, praying, reading. That gets me there. So it’s very similar to you, but I would say, yeah, protect the morning. And the reason I call it that is that we kind of shape our life around that, certain kids’ schedules are like that. Even when I don’t meet with certain people before 9:00 AM that type of thing, unless it’s like once a week only. So that, yeah, it’s like protecting that is really huge for me. What’s your other one?

Jeremy:
Yeah, that’s a big one for me too. Okay, so another one that I do it, I know this is only works for people who kind of control their schedule, but I’m a highly introverted person with a very extroverted job. I’ve got lots and lots of meetings I’ve got to do all day. And so I’ve learned that I can get another sort of second wind if I go work out in the middle of the day. So at 1:00 PM every single day I go workout. It’s crazy. I once heard that if you can’t get out of your mind, get into your body.

And there’s something that happens when I’m at the peak of my workout, suddenly something resets. And I don’t know how else to explain it, but I can go from like I cannot do another meeting, I have zero energy left to, I got four more hours in me. So that’s a very worthwhile investment of my time.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
It’s also a good idea to keep in shape, but that’s actually not why I do it. I do it for this reason, I do it so that I can have a second wind and I do enjoy the other benefits, but that’s a big deal that I’ve had to learn to do as a part of self care.

Jeff:
I love that one. I love that one. Another one I would say, which is kind of an interesting one is find, especially with toddlers, I would say find the thing that you do with your kids that’s the least amount of work. I know it’s funny, so what I mean by that is like for us that’s playing in the street after dinner. So there’s different house stuff, if we’re playing with certain cars or this and inside that, yeah, maybe there’s, I kind of have to be paying attention or I kind of feel like I have to step in and say, hey, maybe don’t do that or whatever.

But for some reason when we get out in the street on our bikes, on our scooters, there’s just never any problems. They’re carefree, they’re happy, they’re kind of just running around, and then me and Alyssa are sitting in the front yard with like a blanket or a chair. So that one to me, I’ve realized, so then we kind of architect and push towards that every single night, you know?

Jeremy:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Because it’s so life-giving and it’s so easy with the kids. And if you have toddlers, listening, not every little thing is super life-giving with the kids, even if it’s a fun activity. And so that one’s really easy because it’s more like hands off, I know they’re okay. It’s a cul-de-sac, they’re safe. There’s a million different factors why, and so it’s kind of just, they kind of are free range doing their thing and me and Alyssa can actually usually have like a little pseudo date sometimes too when we’re talking.

So that’s what I would say is find the one thing that’s life giving with your kids, that kind of feels like not a ton of work or a training or discipline in that little domain and then go do that and replicate that. And that’s one for us for sure.

Jeremy:
That’s good. Now the last one I’ll say is similar in that find out what’s life-giving and then go ahead and kind of figure out there are things that you know drain you, there are things that you know 90% of the time fill you up. There’s one activity that tends to fill me up socially and that is a Midrash. So it’s basically where we just read a chapter of the Bible and have a discussion about it with other guys. It’s probably the one social activity that does not drain me. I don’t know why it doesn’t, but it doesn’t, but actually I leave with more energy, which is rare for me.

Jeff:
Something about the Bible, bourbon and guys. Something about that.

Jeremy:
Yeah, that’s right. Something about that. After that I’m like I’m good.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
So every Monday night, 8:00 PM, bunch of guys come over to my house, Jeff was there for a couple of weeks ago.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
It was fun. We read a couple chapters of the Bible, we have a conversation, we sip on bourbon because we’re in Kentucky and I have energy after that. And so finding those things that really fill you up is a big deal.