Divorce: Would you choose your mom or dad?

do you choose who goes with who? You know most of you would say everyone goes with the mother, right, But how does that affect the kid in the long term? And then if you're the kid and you're old enough to pick, depending on the state you're in, do you get resentments that you pick the mother? Do you do you get resentment from the father and then the father's family, And if if you pick the father, it's the same way with the mother. And then how do you handle

holidays together? And do you what happens if you're invited to a Christmas party and your mother is not you're invited to your father's Christmas party and your mother's not invited, or vice versa, And what do you do and how do you try to mend that and how does that affect that your life and how you raise your own family when you have one. It's such a such a terrible thought, but it's such a common issue with people,

and so we're going to dive into that. I got my good buddy Bernie with me, so we're going to answer a lot of questions, including that one kind of really get in depth. And I always look at these questions from you guys. It's like we're sitting around a campfire together and how you say, Hey, man, I got this thought. I wanted to run by it, but you know, I had to pick my mother and my parents got a divorce and my dad hates me for it. What

do I do? It's like we're just sittinground a campfire, and I would answer, you know, like like you're my buddy. If you have a question, any question for me, email Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. Could be about anything, could be music related, tour related, life related, relationship related, career related, whatever it might be. What we'll dig into it. I got to say before we start this podcast too,

that it's an exciting day for me. If you're watching this as this as this podcast is releasing today then tonight, my music video for Hate You Like I Love You releases six pm Central. It's gonna be on my YouTube channel, the Granger Smith YouTube channel, and I'm so excited. This is my first I've done so many music videos, but this is my first one that we did at All Night Shoot. It's my first one where we did extensive CGI like digital editing, special effects. And it's a very

twisted storyline. It's about a car wreck and so I cannot wait for you guys to see what this looks like. So let me know that's important. If you want to get a hold of me, if you want to shoot me a text personally, or if you want me to send you a video message. It could be to you, or could be as a gift to anyone else, could be to a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a shout out or a birthday to your kid. Go to Cameo dot com.

Cameo dot com is I've been doing this for a couple of years now and it's a really good program. It's a simple app. You could download cameo dot com or get the Cameo app and find me on there and I could do anything you want. So let's take into this podcast. I love it when Bernie's here. Bernie is I've been friends with him for twenty one years.

He's so full of knowledge and good advice that I just keep having him come back and come back to help me discuss these camp fire type questions with you guys. And I think you guys are really gonna like this one, and the subject matter is interesting. So wherever you're listening, where you're you're on the road truck, or you're you're driving to work, or you're you're going to school, or you're you're staying at home, wherever you are, whatever you're doing,

Welcome to the green Smith Podcast. This is episode seventy four. Ye ye did chant months time? So long line up and down on that range. Yeah, gation, So pumped to have Bernie back on the podcast. How many news for you now? This is uh four or five? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah, I think this is five? Okay, yeah, four? Five? Okay, Thank you guys for not just you know, commenting that Granger needs to get rid of me. So I'm pumped

to be back. Well, you obviously come back to the podcast because you're feeling out with you that, but you also feel something with this podcast, right absolutely, man, it's giving something to your life. You have to admit it, rightlute, because it does for me. Yeah, absolutely. I mean the amount of pain and joy and experience and everything that we've been through. Like sometimes just being able to like share the story just kind of justifies it in our minds.

It makes it worth it and feel like you're kind of helping others. Means that's music too, right, It's just yeah, your life in the story to inspire others. And yeah, man, it's a privilege. And so I want everybody out there to know, like, I'm just a regular dude. Happened to meet Granger twenty one years ago? Is that we said, twenty one years ago and have stayed you know, pretty close over the years, and he wanted to bring me on,

And I just feel really privileged. So it could be one of you guys, you never know, meet him at a show in twenty one years. He may be like, hey, come and do this thing. If they're still doing podcasts in twenty one. Yeah, not only not only were so close, but you're just you just give really good advice. I

say this every time you're on. You give really good advice to me, and so it just occurred to me, as I answer people's questions on this podcast, that you would give good advice to them and if anything, we could just talk through it. Sure, we're sitting in you know, around a campfire, which I think is great. Yeah, man, I love that idea, and you've said it many times on the podcast. This is kind of like you're just driving in your truck and talking to somebody, right, Yeah,

answered the question. So I was thinking on my way over here, like, Okay, we're in the truck, right, me and you were driving and these guys, you know, these listeners out there, they have a bunch of questions, right, But the first thing that you do when you sit in a truck with somebody haven't seen a while, I'll say, and this is my question for you, great Smiths podcast. Dude, what have you been up to? Man? What are you excited about right now? Man? Well, let's see what's today?

