Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my full of joy co-host, John Bytheway. We’re also here with our incredible guest, Dr. Matt Townsend. John, these chapters of the Book of Mormon, Third Nephi 17, 18, 19, if you were going to ask someone, “Hey, what’s your favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon?” This frequently comes up. What’s on your mind as we enter these chapters?

John Bytheway: 00:32 Starting in 17, we get the feeling that must have been there. We get a sense of what an amazingly emotional, beautiful experience this must have been, a joyful, you might even say full of joy experience this might have been. It’s fun to see it. It wasn’t just, “Okay, here’s some doctrines.” It was all of that, but it was a beautiful, emotional experience as well.

Hank Smith: 00:57 In these chapters I love to see how the Savior is focusing on them and reading them, really wanting to emotionally connect with them. This is a feeling few chapters. John, like I said, we have our friend back, Dr. Matt Townsend. He’s been with us before. Matt, I know these chapters are special to you. Tell me what we’re going to do today.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:22 These are my very favorite, and part of it is because I’m not a scriptorian, I’m not a scholar, I’m not an academic of religion, I’m a relationship guy. I’m a human development guy. This, to me, is the masterclass of communing with Jehovah. This is the masterclass of ministering. This is truly what I think celestial life and living is like. Can you imagine how excited the Savior was to get here, to get to this space with these people that he loves so much, and get them baptized and teaching them the order of prayer and being with them and touching them and holding their kids? This is the quintessential true religion, religion in action. I think as we go through it, we’re going to learn a lot about our Savior, but I think we’re also going to learn a lot about all of our human relations. Section 130 tells us the same sociality that exists here will exist there.

  02:25 We need to learn how to be more socially connected. For me, I’ve actually seen so many marriages and relationships changed by the principles behind what the Savior teaches here. Well, I’ll bring in some of those stories, some of that fun. I also love the idea that not only are we going to discuss all of the blessings of being with the Savior, but how the Savior feels joy, and then how all of us can feel joy. To me, there is a powerful equation for what creates joy. And it’s in this communion, it’s in our relationships, and especially when our relationships are turned to God. We’re going to learn a lot. Most importantly, we’re going to feel a lot, we’re going to feel so much from this.

Hank Smith: 03:12 I’m excited to walk through these chapters with you. Just your excitement is starting to get into my heart. John, we’ve had Matt with us before, but there might be someone out there who’s thinking, “I don’t know who this is,” so let’s do an introduction.

John Bytheway: 03:25 Yes, Dr. Matt Townsend, he’s one of the top presenters in human relations and development. People may recognize him from KSL Television and Studio Five with Brooke Walker. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication, with an emphasis in conflict resolution. Second master’s degree and PhD in the field of human and organizational systems. I don’t know anybody who could teach so much and have people laughing so hard at the same time. But I want to add that Matt’s greatest love in his life is his wife, Mardi. They’ve been married for-

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:00 33 years.

John Bytheway: 04:02 Have six children, one girl, five boys.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:05 My son just got engaged, so we’re ready to have our fifth of sixth married, and then our last one’s on a mission, so hopefully he stays single for a while. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 04:14 Amazing.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:15 At least another year.

John Bytheway: 04:16 Yeah.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:16 Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

John Bytheway: 04:18 Yeah, that’s right. Thank you for being with us again.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:20 Thank you guys. So good to be with you.

Hank Smith: 04:23 John, you’re right, one of the best presenters, teachers you’ll ever see, you’ll ever hear from. Matt. If someone wanted to learn more, they’d go to Matttownsend.com.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 04:33 Yeah, that’s it. Matttownsend.com and hang out. You’ll see everything we do. Because we work on everything human, anxiety. We have a program called Becoming One, which is about what I learned in this chapter. It’s about how to become one with yourself, with your God, with everybody.

Hank Smith: 04:50 I’ve known Matt for years, and he’s hitting home runs every single time. Matt, let me read from the Come, Follow Me manual and then let’s let you take off and let you teach. The title of this week’s lesson is Behold my joy is full, Third Nephi 17, 18 and 19. It starts this way. “Jesus Christ had spent the day ministering in the land of Bountiful, teaching his gospel, letting the people see and feel the marks in his resurrected body, and testifying that he was the promised Savior. Now, it was time to leave. ‘My time is at hand,’ he said. He was about to return to his father and he knew that the people needed time to ponder what he had taught, so promising to return the next day he dismissed the multitude to their homes, but no one left. They didn’t say what they were feeling, but Jesus could sense it.

  05:36 They hoped he would tarry a little longer with them. He had other important things to do, but showing compassion for God’s children is always a high priority to him, so Jesus stayed a little longer. What followed was perhaps the most tender example of ministering recorded in scripture. Those who were present could only say it was indescribable. Jesus himself summed up the unplanned spiritual outpouring with these simple and powerful words, ‘Now behold, my joy is full.’” We are in for a treat today. I think there’s going to be so much to glean here that can bless our lives. Matt, where’s our starting line?

Dr. Matt Townsend: 06:13 Before we open up into Third Nephi 17, there’s a really powerful principle of communication, that basically says that all communication has a past, a present, and a future. How we’ve communicated in the past impacts how we communicate today, and it impacts how we can communicate tomorrow. Before we move into this section where we learn a lot about communing with Jehovah, I want to go back and remember he was in the battle of his existence. While he was going through that, in context, we’re going to learn that, to some degree, he was being influenced by the joy he was about to feel with these Nephites or other saints. What may have created the possible power to get through the Atonement was to look forward with the joy of holding the Nephite children and communing and connecting and healing, and being there with them. Why I bring that up is that sometimes I get surprised by the fact that we all as saints have so many blessings, but we’re still going through this horrible veil of tears.

