432 | The Closeness Gap, the Five Senses Experiment, and Dropping Your Anger with Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield (Part 1)

Experiencing God's LoveFamily VisionMom Perspective
Written By Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

Most dads think they're closer to their daughters than they actually are. Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield has spent 30 years sitting with dads and daughters in the gap between, and she came on DadAwesome to say it plain: your words water her dry soul, your anger can wipe out nine good days, and pursuit is the muscle every dad has to keep building. This is part one of a two part conversation, and Jeff brings a real story from the night before about missing it with his four year old.

  • Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield is a licensed counselor, speaker, and the host of The Dad Whisperer Podcast. She founded The Abba Project in 2010, a group coaching experience for dads of daughters, and has written two books for fathers: Dad, Here's What I Really Need from You and Let's Talk.

    • Pursuit is not a season. It does not end at the wedding or the hospital room. Your daughter and your wife need to be pursued today.

    • Ask your daughter the zero to ten question. Where would you rank our closeness, is that the number you want, and what can I do to be a better dad to you.

    • Your words land like water on dry soil. One sentence of affirmation can revive what looked dead four days ago.

    • Your anger will do more to shut her down than almost anything else. Repair every rupture.

    • Run the five senses experiment. Notice what you see in her, listen one minute longer than yesterday, tie smell to memory, speak one word of life, and give safe physical touch on purpose.

  • Jeff Zaugg: Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, today, episode 432, I have Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield joining me. She's been a guest on the podcast before, and she brings a vault of resources to help dads. There's not that many women who have dedicated their life to helping dads. This is Dr. Michelle. She is a friend, a mentor, a coach. She's been doing coaching cohorts since 2010 with the Abba Project. She hosts The Dad Whisperer Podcast. So much valuable wisdom that we've broken into two parts. This is the first half of my conversation.

    Before we jump into the interview, let me play a voice message I received from a friend of mine, Taylor. Listen to what he had to say.

    Taylor: I just wanted to share a cool little moment with you. Flying home from Detroit this morning, here at the airport going through security, I see a young mom and dad with a one and a half year old little boy. I just start chatting up like, hey guys, good luck on the airplane. We have a good conversation back and forth going through security and then say goodbye.

    I walked to my gate and thought, dang it, I have a copy of the DadAwesome book in my backpack, just the pre-release copy I've been reading through. I should have given it to this guy. So I prayed, Lord, if I'm supposed to give this book to this man, let me see him again.

    I grabbed a little bite to eat, grabbed a coffee, sat down, and then I see him and his wife and kid on the other side of the hallway terminal. So I take out the book, write a little note to him, write my name and number in it, and then go over and gift it to him. He said, man, that's something I pray about every day, being an awesome intentional father. It was just a cool moment. I left my number in the book and told him to read it and reach out to me.

    I love giving this book away to dads on copy meetings, or I'm going to start carrying copies in my backpack just to gift in random moments like this. Only possible because you wrote an awesome resource that points people to Jesus. I love that. It's such an easy gift and fun gift to give. Just wanted to share that as an encouragement, and I thank you. Love you, brother.

    Jeff Zaugg: Thanks, Taylor, for your message and your encouragement. Man, what a cool way to reach out and spread the wisdom gathered from these eight plus years of DadAwesome by carrying an extra copy of the book and putting your cell phone number in there saying, hey, I'm praying for you, let me know if you have any questions or any ways I can encourage you. We can all be on the lookout like that. I want to encourage that.

    Hey, we are launching tomorrow, May 1st, a 10 day challenge called the Mom Awesome Challenge. It's all around pursuit, daily activation to help us as dads pursue Mom Awesome, your wife, the mom of your kids, through prayer, through activation around service and words, doing unique daily challenges that are going to help Mom Awesome feel loved in the 10 days leading up to Mother's Day. All you have to do to join the Mom Awesome Challenge is text the word MOM to the number 651-370-8618. Send that text message and you'll be a part of that daily encouragement, daily activation called the Mom Awesome Challenge.

    All right, let's jump into the first half of my conversation with Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield.

    The Conversation

    Jeff Zaugg: Michelle, it's been several years since I had you last on DadAwesome. Welcome back.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: I always love spending time with you, Jeff. Thanks for having me back.