Today's Monday? Hate you like? I love your music video? Super excited about that because Amber, yet again is in another music video of mine, and yet again she's we're kind of playing a different role as a couple, and she's playing a different character and I'm playing a different character. So's it's really fun. So many of our music videos

we're rarely just us like we are. Sometimes there's a few, but usually we're playing the characters of the song, right yeah, yeah, And so people get to see it and in common below if you have seen it, but it kind of this is a weird one. It's like the song is called hate You like I Love You, and it's the story of this guy who's he's just passionately in love with this girl that doesn't love him back, and he wishes he could just hate her with the same passion

that he loves her with. And that came from I just always had this idea where people usually think, what's the Like if you say what's the opposite of love, they always go hate, But it's not. The opposite of love is indifference, like I could care less. That's the opposite of love. The close cousin of love is hate. It's because it takes that kind of energy, the same energy to hate. It's like passionate. You have to be passionate to love and passionate to hate. It takes energy

to do it. So I thought, what if there's this poor guy who just wishes he could hate her with the same energy. You know. So Amber, Amber is this this character, this girl, and she's she's not a ghost, she is she's just haunting his mind. And he thinks that he sees her, you know, she's you could think whatever you want when you see it, but I don't think she's dead when you see it. She's just haunting his mind. And he gets in this wreck and he's like coming out. This guy's had a bad day. He's

coming out of this truck. It's on its side, it's burning, and he's like like trying to figure out what happened because he swerved to miss it, and up ahead is a deer. So it's like, did I swerve to miss the deer? But in his mind he swerved because she was literally sitting in the road, and he just keeps seeing her and he can't get he can't stop thinking about her. So so yeah, that's what's going on. And

we're super excited about that. Very cool also have and I've said this on the Smiths a project that we've been working on, okay for like a year, and we're going to announce that project this week, and I've been talking that's exciting I've been talking to you about it. You know what I'm talking about. Anytime you've been working on something for a year, Yeah, and told nobody about it, like it's pretty exciting. Yeah, and you know about it.

I've been saying, it's a big, big deal. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So as for music videos, people out there comment below if you can find the Granger Smith videos that I have appeared in. Dude, I thought about that, you know, I thought about that the other day. I don't think anyone's going to get that. I don't think anybody's going to get it. If you get it, Granger will send you his truck. Now, it's just we'll send you a

side CD or something. It's good, I mean, if you could. Actually, and my and my son and my wife are in a separate one that I wasn't in. But those two were in because you looked different. Yep. So get a good look right here, Yeah, and go see what you can do. Look, it's not new. You got to go through the archives a little bit. Yeah, you got to go back like ten years. Dude. I thought about that, and I just thought no one would get that. Yeah,

we'll see. But it's a pretty prominent role you have. Yeah, at least one. There's there's a couple of them, right, Yeah, I think there's a couple of them. Yeah, so maybe I can help us out jog our memories a little bit. Yeah, we're getting old. So dude, what I wanted to say to you is, and we're talking right before we turn on the recorder. Here, as I started reading Morning Brew, which is an email subscription newservis that you sent me or you told me about that you said you read

because it's like unbiased, pretty non partisan. It. It is a little bit because I noticed when Rush Limbaugh died that it was pretty pretty negative. The whole thing about Rush Limball was negative. But anyway, it's it is pretty non partisan. So I like to read it. But every day, every morning, and I'll just say, right before I even start talking about this, YouTube will probably catch this on an algorithm and just boom, demonetize it. I don't care anymore.

Every day when I read Morning Brew, COVID numbers are like plummeting. Yep. Vaccines are getting more prevalent. There's new ones popping up. John Johnson came out with one worldwide, maybe except Canada. Canada seems to be a little slow, but worldwide numbers are plummeting. Vaccine numbers are going up. So this is more rhetorical question, not really to you, because I know I know you well enough, but it's to everyone to just think about how are you feeling

about this? Like are you are you excited? Or I know that a lot of people listening are like, dude, I'm about to bust down the door and get to work. And I know, I know there's probably some people that are like I don't know yet, Like I'm still worried. Sure, I don't believe what. I don't believe it yet. I believe it when what? When? What? When the governor says everything's good? There's rumors that Abbot's like on the verge of just opening up fools full speed. That's that's in

Texas for y'all. So anyway, where where is where is the consensus of the listeners of this podcast with this? You know, Like, I'm I'm curious because for me, it feels like just like outside, it feels like springtime, like it's about start getting warm. Yep. Winter, winter is done, Winter is cooked. Good riddance, Yeah, yeah, good riddance. COVID good riddens winter. The weather is changing, and so is the climate of the people. I think, yeah, yeah, it's

tough to say. I mean, I think really dependent on where you are, what you listen to, what you watch, where we can be products of our environment. So typically, uh, you know, in the cities, there's just they're more dense there, they tend to be more liberal. There's just more you know, kind of concern still for whatever reason, I'm not saying either one is go to bed, but outside the city there's not so much. And I don't know if it's just like denser populations, like you don't have the room

to kind of spit out be outside. I don't know what that is. But the I don't know what the consensus is around the country. I'd love to, you know, hear what people have to say. But I think that we're I think it's promising, don't you Yeah, where we're headed.