  07:31 We forget that the Savior left us a gift, that we need to trust in him to deliver, in our trials, in our afflictions. A great thought on this is by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland in a talk Come Unto Me, and he teaches that the Savior’s benediction upon his disciples, this is back in Gethsemane and Calvary, before all the pain and agony, with his disciples there, he blessed them on that very night, the night of the greatest suffering the world has ever known or will ever know. He said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” He’s leaving this witness, this peaceful gift. And then this is what Elder Holland says, “I submit to you, that may be one of the Savior’s commandments that is, even in the hearts of the otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed. And yet I wonder whether our resistance to this invitation could be any more grievous to the Lord’s merciful heart.

  08:43 Just because God is God, just because Christ is Christ, they cannot do other than care for us and bless us and help us if we will but come unto them, approaching their throne of grace in meekness and lowliness of heart. They can’t help but bless us. They have to. It’s their nature.” Yet here we sit in our trials, all of us, everyone in the world, we’re struggling. It’s hard. Life is difficult, and he says there is not a single loophole or curve ball or open trench to fall into for the man or woman who walks the path that Christ walks. When he says, come follow me, he means that he knows where the quicksand is and where the thorns are, and the best way to handle the slippery slope near the summit of our personal mountains. He knows it all and he knows the way, he is the way. If we’re going to start and head forward, we have to remember that he’s got the plan.

  09:48 And what we’re going to learn and read through, Third Nephi 17 is nothing more than the manifestation of that peace. In it I have found and have found for my clients, I found that it is the greatest source of peace I’ve found in the scriptures. Because it’s very real and it’s very tangible, and if we use a little imagination and remember him in these settings, but instead of the generic setting of him holding children, imagine him holding your child, the one that’s struggling going to church or the one that’s struggling with not knowing who they are, or having anxiety and not knowing what to do. If we can get real, as we go through these sections, I want everybody to get very real about where you know you need the peace, and then let’s see if we can’t find a way to draw down that peace using some of the lessons we’ll learn in Third Nephi 17 through 19.

John Bytheway: 10:47 I love it. Matt, I was at that devotional, March 2nd, 1997. I’ll bet if I went to the Marriott Center, I could take you to where I was sitting. Because I remember so well when he said, “This may be one of the Savior’s commandments that is in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed,” and I just thought, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid is a commandment. I never thought of it that way. I was a newlywed sitting with Kim. I’ll never forget that moment to think of it that way, and the way he framed it, this was the night of his greatest suffering was coming and he was thinking of the hearts of the 12, telling them, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. I hope people find that talk.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 11:36 It’s life changing. And by the way, it’s interesting too, how much you remember of it, John, because remember our memories and our feelings are deeply tied. The things that we feel more strongly, we remember more thoroughly, more completely, which is, I think, an eternal principle. Imagine that we can unleash the Spirit and the feeling of the Spirit throughout our life, we might actually be able to retain more, become maybe a little more omnipresent, maybe a little bit more omniscient, a little bit more omni remembering.

Hank Smith: 12:08 Elder Holland has quoted Elder Orson F. Whitney, so we have an apostle quoting another apostle. He said this, “The spirit of the gospel is optimistic. It trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.” Elder Holland says “We should honor the Savior’s declaration to be of good cheer.” Matt, I noticed right at the end of Third Nephi 16 that the people of Nephi do something similar that what my students do when I start reading Isaiah. It seems like the Savior is ready to go. Let’s talk scripture. Let’s talk Isaiah. He quotes Isaiah, the last few verses of 16. We talked about this last week with Dr. Wilcox. They look at him like, they shut down.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 12:57 “Oh, really? That’s what we’re going to do.”

Hank Smith: 13:00 Yeah, and I think, Matt, you taught me this, and I can’t remember where it was, but you said, that’s an attunement. Is that what you called that? Attunement when you can sense it’s not, the communication’s not happening.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 13:12 Yeah, that’s exactly right. What’s really powerful, humans are one thing, the natural man has got a lot of great gifts. One of them is called mirror neurons, so a mirror neuron is where I can watch somebody, and if I pay attention and focus on them, my brain will get in sync with their brain. They call it pair and share. My brain will actually pair to where they are in their brain and then we share similar emotion, and that is attunement. That’s why if you see someone trip, you startle, or that’s why if you see somebody laughing, you start laughing, or smiling, you smile. Because we’re paired with them. But there’s a key to attunement, and one of the keys to attunement is you have to be present, which is ironically a serious principle of spirituality and the eternal nature of God, his omnipresence. He can be present in the moment.

  14:10 Any human could have probably picked up the tiredness of the people. A lot of us today would say, “Oh, I don’t know if they were tired. I think it was just Isaiah.” But it may not have just been Isaiah, it also may have been the fact that they probably were energized and used a ton of energy to go touch his wounds, and they’re at the end of the first day, they’ve been there a long time. That attunement is, if you notice, it’s a word that’s very close to atonement and it’s very close to at onement. It’s the process of being in the space, being able to turn off your mind enough to commune with each other, and connect. And there’s power there. And see that when he gets into Third Nephi 17. This really is the masterclass. When I teach couples communication, this is where I first learned it.

  15:00 I have this process that I use that’s called Getting Real, and Getting Real, it’s an acronym for four things we do. We recognize their emotion, we explore their story, we attend to their deeper needs, and we lift them. That literally came from Third Nephi 17. And for now 25 years I’ve been able to teach the process of doing this. The principle is eternal, and the Savior is the master of it. But when he sits down and he starts, he can see that they’re exhausted. This to me is communication 101. Chapter 17 verse one, “Behold now it came to pass when Jesus had thus spoken these words he looked round about again on the multitude.” The first few words we’re going to stop. There’s a principle of communication that basically says “It’s not what you say that matters, it is what is received that matters.” Whatever you say is irrelevant if it’s not received.

  16:01 Watch what the Savior always does, and you’ll see this phrase three or four times just from Third Nephi 11 on, which is basically after, when Jesus had spoken these words, you’ll hear the phrase “He looked round about again on the multitude.” Every time he speaks, he looks. He’s not just looking, he’s attuning. He’s in sync with them, so he’s reading what’s being said. There’s power to that, and we’re finding out this great boon in technology is robbing us of attunement. It’s robbing us of synchrony with one another, which they believe is one of the reasons anxiety is going up. If we’re so distracted by our phones that we don’t look around. Remember even if you just think of it as a natural being, no natural being was supposed to be distracted by something very long, or you’d get killed by the saber tooth tiger. Right now it’s the cyber tooth tiger, by the way, that’s trying to kill us.