I think there's a lot of really talented people that have worked really hard to like progress, you know, this vaccine and like the healthcare workers, thank you guys so much for everything that you're doing, frontline workers, first responders, like I think everybody has kind of rallied it's just been such a different dynamic of rallying in the nation as it was like nine to eleven, right, So there was almost like a a definitive action against us that

rallied us together. And this was kind of like something that happened that all of a sudden political lines were drawn. And so I think once we get to the other side of that and these things start to kind of weave themselves out, well, maybe we'll learn a lot about our culture, a lot about ourselves, Yeah, for sure. But I think that I really hope that people start to open back up. You know, there's probably people listening that are thinking, nothing's changed for me. I didn't do anything.

I didn't do any of it. Man, good for you, but but for me, everything changed for as far as my career, and it was I can't remember the exact day. I think it was like March. I want to say March the eighth, but regardless, we're coming up on the one year anniversary of Ground zero for everyone. Because there was a day and I was flying to I was flying to New York City to play a show on this day, and the band and crew, most of them

were already in Columbus Ohio. So Chris and I and two of my guitar players and one sound guy all flying together from Austin and Dallas to Columbus, Ohio to meet everyone and then we're gonna drive overnight to New York.

This was, like I said, like March seventh or eighth, and that was the day that everyone remembers where it was like to the minute the country shut down and we were we landed on a layover to Columbus, Ohio, from Austin to Dallas as a layover, and when we landed and turned on our phones from airplane mode, it was blowing up, like and not just us. Everyone on the plane was like like everyone's mumbling and talking and it was scary, and it was like what's going on?

And like this coronavirus thing is like coming, it's coming. What does that mean? And our booking agent we was like, hey, guys, we're worried about the New York show. The Pittsburgh show after that is still on, and the one after that and something is still on. But we're probably gonna have a day off in New York because they're they're limiting capacity to like one hundred people. And we're like that is so weird, okay, And then within five minutes of that,

it was like, Pittsburgh canceled. They would I think it was like all, but to New York they canceled. It was like, man, the whole weekend's canceled. So we got off the plane at the layover and went to the desk and to the Southwest Airlines desk and said, can we go back to Austin? Our work just got canceled, and and it was awesome. She was like, yeah, there's a there's a nine to forty am flight right here. I could put you on it. No questions asked, no

money exchanged. We literally just got new boarding passes and got on and came home. And at that point we still thought this is the weirdest thing ever. Next week we'll be back out. And then that day it was like, guys, next week canceled. Man, so we're thinking, we're thinking it's going to take a couple of weeks for this to clear up. And then that turned into that was in March.

Then it was like we're thinking Apriril, and then that was the whole Easter thing, and then it was like, guys, I don't think we're torn until May first, and then that was June, and then it was like jumped to September fall, then it was like December for sure. So here we are a year later, and man, for those of you that think that your life nothing happened, like I said, good any but dude, my life drastically changed.

Now looking back, I was full of anxiety then, and I was full of like, what are we to do? Mainly my concern was how's the band and crew going to get paychecks? Like they have families. This is They've been loyal to me for ten years. Nothing could be ever predicted that this something happened, So that was my main worry was how am I going to take care of these guys and what's going to happen? And they're really lying on me for information and to know something.

So long story short, you've guys have heard that story a million times. But long story short, here we are fast forward one year. Cannot believe it's taken this long, but I feel like the weather's changing the scope of everyone, that the way everyone feels is starting to change. Even the hardcore maskers that always maskers are starting to feel like, hey, I might be able to take it off I'm able to take the mask off and go to the grocery store. Yeah, absolutely,

thank god man. Yeah, So anyway, comment below, maybe we'll kind of get some feel the pulse of how everyone else is thinking to on this. Yeah. I think there's just an underlie you. I mean, honestly, a griz. You have endured my friend in the last couple of years, like more than I just can't imagine. I really can't. If you just circle back through the last two two and a half years, like what has been stripped away from you and the way that you have responded to

it and handled it. I don't even think all these listeners understand, and I hope that they do, and that they they don't just follow you and support you because of great music that you make, but because of the person that you are and the way that you inspire people by the way you respond to these things that might have crushed many other people, that you have found a way to rally with your family, you know, direct family and work family, and come through it on the

other side. I feel like as a stronger, more inspiring person you and Amber both so you know, for those I think there are some that weren't affected very much. Others were affected, everything changed, Others lost family members because of this. Yeah, but I think everybody needs to recognize there has been a low, lying level of trauma that has happened to the entire country. Whether you think that, oh, my life just went you know, I went to work.