  17:04 As we’re out there battling this, we’ve got to learn to put off the natural man and submit a little bit. He looks at them, they’re tired, they were worn out, and then he says, “Behold, my time is at hand. I perceive that you are weak and cannot understand all the words which I’m commanded of the Father to speak unto you at this time.” He saw they’re weak, they’re tired, and they cannot understand what he’s been asked and commanded of the Father to say to them. I love this part because notice what he’s doing. He’s got a plan. He’s leaving. It’s happening. He’s leaving. There’s a theory in communication theory by John Gottman that’s called bids and turns.

  17:52 Bids and turns is one of the greatest tools for saving your relationships. The simple idea is a bid is anytime you invite connection, “Hey, how was your day?” And the turn is when the person turns to the bidder. John Gottman, the leading researcher in marriage and family has found out that the healthiest couples turn 86% of the time to their partner when their partner initiates a conversation or talk. They don’t keep doing what they’re doing. They turn. What they’re trying to do then is get in sync and to create attunement or at onement. The Savior offers a sacrifice and he needs us to turn. If we don’t turn, it means we don’t become one. We’re not one, you’re not mine.

Hank Smith: 18:47 You need to turn towards him.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 18:48 We turn towards him. We don’t turn to Sundays during sacrament, even though that’s a major turn. We turn always, especially we turn when we need him. We turn when he bids to us. He might bid to us by just us walking in our bedroom and seeing the scriptures there. That’s a bid. Now, do I turn to the scriptures and open them? And how do I respond to the bid? The power in his research is the couples that were most likely to divorce were only turning 33% of the time. 86% for the healthiest marriages and 33% for the least healthy. The simple question for all of us, as we’re thinking, is do you turn? And it’s also powerful to know that another word for turn is repent and turn back or turn. Which is why Joseph taught that’s the number one thing we should be teaching is repentance, just turning, keep turning. As we turn, there’s power.

  19:57 He’s basically now spoken, “My time is at hand. I perceive that you’re weak.” By the way, that doesn’t sound that beautiful, that sounds ouch. In communication theory, that’s called validation. They’re feeling weak so he validates it. “I can see you’re tired. I can see you’ve had it. You’re worn out. You cannot understand all the words which I’m commanded of the father to speak unto you at this time.” Notice that line though, super special, because there’s certain words he apparently has been commanded to speak, but a huge portion of communication is not verbal. There’s a whole other sphere of understanding that is available to him.

  20:46 It just might not have as many words. For all of us that are ministering, don’t assume it has to always be verbal. Don’t assume when you’re struggling in your marriage that it always has to be a talk. What the Savior does is he starts turning to everything that’s important to the people, and one by one starts ticking off, through action and service, all of their needs. And there is some verbal interspersed there, but it’s not the verbal that’s the key, it’s the feeling that’s the key. If the Father’s commanded him to speak certain things, there’s that famous quote that we’ve all heard and used a million times, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”

  21:32 This is a really interesting moment because does the Savior follow the Father or does he stick with the people? And maybe it’s not an either or, because the Father is just as happy to see what happens. It’s not like he’s up there thinking “We got to get stuff done.” It’s always about the one. When the Savior was looking and casting his eyes round about on the multitude and he said, “I perceive that you are weak, you cannot understand the words that I’m supposed to say, therefore, go ye unto your homes, ponder upon the things which I have said. Ask the Father in my name that you may understand. Go prepare yourself so you can understand. Prepare your minds for the morrow. Get some sleep, eat, rest. I will come unto you again.” He’s given them the command, “Go you unto your homes,” which is really powerful when you think of now the home centered, church supported curriculum. This is where it began. The church was supporting it for a day, now go home and center it, and bring it home and bring it to that very, very special place.

Hank Smith: 22:48 Matt, I’ve been thinking, as you’ve taught us here, what does it say to my wife or to my children? What’s the message that’s received when I put my phone down and turn? Because I’ve noticed there are times, I’m full of shame right now, there are times when my children have had to come between me and my phone and say, “Hello. I’m here.” Grab my face. “Hello. Hello, father.” Isn’t that a message in itself, that he is looking at them? He looks at the multitude.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 23:22 Yeah. That’s communication. What I love about it is he’s prioritizing. By simply attuning… In the academic world, there’s this theory called emotional resonance by Barbara Fredrickson, and what she teaches is that what love is as a feeling, there’s a formula to it, but one of the keys to actually creating the feeling of love and emotional connection and attunement is synchrony, which is the idea that we are eye to eye, we’re in tune. But the other two factors that create it are also positivity, so bring positivity, bring the light, which we’re going to talk about later. And the third thing is charity. Synchrony, positivity, and charity are what people connect to as a feeling of being loved or emotional resonance. And another really powerful idea that we’re seeing here, we don’t need to spend all day doing this. What we’re finding out is there are, what are called, micro moments.

  24:29 This is also Barbara Fredrickson’s work. Micro moments of positivity that are incredibly healing. And a micro moment is nothing more than about seven seconds of connected, positive, charitable moments where two people share something. A bunch of micro moments of positivity are what create happiness. And we’re going to show you, joy is different than happiness. But that is something we can actually create with people, like when you turn and put your phone down, you’re now in sync, then be positive about what you’re hearing, and then offer the greatest good to that child. Give your charity. When you do that, you share a moment and all it needs to be is seven seconds. That’s just the minimum. The minute you’ve got it, what it does is, it not only changes you and you feel it, but it changes them. And now we become one. If we’re only one for even a second, that’s what becoming Zion is, is we need more and more of these micro moments, more and more of these connections that are perfectly being modeled here.

John Bytheway: 25:37 I was in Ketchikan, Alaska once, and I saw a railroad crossing sign, which we’ve all seen hundreds of them, but this one had railroad crossing and then underneath it said, Stop, look, listen.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 25:52 Love that.