I mean I'm in the construction business. It boomed, nobody's business. I still have to recognize there's a low level of trauma that we've been through in the last year because of this, and what does that mean and kind of sit with it and dig through it. Relationships that have been taxed because of this, Relationships that have been disconnected because we can't be it's not the same guys. I love Zoom and I hope it only sued by them, but it is not the same as this right here,

face to face. This is what we were made for and there's no replicating that digitally. I'm sorry. And I think a lot of these companies that are going to remote work from wherever. Culture, you know, Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast, Like the culture of a business of an organization cannot thrive with people not being connected under you know, like one one cause in one place

at least sometimes. So I think that this mass exodus from you know, companies being together to all working remote, I think it's going to backfire, and I hope so in a way culture eats strategy for breakfast. Yeah, I love that, Charlie Drucker, God, I love that. That's so true. Yeah, you know the difference between last year us thinking maybe

maybe December will go back on tour, maybe September. Last year there was a hint when we said that, there was a hint of but it'll probably be this, it'll look like this, like they'll probably have to wear a mask, or they'll probably still have to be in pods or some ridicult this thing. The difference now looking at touring coming up, when our first dates really start in June,

if that happens. But the difference is now we look at it and go, oh yeah, full speed, like it'll be open when we open, when concerts start, it's going to be full blown, elbow to elbow regular. Yeah, and we know that now. Last year it was like remember last year when it was like you think this is just how it's always going to be. People were saying that, like you think we'll just wear a mask that we'll just always wear a mask now and we'll always do zoom. Yeah.

People kept saying like the new normal, and I was like, that's crappy object to this normal, which is not a new normal. This is a temporary solution to a worldwide problem. This is not what we're made for. And we've been through you know, humans have been through this before, and we go back to the things that made us who we are, which is personal connection, being together. And so I have you know, personal friends and family that have been on both sides of the spectrum as far as

very conservative and you know, very open. And I have ultimate respect for everybody to do what they feel like is best for them and take care of themselves. But I think at a minimum, you have to like recognize the low level of trauma that you're experiencing and what effect that has not just on yourself, but on other people too. Totally. I used to I've done a lot of podcasts on reject the idea of new normal. So yeah, so moving forward, we'll just see. Yep. I'm hopeful you

want to answer a couple of questions here. Yeah, let's go. If you have a question, guys, email Granger Smith podcast at gmail dot com. You can ask anything in the world. This first question, I'm gonna start off light, says, Hey Granger, I'm Sassy from Utah, about ten minutes from Salt Lake.

Love Utah Park City. It's Harriman, Okay, yeah, I love Utah, it says I've been watching you from the beginning, including Smith's and Ambers arrives, and I've tried, still haven't been able to figure out all of your your tattoos what they say. Could you please show your tattoos and what they are and what they say and what their meanings are. And I'm invested in knowing, so please put my eyes strained at rest. Thank you so much. I think her

name's Sassy. Yeah. I think she just wants you to take your shirt off and that one on your butt. You're gonna have to show out one on my butt, so you have some too. You have to do this too, Okay, So I have I know that people are very concerned about like what my tattoos mean. Well you got to say it. So I got to have dare mighty things on my left arm. That is a Teddy Roosevelt out of a Teddy Roosevelt speech that most people call the speech dear Mighty Things. Incredible speech. I've said it many

times on this podcast, but I love that. And this happened when my tour manager Chris was getting a tattooed in Nashville and he was getting one for his son, and I was like, I'll go with you, and so I got my favorite quote, dear Mighty Things, which I love looking at it on my left hand, and then I have on that left bicep, I have a feather, and I have my three birth dates and Roman numerals of my kids. My three kids, so that's too hard to pull up, but three birthdates. And then on my

right I have State of Texas under my arm. The outline that came from spurgis South Dakota at the rally we were playing a few years ago, and at that biker rally there's a million tattoo artists. It's like a big convention. They all go there. It's like the best in the world. So it kind of felt like I should partake in that. Yeah, yeah, So me and my bass player both got matching Texas tattoos. And then on the other side of my most recent tattoo says River

on the outside of my arm. I got that shortly after we lost them, so and then I think that's it. Yeah, how about you. I got one right here that just simply says the word seek. I got this when I was in at a very kind of pivotal I guess part of my faith journey, and I just felt like God was kind of telling me this word catch kept showing up over and over. And what it means to me is, this is what the journey is out for me, is to continually be seeking, seeking truth, you know, seeking understanding.