John Bytheway: 25:53 I thought that’s exactly what Jesus did here. He stopped, and then he looked on them. And they had this, I guess, unspoken request, they did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer. He heard that unspoken request. He stopped, he looked, he listened, and he stayed. There’s some great advice for railroad avoidance as well as personal relationships, right? Stop, look, listen. And my mom actually taught me a song from my childhood. I remember “Choo, choo, the big train is coming down the track now, choo, choo, the big train is coming down the track. Stop, look and listen.” Look at the actions, “Stop, look and listen.” Thank you, mom, I have never been hit by a train, so I attribute to that song.

Hank Smith: 26:43 That’s so good. That’s real. At the funeral, I believe it was Elder Packer’s funeral. I’ll have to go back and check. His son said something he remembered from his childhood, and this makes me feel terribly guilty but also inspired. He said whenever he walked into his dad’s office, his dad was busy doing something. He’d walk in and say, ‘Hey, dad.’ And his dad would always turn and either kneel down, if he was short, or stand up, if he was standing up, look him in the eye and just say, ‘What can I do for you?'”

John Bytheway: 27:15 Wow.

Hank Smith: 27:17 Yeah. That inspires me to give that kind of love and attention. So Matt, here’s my question. What is it about this cyber tooth tiger that pulls at me? Why? Why does it do it?

Dr. Matt Townsend: 27:31 Simply put, it’s dopamine. It gives you a high that feels good, and it’s just a little squirt, squirt right in your head. Every time you flip another page on TikTok or whatever, every time you like another thing, squirt, your brain gets more dopamine. The dopamine is what we start to become addicted to, which by the way is the natural man. That’s why it is an enemy to God, and has been since the fall. Now, dopamine is great when we used to get it because we had to get up and go milk the cow. We would get up and do some activity of worth that would get us the dopamine hit. Now what we’re getting is more and more dopamine for just being in bed, scrolling endlessly through social media. It feels good and it starts to create habit. There’s a great book called Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer, who’s a psychiatrist that’s finding out that they believe that a huge portion of what anxiety is are habits.

  28:39 It’s just a habit loop, and whatever we think triggers us to do a certain action and then we do the action habitually, and then what happens is we get a result, but our brain then gets a dopamine hit. We are actually addicted to anxiety, or at least our responses to an anxious world. Instead of getting off of social media and going and doing our homework, we just keep scrolling on our social media, which induces more and more anxiety. We’re not designed to be able to do that, we’re designed to be able to get going, make stuff happen. We’re also noticing that these devices, this crazy cyber tooth tiger that’s killing us, if you spend too much time on cable news, watching cable news, it also increases anxiety.

  29:28 They found out in a study that they did after the Boston Marathon bombing, that if you spent more than five hours researching information and watching the news about the Boston Marathon bombing after it happened, you’re more likely to suffer signs of PTSD than the people that were on the ground during the Boston Marathon bombing. Because you’re not supposed to sit and stew. You’re supposed to get up and act, and get up and get going. That’s what you’re seeing here is the people were tiring out. The Savior felt compelled to stay, and then he didn’t leave them in that state. He stepped up and started to change the state. It changed them from the inside out. That’s how we get rid of that saber tooth tiger.

Hank Smith: 30:18 Both my grandfathers died of alcoholism. Obviously a phone isn’t alcohol, but is it the same idea of I’m getting that feel-good hit?

John Bytheway: 30:28 Yeah.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 30:29 Generally what we’re seeing too is that you can also be addicted to the alcohol, you can be addicted to the nicotine, you could be addicted to the chemistry, but generally what our mind is most addicted to is the dopamine and the reason we’re using it. Generally with alcohol, what we’re trying to do is avoid the stress or hide from the anxiety. We see a lot of people that are medicating with everything instead of healing the original thing. I use these steps with the Savior as ways to heal because if we can get real and have the Savior, not just be there to take us and to bring us the peace, and to help lift us out of our pain, if we can do that, not just generally, but specifically, what we found, that’s why some programs like AA and other programs, a lot of mindfulness programs, are noticing, in fact that Judson Brewer found, that if you understand your own habitual pattern, then the next thing you could do is get curious about it.

  31:27 Start learning and instead of just automatically acting on it, stop, take a big deep breath, get present in the feeling and go get curious as to why it’s there, how it got there, and then more importantly is get mindful about it. For example, he said they found, with people that smoke, that if they could just get them to be mindful about their smoking, meaning notice what you feel while you’re actually smoking. Notice what your mind goes through. Notice what you’re doing. Noticing it allows your brain to reevaluate. And one of the things he found out is while they’re smoking, they notice that it tastes bad, but they only notice that if you’re mindful. If you’re just smoking, you don’t notice it.

  32:10 And they noticed that their clothes smelled of smoke, and they noticed that they were alone out on a patio at work while everyone else was inside working. And then they noticed when they walk in they felt shame because everyone else had been working. What they’re finding is the more you’re mindful about whatever habit you are, not generally mindful, specifically mindful, your brain starts to deprioritize it, and then it lifts up other habits that actually make you mindfully more happy, more joyful, more powerful.

  32:42 If you notice what the Savior may be doing in these scriptures is he’s actually creating a change of mind, which is interesting, because if you go into the Bible Dictionary and look up the word repentance, it means to have a shift or a change of mind, a different view toward yourself, toward God and toward others. Part of what the Savior is doing in this moment seems like he’s just loving on everyone. But I think what he’s doing is he’s changing them. Through the Spirit, he’s changing them line upon line, moment upon moment, when he gets to each one of us one by one, he works us and changes us. But we also get to watch thousands go before us. And each one of those, if we’re in sync and we’re positive and we’re charitable, we’re going to feel the love of it. All of the sudden we’re changing with each one of these iterations.

Hank Smith: 33:35 Thank you for taking that little tangent with me. This is Follow Him, Hank’s personal counseling.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 33:43 We’re all in this together.