And that's not just like in a faith journey, but that's how you walk into a conversation like I'm not here to like tell you, I'm here to like seek understanding and understand and learn about you. But also the way that I try to communicate faith to other people is that you know the verse of Matthew. You know, like seeking you will find is what it comes from. But it's not my real it's not my job to tell you what you're gonna find, because I don't know

what God has for you to find. But I believe that what you will find will be of Him, and it's going to be especially for you, because that's his promise. I feel like what my job is to really inspire people just to seek, Hey, just go seek, just content, don't don't be apathetic, don't give up, just like continue to push in and seek. So that's that one. This

one says it's an adventure. So my mom, who passed away when I was twenty three, all growing up, she had this kind of like mantra that you know, life is kind of either and you can take everything in life as an obstacle or an adventure, or sorry, as an ordeal or an adventure. Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we got lost and now it's this and this, and we would get lost all the time. This is before you know, smartphones and GPS, and my mom was driving and we'd be like, ma, we've been driving for

like an hour. Where we go. She's like, it's an adventure. We'll get there. So everything for her was always like, you know, it's an adventure. When she passed away, I left the hospital and went back home, and oddly enough I had a letter waiting in my mailbox from her. Wow. And I read the letter and she said, you know, she was so proud of me and just couldn't wait to see all the things that God had for me and Leslie. So I took that letter, which I still

have and keep very close. I took that letter to a tattoo artist and I said, I want to copy this handwriting, and I wanted to say, it's an adventure. So this says her quote in her handwriting. It's pretty cools. So awesome man. Yeah, And I was thinking, as you're saying it, that maybe another podcast will address the what's the Bible say about tattoos because people are probably thinking

that too. Yeah, these guys talk about Bible, and well, we could talk about Leviticus, where it says that we could talk about, Yeah, the difference in the three types of laws, which is moral laws, civil laws which relate to the current climate of the government, and the ceremonial laws which related to God sacrificing to God before there was the ultimate sacrifice made. So we talk about that.

Let's take a break. We'll be right back. So this podcast is free to anyone that wants to listen or to watch it, and it's not free for me to make it, unfortunately, So I do have a couple sponsors for this podcast. I'm very, very blessed to have them.

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Jennifer from Kansas. Shout out to Kansas. It says, my question is with family being divided and picking sides and having toxic family members. Besides praying, which I do all the time, even for them, my dad and siblings want nothing to do with me. It's because I love my mom, and my mom and I are close, and my dad and her divorce when I was three years old, and they want nothing to do with her. My siblings are mad that they got divorced and they blamed my mom,

which there's always two sides to every story. They asked me to pick dad or mom, and I picked mom. My dad and siblings are never there for me. They don't call or text. I haven't heard from them in five years because I finally cut them out of my life because they would never invite my mom to any of the family things. And this last month, my niece got married and we weren't even invited. I was just wondering how you deal with something like this, or if

it's ever happened to you. On the inside. It's killing me that we all can't get along. Thanks Granger, I'm sorry this was all over the place, Jennifer. I'm sorry Jennifer that you're You know, no one should have to deal with this, and this is so devastating and yet so common with divorce. It's also common that you you would have been three years old, you know, when this happened, and then you deal, you start dealing with the aftermath

for decades and decades later. I don't know how old you are, but you're obviously old enough to have a choice and who you're gonna live with. You want to start at me? Start? Yeah, I can start. I can relate. My parents were divorced whenever I was nine. Fortunately, uh, there was definitely a division. I think me and my siblings. I don't know if we necessarily were as divided as as it sounds like, and there there wasn't so much a push to like you pick, you know, pick this

or this. It was a really difficult time. And so, Jennifer, I I really understand what you're going through. It's it's a really tough time. You're young, I'm guessing you're younger, trying to figure out who you are and like figure out life, and then you have all of these kind of really difficult relationship emotional things to navigate without a

ton of guidance or experience. Uh. I would really hope that your parents would be bigger people and better for you to to just show that this is how you make peace, and this is how in life when people don't see things the way you do, or they they hurt you, you don't just hurt them back like that

doesn't it doesn't accomplish anything. It just divides. And so Jennifer, I think maybe you have the opportunity to be that person for them and and try to not repay hate with hate, but you know, try to find these little moments where you can reconcile and you can and and bring people together and unify as far as you know, practical advice on what to do, like we've said before, without having a dialogue, a direct dialogue with you about more details about the situation and who is where, and

it's really hard to give you. Hey, you should call this person and do this. But I think overall, continue to pray, and you know, I feel like from my perspective, I need to always just have a off the bat disclaimer. The Word of God is where I go for everything, for my marriage, for business, for parenting, for you know, influencing others, for any advice my closest friends. You have to search the word of God. It is tested and faithful and true. And if you if you wait in

His word long enough, like you will be guided. I fully believe you'll be guided in what you need to do. I know that that's a bit broad, probably not exactly what you're looking for, but I think that you know you're praying, so that tells me that you do have, you know, some form of faith, and I would just push into that and and really try to find ways to be the soft hearted one and not the hard hearted one. Even when people are mean to you and

they do you wrong. It's up to you too on how you perceive that what you meant for evil God actually meant as good, so you can you can take everything and view it in that way. And so what you leave them with is, hey, you're the one that's carrying that hate. I'm not carrying that. It's too heavy

a burden. You're going to be someone that lives free, and they're going to probably start to say, Hey, Mom, Dad, I don't care, I just want to I just want to hang out with Jennifer because man, she is just changed in this way and this way and this way, and I don't know, we think I think of it. First of all, big just a big amen to that. That's awesome, awesome word and this stuff is so much easier to give advice to you than it is to live it. So I have to always preface with that.

But the source of your piece, Jennifer, does not hinge upon how your dad and your siblings treat you, because you can't control that and you can't change their mind. So that has nothing to do with your peace. And so you have to look at it from the perspective of the only thing you can control is you and how you respond to them putting you in the situation

of picking mom or dad. It's a terrible, terrible place for any kid, no matter how old to be in you got to pick who do you want to pick and make the right decision because you know who we hate and you know who we love. That's a terrible thing because you're a product of both of them, and you love your mom. Your your mom and you were close.

So don't don't regret that decision. First of all, don't don't ever hold a grudge to your mom that that now she has forced you to pick, or your dad forced forget that you make the right decision, because that's what your gut told you to do. And I think I would just go through this, navigate this whole situation and with trying to give them grace talking about your

dad and your siblings, just just give them grace. It's it's hard to understand what they're going through or how they view this situation, and how you might look like a trader to them. It's hard to understand their point of view, but try to try to give them a little grace. And when they throw hate your way, or they throw you the cold shoulder, send them a happy birthday, textra phone call, or letter. You know letters are great.

Like handwritten letters, they do worlds of difference in relationships because you could pour your heart out in a handwritten letter and they don't get a chance to respond out of anger. They have to open the letter and read it instead of texting back or shouting back in a conversation. They have to read it and absorb it, and they have to delay their response back to you. So you

could pour your heart out and don't blame them. Just tell them that it pains you to not have them in your life, and that no matter what has happened, you're still blood relatives, and show them that grace that you actually loved them, and that is I think that'll I think that'll matter to them, and if it doesn't, then that's not the end of the world for you. In my opinion on parenting, I always look at it as a child shouldn't is not required to have unconditional

love for the parents. It's the opposite. The parents are required to if they brought you into this world, they're required to have unconditional love for their kids. But it's not the other way around. They have to earn that back from the kids, and if they're not in their life and they treat them like crap all the time. Then you can't. You can't just look at your kid and go, why did you love me? You know that

that doesn't make any sense. So if they don't, if your dad never comes around to this, that's not on you anymore. You and you can't carry it around as a burden. And I'm so sorry that you have to go through this, And I'm caring to you. A lot of people listening are thinking I'm in that same boat. Yep. I was just thinking that. I know there's been some comments and you know, folks emailing you about topics that are relevant to you know, not just about this this.

If everybody out there who happens to be listening to this takes a minute and starts to think about, you know, some situation that they are in or that they have been in, where there is some break in relationship, there's some kind of like change. That's where conflict comes from.

It's it's a change in relationship that can either be handled with communication and like you're saying, with grace and understanding where it goes to conflict, you know, and then you have to go back to those things in order to restore it. So if you think about in your life, you know what, I guarantee you there's some place in there that there is somebody that you work with, that you sought the store, that you're married to, that you are siblings with in family. With that there's some kind

of break. And if you can take what Griz just said of approaching that with grace and pursuing peace and reconciliation, I feel like this is where the culture as a whole starts to go back towards unity and not so divided like families divided, you know, countries divided, people divided. Like I one hundred percent agree with you, man, I think that grace and understanding and pursuing peace is the way you said. I finally cut them out of my life because they would never invite my mom to any

of the family things. And that's admirable, But at the same time, your mom doesn't need to be protected from them. It's awesome that you're standing up for her, but I don't know if that's the right way to do it, because the way for like Bernie said that unity, the way to unity is for you to extend that grace to them instead of cutting them off. They might not ever reply to you or respond, but you just keep

the communication open. And that's the way to bring your mother back into the conversation, because you cutting them off even makes it worse. So your mother doesn't need to be protected. She's a grown woman. She obviously knows your dad better than most people. She doesn't need to be protected from him in that sense. So I would just keep the communication lines open even if you get a

no response. Make sure that you send out a Merry Christmas and a happy Birthday, and occasionally a handwritten letter just hey, Dad, thinking about you. I love you. I know we haven't had the best relationships, but just want to let you know that think about you a lot, and I think about improving this relationship a lot. And if I have failed as a daughter, and I know I have in many ways, I hope that you can forgive me, Like come on, yeah, how could he not

just go? Okay? Yeah? Absolutely. You know, and set the expectation, Jennifer that this is not an instant fix. It's not going to be something that happens really quick. Most things that are really impactful and valuable and worth anything take time.