Hank Smith: 33:44 I’m glad we got to do that. John, you mentioned that they look at him, like, “Please don’t go.” I wonder what that look is like, the big eyes. “That’s fine. You can go. That’s fine.”

Dr. Matt Townsend: 33:58 Think of that. They wouldn’t say, “Oh, come on, you got to stay.” They’re not going to do that, but their body cannot not communicate. It has to show, “Don’t leave. We need you. We need this. This is so helpful to us.” That’s why this moment I think is so special. Elder Bednar said that the best lessons in life aren’t taught, they’re caught. And they’re caught when we invite those lessons into our hearts out of our own free will and choice. I think personally… And Elder Bednar talks about this a lot and the scriptures talk about it in 2 Nephi 33, that “The Holy Ghost can carry the truth and the power unto the children of men, unto their hearts. But there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them. Wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as not.”

  34:53 But Elder Bednar taught, “Please notice how the power of the spirit carries the message unto but not necessarily into the heart.” A teacher can explain, demonstrate, persuade, and testify and do so with great spiritual power and effectiveness. Ultimately, however, the content of the message and the witness of the Holy Ghost penetrate into the heart only if the receiver allows them to enter. What I think the Savior may have been doing is by saying, “I’ve got to go,” he’s giving them a chance to exercise agency. I think they did so non-verbally, and they looked at him like, “Oh, don’t.” And by the way, that look is a bid, “Savior, don’t go.” And look what he did, and he turned. So there must be some eternal principle to that. And then he talked about, “I’m going to go unto the Father and show myself unto the lost tribes.” He gave a really beautiful witness for they are not lost unto the Father.

  35:54 “For he knoweth whither he hath taken them.” He’s testifying. Nobody’s lost to the Father. And then verse five, now watch these words again. “And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus spoken, he cast his eyes round about again on the multitude.” He’s attuning. “And he beheld that they were in tears, and they did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them.” Their eyes were big, “Tarry with us.” Now he’s actually getting information. By the way, again, that’s not stated, but they were in tears. The tears are the bid. Whenever you see tears in a child of God, it’s a bid to be held, it’s a bid to be loved, it’s a bid to be supported, it’s a bid to be cared for, it’s a bid to get your attention. When you no longer see tears, that’s a scary bid, that’s a scary thought.

  36:54 In my work, I always say that when I see the tears, I know I’m in the vein. I used to be a phlebotomist back in the day, and I would draw blood. In order to put a needle in someone’s arm, you’d stick it in, and if it was in the vein you’d start to see blood coming. Once I actually see tears, I generally can tell that I’m in the right area. The Savior now is in the right area, knowing that they are longing to have them. Watch, he recognized their emotion. “I perceive that you are weak.” You guys are tired, you can’t handle it. He explored their story. And their story was that they didn’t want him to leave. “Tarry with us a little longer.” And then watch what he did. He then attended to their deeper issue and he said unto them, “Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you.”

  37:51 Before he did anything, he let the love fill his heart up, his compassion up. When he had compassion for it, that becomes the moving communication. It’s not what he says that matters as much as that compassion. And what I love about this moment, and we’ve all done this, we’ve all been in an argument with somebody. We’ve all had a plan and it got ruined because of something, and we’re mad about it. It’s this moment right here that I think most of us have got to learn is to allow, “I can see my wife’s upset with me. I can try to understand her story,” but then I need to care. My favorite thing to do with my clients, as they’re sitting listening to each other and we’re practicing talking back and forth, is after they’re good at showing that “I can hear what you’re saying. Yeah, you say this and you mean this and this is what you’re saying.”

  38:49 I then ask them, I stop everything that we’re doing and I say, “John, do you care about what Stacy’s saying about how hard it is for you to always come home so late? Do you care?” And if he’ll get real and say he cares and just feel it, then that’s what I call getting real. And then all of a sudden what I notice is once they feel it, then it matters. But so many of us, in our arguments, in our family fights, in our issues, we never talk long enough to understand each other, but we don’t even care. We don’t dare care because you’re saying I’m bad. We can get down to the caring. The caring is what carries everything. Real is again, getting real is recognize their emotion, explore their story, attend to their deeper issue, their deeper need, and then lift the conversation.

Hank Smith: 39:49 Man, that’s chapter 17, as I’m-

Dr. Matt Townsend: 39:51 Yeah, that’s it. It’s so funny. Because I did a whole TED talk on this, but without being able to talk about Christ, it’s not the same. People can go watch it, and it’s good, it’s great for corporate America stuff, but this is what he’s doing. He’s being real. I think it’s the only way he knows how to be. He doesn’t need to put it on, right?

Hank Smith: 40:12 Because verse seven, he’s going to get to their deeper.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 40:15 Yeah. Oh, this is so cool too, when you think about it. This I think very well may be my favorite scripture in all scriptures. He just told them that his bowels are filled with compassion towards them, but they still don’t know what he’s doing. Then he says this line, “Have ye any sick that are among you? Bring them hither.” Which in my code is, I’m staying. Now watch, the words don’t work anymore, so bring me your sick and I’ll heal them. And then he says, “Have ye any that are lame or blind or halt or maimed or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf or that are afflicted in any manner, bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you. My bowels are filled with mercy.” I want all the listeners to think right now, who would you go get?

  41:19 Who would you go get? Because your bowels have probably already been filled with compassion towards them. Whomever you’d go run and grab, that’s what the Savior’s wanting you to be thinking about, is with compassion, who should we go and get? I always think my wife would first come grab me and hope that he’ll heal my hearing so that I would listen better. Elder Packer teaches that you need not know everything before the power of the Atonement will work for you. Have faith in Christ and it begins to work the day you ask. The day they asked him to stay, it began to work. The second they asked him to stay, their faith began to work.

  42:00 The second they responded, notice again, “Have ye any sick that are among you.” That is an invitation for them to exercise their agency. Now they go grab their sick. As they grab their sick and their afflicted, they bring them all together. Remember, we know the word succor from Elder Holland. Succor means to run toward. He’s now asking us to now, with our compassion, go succor the weak and the afflicted, those with mortal pain. And they’re all running after them. I wonder if the crowd size didn’t grow a little bit because they ran and got somebody at home and brought them back. And then this point by Elder Kearon in his first general conference address. “Are there things we need to do, commandments to keep, aspects of our natures to change?”

  42:49 Elder Kearon asked, “Yes, but with his grace, those are within our reach, not beyond our grasp.” This is the good news. I am unspeakably grateful for these simple truths, the Father’s design, his plan, his purpose, his intent, his wish and his hope are all to heal you, all to give you peace, all to bring you and those you love home. That’s all he wants is just to bring you home. And they did all, both they that had been healed and those that were whole did bow down at his feet, did worship him, and as many as could come for the multitude did kiss his feet in so much they did bathe his feet with their tears. They’re starting again, this level of creating Zion through these interactions, one at a time. The power, it’s just amazing.

John Bytheway: 43:42 There’s a phrase that I’m so glad that is included in there, because he speaks about physical ailments, blind, maimed, leprous, withered, deaf. Then he says, afflicted in any manner. I’ve recently heard church leaders talk about anxiety, depression, mental illness of every kind. All those afflictions he has compassion for and has power to heal.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 44:09 I love that. We know that he can heal sin. We also know that he heals illness because those are a lot of illnesses. We also know that he can heal weaknesses. He can also heal an affliction, and sometimes an affliction are things that people have done to us. It’s past abuse. It’s somebody, it’s a negligent parent. We know right now there’s research that shows about 60% of the millennial age group, and it’s not just about millennials, have what’s called an attachment issue, where they don’t safely attach to their most loving relationships. They don’t know how to safely attach.

John Bytheway: 44:49 60%.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 44:50 60%. And they believe it might be one of the reasons why they’re marrying later. It might be one of the reasons why they don’t believe in institution. Maybe they’re falling away from church because that would also have an attachment. And the general idea, and I could even have it. In fact, I know I have some version of it because of what happened with my parents when I was younger and they divorced. But everybody needs to know they’re lovable, they’re capable, they belong, and they’re safe. Everyone needs to know it. Lovable, capable, belonging and safe. And when those needs are met, life is great and you can go start openly attaching to people. When the needs aren’t met, something changes in us and we feel vulnerable. That vulnerability, I believe, began with Adam and Eve, and they started to feel nakedness. And now they have to fight to prove they’re lovable. They have to fight to prove they’re capable.

  45:44 They need more degrees, they need more opportunity. They need more television time. They need all of these things. They need to fight to prove that they belong, or they don’t fight. Some never fight. They just flight. They run because they don’t feel loved. They hide. They quit going to church. They quit caring. They give up on family. Or some don’t fight or flight, they freeze. They don’t do anything. They hide. And some don’t freeze, they please everybody. And they’re yes men, and they say yes to everybody. What I believe a huge portion of the audience would have felt is some version of not lovable enough, not capable enough, not belonging enough, not safe enough. That’s antithetical, that’s the opposite of what we all felt in heaven. If there’s illness, if there’s sin, if there’s weakness, and if there’s affliction, I don’t even think those are the four biggest. Do you know what I think is the biggest thing he healed is their ignorance. I think the number one killer of most of us, emotionally, is we’re ignorant.

  46:59 We have no idea who we are. But in this presence with him, which is why when we always remember him, it keeps the past, present and the future in one realm, and we’re less ignorant. I honestly don’t know where this quote came from. Can’t find it anywhere. So if anyone knows, let me know. “The majority of the atonement was not for our sin, but for our ignorance.” We don’t even know what we don’t know. We don’t even know why I have an addiction. We know one of the things that’s one of the number one drivers of pornography use is anxiety. It may not be people are just crazy weirdos, it might be that they’re hurt and they’re afflicted, or it might be because they’ve been abused, or it might be because they have anxiety or attachment issues. And we don’t need excuses. Here’s the neat thing, but the Savior knows. That’s why he probably wants to bring them one by one. Because when he brings them one by one, we can talk about your thing, we can talk about your worries.

  48:02 We can talk about… Remember that prayer you offered when you had to give the talk in sacrament meeting? And then do you remember it took till the song right before you that you felt my peace? Do you remember that? That was me. Boom. And then that moment creates healing and that healing goes back, and the neat thing about the Spirit is when we feel the Spirit, it heals our lovability, it heals our capability, it heals our belonging, it heals our safety. As I go through it today, when I fight with my wife about something or get in an argument with my kids about something, I’m probably not even fighting about what we’re fighting about. I call that the smoke. I fight with them about something silly. “You got to let the dog out.” We’re fighting about a dog. By the way, I don’t even have a dog, so I just made that up.

  48:52 I fight about the dog, but what I really feel like is why is no one listening to me? And that might actually re-energize my natural man and my fight or flight, which turns on. That’s what the Savior’s healing here. If 60% of millennials have it, I bet you 50% of my generation have it. I’m 55. There’s power in what he’s doing here. He’s healing because he’s becoming, for us, the ultimate source of peace, which is why we have to trust him that he’ll bring the peace. We also have to turn to the bid, and we have to trust that when we bid, he is turning even if we don’t feel it.

Hank Smith: 49:33 That phrase that John brought out, “afflicted in any manner,” Matt, could that also be a how well do you know the people around you? I would know if someone was lame or blind or halt or maimed or leprous, withered or deaf. I’d be like, “Oh, that guy, him, Jim over there.” But then afflicted in any manner, how well do you know the people around you? I don’t know if the Savior came and he said, “Who in your ward is afflicted in any manner?” I don’t know if I know everyone that well.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 50:05 In a leadership meeting, when you’re sitting in the ward council or whatever, and they’re like, “Let’s get some names for the prayer list,” and in my head I’m like, “Oh, boy, I don’t know anybody. I don’t know what anybody needs.”

Hank Smith: 50:16 Everyone’s doing great.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 50:17 That’s the sign that I probably need to get a little deeper. And it’s not a rebuke, it’s a bid. It’s an invitation, turn and then just go. And when we go and do and act on it, there’s a ton of power there. There’s a ton of opportunity there.