So just set your expectation that, Hey, this is going to be years, you know, Like I said, like when my parents split, there was definitely a break with my dad and I and it took many, many, many years for me to finally get to a place where you know, he was trying to reconcile with me and just kept coming back, and I was just in a place I

didn't understand why he left. I didn't there was so much, you know, kind of confusion, and it took many conversations with him and just grace and humility and diligence and him pursuing and calling me like every day, Hey, man, just want you to know I'm proud of you. I love you, thinking of you to where I had to call him one day and finally say, Dad, I'm proud

of you as a dad. I don't know if I've ever accepted what the grace and the forgiveness that you've been asking of me, Like I've never forgiven you and I've never gotten to that place. But man, you call me like every day, tell me how proud of me that you are. You always want to come visit you. You You just kept after me even when I was shoving you away, and like you said, eventually like man, that grace and that kind of love just tears down any

other thing and heals that brokenness. So, Jennifer, I hope that that encourages you that it's worth fighting for. It's gonna take some time, but lead with grace. Like Chris said, I think you'll be good. Love it. Just do another one, This says, take her into this. Aaron from Kansas, shout out to Kansas. Love your podcast and your music and the message you and your family give. Y'all are such

an inspiration. Thank you, buddy, He says. My question is I've always struggled with my weight fluctuating up and down. You're in great shape, and I'm just wondering what your day to day regimen looks like when you are if and when you're on a diet. I know that tour life is a beast in itself, but when able to have a normal balance in your diet, what do you

do and eat? And I picked this one because we've talked a lot about this too, Bernie, and we've kind of taken a journey together through years and Aaron, you're not alone, man, You're not. This another very common question. People struggle with this, and there's a lot of misinformation out there on on health and diets, and I certainly don't want to contribute to more that misinformation because I'm

not a doctor. But I can, you know, like we're sitting around a campfire talking, I can tell you what I do and what I think. Whether you take it to heart and use it as medical vice, don't, don't do that. But I figured, you know, Bernie, we could talk through this with Aaron. And I have to say, first of all, I have not struggled with fluctuating up and down weight. My body has a tendency to go down.

My body wants to get skinny. That don't change one day, I'm sure, but most of my adult life my body wants to go skinny, and so I have to eat these calories to try to keep bulked up to look like I'm not skeletor, and I have to put good calories in there instead of battling. So it is a massive part of my daily life is thinking about this stuff. And I have friends that are all body types and

we all talk about this. And then it's interesting because Bernie and I we have a very similar approach, but we have different ways of achieving that same approach, which is cool why I wanted to bring it up on this podcast. So do you remember, Bernie, probably three or four years ago, we had lunch and you told me about that book It All Starts with Food, and that book it's so great. Do you remember the author that

Heartwig it all shout out stuff. Yeah? Man, such a great book, so well researched, such great information that I still think about almost every meal I eat. I still think about that book in some way. I don't follow it to a t. I did for like a year, like that day you told me about it, I started reading it and boom, I changed everything. And there's there is so many diets. There's thousands of diets out there, and this book is not another one of them. It's not.

It just helps you understand more of what food is doing to you and and how how big a deal it plays in your life, which is why it's called it All Starts with food. Basically, whether that's your your fatigue or your strength or your endurance. Are your brain, your emotions, your your sleep, your gut, your you're the cold, I mean allergies. Everything starts with food and that's your that's your fuel. So if you think of it like a race car, Like when you're running a NASCAR and

you're in a pit crew. You don't use crappy gasoline. You're gonna get the best, highest octane whatever they use jet fuel, I don't know. But but the higher dollar piece of equipment, you know, like a stealth bomber or whatever that, you know, an F twenty two, the higher dollar the machinery, the higher dollar the fuel they're going

to put into it. And we almost have to think of it the same way with our bodies because this is the most valuable possession we have, is our body, because that's going to get us to the end of the race. And unfortunately, most of the time we don't ever think of it in that terms. We think of meals as getting us satisfying a hunger and getting us through the day. That's about it. Ye fill our bellies and move on. And it's so much more to that.

So before you think about regimens, activities, workout routines, before all that, think about your food, and before you think about the latest trendy diet on Instagram, just remember that there's a reason there's such the diet industry is such a massive business because people keep They just reinvent the wheel and repackage it and give it a different name, and then they know that people will buy the book

and read about it and start. And it's if it says that you have to do it for a certain amount of time, then don't do it, because why would you do anything for thirty days or six weeks or twelve months. You need to build a lifestyle out of what you eat and what you do. That's the goal. And that's what changed for me is it's not a sixty day thing. It's not a ninety day thing. It's not like I'm going to eat. I'm going to juice for ninety days and see what it does to me.

Like that's something different. That's not a diet. That's more of a mental discipline or something that's like fasting. That's it looked at it in a different way. But you need to build a lifestyle and then you'll be able to better understand why you're weight is fluctuating, because once you strip all the everything away, you'll be able to look at your weight and go, I gain weight because of this food. This specific food makes me gain weight or makes me tired, or makes me not sleep well.

Or makes me sleep really well. Whatever, what are your thoughts? Yeah, absolutely, I so in my own experience. Again, like I'm not a doctor by any stretch of the word. I used to have with this cat's name, Aaron, Aaron Aaron. I used to have the worst diet imaginable. I need to every like fast food like place that you would drive past and be like, nobody goes there. I was in line at that place multiple times to death and like somebody would give me like a strawberry, and I like

gags like this is disgusting. This is when we lived in Nashville together. This is how both of us lived. Yeah, I was either in a fast food line or I was at home eating something that came out of a box that you had to heat up. Yeah. Absolutely, And so I think one of you know, one of the points that Gris is making is just education and understanding. Like I didn't. I didn't know. Like I would ask a friend, I want to be healthy, So I would just be like, I'm gonna go to the grocery store.

I'm gonna buy a bunch of grapes, and I would just eat all the grapes. I'd be like, dude, I'm on my way. I had no idea what I was doing. Then I met my wife. My beautiful is that what did Oh? That is absolutely what did it? Okay? She she kinesiology major. She understood and she did a lot of research. I mean, she's the one that read you know it all starts with food Whole thirty. Like she's the one that like influenced me and had me read it and all this stuff sends still sends me podcasts

about you know, foods, about refining sugar. Like there's a ton of things that she just knew that I didn't know. And as she would like teach me things, it's like, oh, okay, so I can just make this minor adjustment. Don't don't go clean out your pantry tomorrow like you're just gonna restock it. Like you're gonna this is kind of a marathon. You're gonna have to make some small adjustments in order for them to be lasting. It's it's all about habits.

But I think that education is one thing, and just really understanding what you're putting in your body. I think that, you know, my wife, I'm just like incredibly blessed by her. She wasn't like a you know she didn't really cook when we first got married. It was like, make sure the smoke detectors are full battery strength when she starts cooking, because something is catching on fire. It was not good, right,

I love you, babe, You're the best, your best. Now, I'm just talking about growth, That's what I'm talking about. So but now she has like learned so much and and and really just accepted so much of it that most of the meals that we have are like a whole thirty compliant or natural and are just really really good. So I'm thankful to have that. I understand not everybody

has that. So I think that really just starting to learn as much as you can about food what it does to your body, like Griz is saying, and also understanding like your body and your body type. You know, ectomorphs and endomorphs, and there's whatever kind of morphs that your certain foods will affect you differently. Understanding your body and and also understanding that God made you a certain way. And there comes a time that we just kind of have to love ourselves and who we are and the

way we are in this moment. It doesn't mean that we're just gonna Okay, well I got I'm just gonna love myself the way I am and not try to improve. It's like right, there's there's certain things about living a healthy lifestyle, like Griz is saying that we need to pursue. It is one of our greatest investments we can make,

is like what we consume. But don't let the world tell you that you're not beautiful, that you're not uniquely made the way that you are, and don't try to fit into what somebody else wants you to look like, because you're probably not going to get there, or you're going to like stress yourself out tremendously trying to get there.

I think that, like the last question, this is probably a longer journey if you can kind of push yourself and have diligence and do it Grangers talking about like, I think that you will get there and move to a healthier lifestyle, not just a healthier body image, but a healthier lifestyle. You'll have more energy, you'll be able to think more clearly, you'll sleep better. It does. Those things are products, but they don't happen over night, and there's no like, hey, just do this and thirty days

later you look like Chris that try that. Let me see if I could say, is that we have a couple of minutes left. Let me see if I could if I can give you just the starting points. First, first and foremost, I would say, watch your sugars. Watch your sugars. There's been studies with rats that they actually addict the rats to cocaine. And every time a rat is addicted to cocaine and he's put in a cage,

he will choose the sugar over the cocaine. That cannot be overstated and the addiction we have and what that's doing to your body. So pay attention to those kind of sugars and what you're adding to your diet sugar wise. Secondly, pay attention to how late you're eating. I would give yourself a three to four hour window before you go to bed of no eating, just digestion. That's so important. To eat dinner and stop eating it's six o'clock and before you go to bed at ten or whatever time.

And third, if your mom's cooking a big home cooked meal, eat it, don't pass it up. If your mom's making fried chicken and mashed potatoes and that's her specialty, and you're going over to her house on Friday. Eat it every time. That's important, and we can get way more into this. We're a little bit out of time, but we could talk. I don't think you really asked about exercising. So you go out and walk for a mile or two every day. That's enough. Don't think that you got

to do some crazy P nine e X routine. It starts with food. Start there, Start in the kitchen. Pay attention to that first. And it's not that hard. It's not that big of a discipline because the crazy thing is as it all starts with food. The book says, once you stop training yourself to eat that way, then your palate changes and you actually start craving the whole fit just do good food. You start craving it and you start being repulsed by the other stuff. And I'm

not perfect. I still I still have my cravings and I still fall short as in anything. But it's just it's it's good to have that mentality, train your mind and you'll be better for it. And that's all we got. That's all we got. Hey share this video with your friends, boy Griz, thanks for having me, dude, Love you, bro yep, see you guys, y, thanks for joining me on the Granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate all of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.

If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Graingersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yi