Hank Smith: 50:38 Real quick quote, just to give you a second witness. My favorite President Kimball talk is called Jesus the Perfect Leader. He says exactly what you said, “Jesus saw sin as wrong, but also was able to see sin as springing from a deep and unmet need on the part of this sinner.” He says, “We can show forth our love for others even when called upon to correct them. We need to be able to look deeply enough into the lives of others to see the basic causes for their failures and shortcomings.” Love that.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 51:14 To be eternal beings, that’s the level of progression we’ll make for eternity. Going deeper and deeper. That is the invitation of this whole section or chapter, is the Lord’s asking us to go deeper, not wider. He’s not really asking us to do more, be more one in the moment with each other, be in the present with him. If the Savior came, we naturally think it would be easy to be drawn to that, but we’d still have our phone in our pocket, and if the world is still vibrating the phone, we might not be present. And we’ve got to make it so that becomes our natural self. Our spirit gets it. So strongly run by the natural tendencies of the body and the mind. In verse 11, “And it came to pass that he commanded that their children should be brought.” Think this through, if the words don’t work because they’re too tired of words, then what I’m going to do is bless them and their sick.

  52:15 Great in your marriage, if the words aren’t working anymore, bless the family and take care of those that are sick. Number two, bless the children. Not only are the sick important to the Nephites, so are the children. “They brought their little children and set them down on the ground round about him, and stood in the midst and the multitude gave way till they had all been brought unto him.” Notice the unity and notice that the minute the Lord sets the priority, “Now I want the children,” everybody gave way to the children. If you think about it, the normal crowd would be pulling in on each other, pushing in on each other, and people would be like, when you see the president hugging a baby or the pope kissing a baby, they’re throwing their kids out there. This was a different, there was a reverence.

  53:10 Jesus wants the babies. He wants the kids to come in. So they bring the kids and they set the kids down. “And it came to pass that when they had all been brought, Jesus stood in the midst and he commanded the multitude that they should kneel down.” Kneeling down, sacred space. “And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself and said, ‘Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel.'” Now, remember, all communication has a past, a present and a future, so for me, I think what that may be or mean, from my little world view, is he’s now holding their children, and any broken natures of the world or the people of the world are going to impact these children. He mourns that the world is so broken, that it will end up bruising these children. That could go back to attachment, abuse, affliction.

John Bytheway: 54:14 I’m so glad you’re bringing this up. I have opened this up to friends in my classes before. He’s in the middle of this amazingly beautiful experience, and then this sentence comes out seemingly of nowhere. Some of the answers that I’ve heard are “Maybe he’s thinking about the people in Jerusalem that he wanted to bless and heal and they would not let him. Maybe he’s thinking about all those who died in the calamities before he came.” But I like this answer. “He’s thinking maybe about what these children will be facing in their futures.”

Dr. Matt Townsend: 54:54 Wow.

John Bytheway: 54:55 That’s just another thing to add to the list.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 54:58 Well, isn’t that powerful too, because the words we use in the scriptures are the traditions of the fathers, and they get handed down. He’s trying to clear out traditions. He’s trying to break molds. There’s many times that as I’m working with a couple that’s discussing if they’re going to stay together or not, I sometimes groan inside myself about their kids. I sometimes wonder, “Why are we not talking about your kids right now?” Sometimes when I’m nervy enough, I ask them to bring me a picture of their kids. Because I want to know who we’re working for here.

John Bytheway: 55:39 Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 55:41 I think that’s why the Savior fixes stuff, because he’s very clear on what the repercussions are. I think he knows he’s going to get them, he’s going to get us home, but I think he’s worried about the pain that we have to go through, and the journey doesn’t have to be as hard as some of us are making our journey.

Hank Smith: 56:00 Matt, maybe he’s troubled for all children. This group of children could be representative of, oh, the difficulty that you look at your little ones and go, “Oh, don’t grow up.” Right? “Don’t face.”

Dr. Matt Townsend: 56:13 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 56:13 Yeah. Oh, that’s a great way to look at it.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 56:16 It’s a paradox that sometimes, to find healthiness, you have to break things. Sometimes, to find healthiness, you have to have corrections. Sometimes you need surgery. Sometimes you need to break a bone to heal it properly. There is something that I love to think about. It’s President Nelson’s quote. He said, “The covenant path is all about our relationship with God.” What I have found, with people that have cracks, which by the way, it’s all of us. If I take a rock and I crack it, the cracks are where the light get in. We need some cracks so that the light can get in. The more I work with my clients and those that have lost children, those that have never married, those that have always wished that whatever happened 30 years ago hadn’t happened to them, every one of those cracks, I believe, is a light where you’re getting the opportunity to have a bid and turning relationship with the Savior.

  57:18 It’s that invitation. And that’s hard. Even Nephi had to divorce himself from his brothers. He had to leave. It was hard on him. But then what’s interesting, notice, the tradition of that idea, over time, also probably got corrupted by people that thought Nephites and Lamanites were bad and we just didn’t like each other. Those traditions can be kept. The most beautiful thing I ever learned in my parents’ divorce was how loving my grandma, my mom’s mom, is because my mom’s mom always talked positively about my dad. My mom’s mom always just said I’m so lucky to have such a funny, good dad, to me, which is sacred. I got a witness of what my dad was through these women that I loved the most. There’s power in honoring one another as we go through this.

Hank Smith: 58:18 I have learned so much already. Wow.

John Bytheway: 01:00:15 When I think about the First Vision, we talk about the heavens were parted and God spoke once again to man, but that is the beginning of it, the nature of God, that was Elder Kearon. We need that reminder so often, to stop thinking of God as some of the worst humans you’ve met on the planet, he’s not that way, and that’s why I loved Elder Kearon’s talk. We need constant reminders of what God is really like, and I think that began at the First Vision.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:00:50 In fact, Joseph Smith, remember, he said, “I want you all to know God, to be familiar with him. When we know how to come to him, God begins to unfold the heavens to us and tells us all about it.” Also, in the First Vision, Joseph, his most amazed moment was that God upbraideth not. God’s not a brute, he didn’t beat him up. He’s loving, and he has this incredible relationship with me, and he felt love. That is exactly what the Savior’s trying to break. We can break it in our own conversations when we testify of Christ in not just a judicial model and not just a legalistic model, but in a family model. He’s our God, he’s our King, he’s our Father. He’s not just our judge, he’s also this loving entity, this being that we see, that is dragging us along and doing everything he can to get us to believe in the Savior.

Hank Smith: 01:01:56 Whenever I hear the Lord saying, “You’re going to overcome the blood and sins of this generation,” I always hear, “You’re going to overcome the DNA and the practices your parents gave.”

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:02:11 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:02:12 And by the way, we all mess up our kids, right, Matt?

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:02:16 Yeah, yeah.

Hank Smith:  You’re not the only one. If you’re listening out there going, “I’ve messed up my kids.”

Dr. Matt Townsend:  Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:02:12 I promise, we all have.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:02:16 Just because a kid gets a little messed up doesn’t mean you messed them up. There’s still this component of agency, even the greatest among us, even the Father had children that made choices that weren’t his, it’s part of the plan. I don’t know that any of us are served too well beating ourselves up. That’s actually more of the natural man, the carnal mind, trying to get you to not think about it. What I’d rather you do is you turn it back to Christ and literally let him heal you from it, and remember him and sit with him and talk about it.

  This next verse, so the Savior brought everyone around to pray, as he prayed, he also knelt himself on the Earth, he prayed unto the Father, “And the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him. And after this manner do they bear record, the eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father. And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of man conceive, so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak. And no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.”

  01:03:12 Literally, the Savior is blowing their minds, their carnal minds can’t conceive of it. I think their spiritual minds feel like they’re home. That spiritual being that they were is now resonating, yes. And the carnal mind, the reason the words don’t matter is because we’re not engaging a body and a mind, actually, the spirit is picking up what it means. They have the gift of tongues, they have the gift of understanding it, even though the words can’t be held in the mind. Powerful.

Hank Smith: 01:04:14 That’s got to be someone’s journal, because that’s not Mormon speaking.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:04:27 Yeah.

Hank Smith:  This is a direct quote from someone who was there. I wonder who that is. I wonder if it’s Nephi or somebody else that Mormon had a personal account.

Dr. Matt Townsend:  Yeah. Here’s, by the way, a great quote by President Nelson about joy and spirituality, he says, “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” He continued, “When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation and Jesus Christ and his gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening or not happening in our lives. Joy comes from and because of him. His joy is constant, assuring us that our afflictions shall be but for a small moment, and be consecrated to our gain. If we look to the world and follow its formulas for happiness, we will never know joy. Joy is a gift for the faithful.”

  That is the pain of my family’s divorce has brought the joy of my family gathering today. When I have a missionary going out, and in the room is my faithful mom and my six children and their four spouses and my seven grandchildren, there’s power there, and that joy is even more beautiful because of the pain that I went through as a kid.

Hank Smith: 01:05:49 Our theology is one that allows for a God who weeps. Look at verse 21, he wept, verse 22, he wept. John, where is it in the Pearl of Great Price?

John Bytheway: 01:05:58 Moses 7, the division of Enoch, “How is it that the heavens weep and shed forth their tears as rain upon the mountains?” It’s poetry, it is beautiful. To me, the Pearl of Great Price, I have a testimony based on the content alone. So good.

Hank Smith: 01:06:15 That’s right, yep. What does it mean, Matt, that the Savior’s weeping?

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:06:20 Remember, earlier I talked about that means we’re in the vein, we’re in the right thing. His weeping comes because his joy is full. These are tears of joy. These are tears because he’s with the brothers and sisters that he knew pre-mortally, that he atoned for, that he was in Gethsemane and Golgotha for, and now he gets to stand with them. He has these private moments with each one of them one by one.

  In fact, listen to this about joy. “The Savior’s joy was in part because of his suffering,” remember, that’s in part of the context, this is Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “In that most burdensome moment of all human history, with blood appearing at every pore and an anguished cry upon his lips, Christ sought him whom he had always sought, his Father, Abba. He cried, “Papa.”

  01:07:25 From the lips of a younger child, something akin to daddy. This is such a personal moment, it almost seems sacrilege to cite it. A son in unrelieved pain, a Father, his only true source of strength, both of them staying the course, making it through the night together.”

  When you think that through, listen to what President Russell Nelson says, this is in his talk, Joy and Spiritual Survival. “His joy is constant, assuring us that our afflictions shall be but a small moment and be consecrated to our gain. As in all things, Jesus Christ is the ultimate exemplar, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.” That’s Hebrews 12:2. Think of that, in order for him to endure the most excruciating experience ever endured on Earth, our Savior focused on the joy. They’ve got to go together, the power of them going together is knowing it shall just be for a moment, it’s just for a small moment.

  01:08:33 But the pain, according to Neal Maxwell, does this powerful thing. “The cavity which suffering carves into our soul will one day also be the receptacle of joy.” All of the pains of loneliness that we all feel, all of the difficulties that we all suffer, all of the illnesses and the sadness and the pain, it’s etching away a space, and that space will eventually, when we turn to God, and turn it spiritual and turn it in a connected at-onement with him, the Lord will then create a space of joy, and the joy will then feel and fill that cavity, and we will feel peace.

Hank Smith: 01:09:19 The excavation of the soul.

Dr. Matt Townsend:  Yeah, love that.

Hank Smith:  Coming up in part two of this episode.

Dr. Matt Townsend: 01:09:26 I had a mother and her daughter in my office that have a really big argument that they’re going through with each other, and the daughter doesn’t like what the mother’s doing, and the mother doesn’t like what the daughter’s doing, and now the daughter and the father are siding with each other. As they are arguing about all the stuff that’s not the real issue, I just stopped them and I said, “Okay, stop for a second.”