    Jeff Zaugg: I was going to mention the same thing, that my family, the level of joy that you and your husband Ken have brought into our family, from the years on the road in the RV, to time we spent on a rooftop in Washington, DC with other ministry leaders, to phone calls and FaceTime. Even at the time of this recording dropping, maybe a month or two ago, we launched the DadAwesome book, and the way you brought celebration through sending a package, through calls and texts. You celebrate so well. Joy is just contagious from your life. I'm curious, Michelle, what's upstream of you carrying such joy and celebration of others?

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: I think some of it is, I truly love kids. Your kids have wrapped themselves around my heart, your daughters. Really, it's not you, it's them.

    Jeff Zaugg: Yes, good, good.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: But part of it for real is I've always had love for children. It's kind of kept me childlike. I love treat bags for kids. This past weekend I had them. I have them for the neighbor boys next week. I love seeing children light up. That makes my heart filled with joy.

    But I think some of it too is just God's wired me that way. Some of it I'm like, I don't know why I'm this way. One of the things about joy that I've learned, and this is crazy research, is that joy is reciprocal. The joy in me activates the joy in you six cycles per second in a joy exchange. I have no idea how experts ever quantified that. But to think that the joy in a child activates joy in me, and then celebrating somebody else, especially through the eyes of a child. How can anything get better?

    In fact, yesterday we had our grandkids stop by because their dryer went out and mom had to dry things. So in between counseling sessions, I go downstairs, I get the run across the room, "Mishy," into my arms, helping build a fort in seven minutes between things and getting out the treats. I said again, how can anything be better? That makes a good day a great day when you're with a kid who's excited and full of joy. I don't know how to really answer that in a nutshell, but there you go.

    Jeff Zaugg: I love it. I'm thinking of a flywheel, you reaching up and pulling on this heavy wheel that starts to spin. This joy wheel comes back to you.

    Dads, I'm thinking of the word pursuit right now. I want to be someone who pursues my wife's heart, who pursues her, not with my own love languages but with how she likes to experience and receive love. Then I want to pursue my daughters. Even with Mother's Day coming up, pursuing her models for my little girls what healthy, loving pursuit looks like. What does that stir up in you, the concept of pursuit?

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: I love that you're highlighting this because you don't know this. I wanted to call my first book Pursuit. I wanted that to be the title.

    Jeff Zaugg: Yes, I don't know this.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: That idea of pursuit, I say it on every one of my podcasts. I highlight that idea, because if a dad only hears that today and asks himself every day, how can I pursue the heart of my wife? And this might sound crazy, I'm even saying ex-wife. The woman who is the mother to your children, honor the women in your life.

    Every one of us as women have a God given place in us that wants to be seen, adored, championed, celebrated. If you men heard what we hear in our head every day, I'm too fat, I'm too old, I'm too wrinkly, I'm too loud. My reporter has always said, Michelle talks too much. That external voice was very much internalized.

    In fact, I dated a loser, age 28 to 30. We were in a Christian band together. One time I wrote down 66 things he didn't like about me when we broke up. But it gets worse. I got back together with him. What's interesting is I had an eating disorder through those years in my twenties. I don't think it's all that much coincidence that he was just the external voice to what I had inside me anyway.

    If you knew the things daughters say, women say to ourselves when we look in the mirror, we see every flaw. So when you come pursuing us saying, I see you, I noticed that you just gave and shared, I notice this about you, by pursuing and seeing and knowing us, we internalize that with every deposit into our heart space.

    Pursuit is also Part B how God made you as men. He made you to conquer, pursue, win the battle. So it's a win win because it helps you as a man step into who you're made to be by God, and it helps us as women step more into our femininity as we respond to your pursuit.

    Jeff Zaugg: Wow. Often it's easy to think pursuit when I don't have this thing. Like I don't have my wife married yet, so I'm pursuing her. Or I don't have a child, so I'm pursuing all the prep to get ready to welcome our first child. The pursuit doesn't come as naturally when they're the most comfortable, when they live in my home with me. Pursuing new challenges, new mountains, that comes more naturally. What would you suggest to stoke up a renewed pursuit?

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: I would say for starters, write that one word on a card, put it on sticky notes in your bathroom, in your closet, in your car, at your office, on the desk, on your phone. You won't remember it if you don't have a reminder of how important it is. What would you say, Jeff? What's a way that you think men could be reminded daily?

    Jeff Zaugg: Well, I'm cheating a little bit here. I'm cheating with my answer because from my research to prepare for this conversation, I'm going to pull one of your principles. The dad dashboard. If my dad dashboard says I'm winning on the pursuit, I'm close to my daughters, I'm close to my wife, my wife thinks I'm doing amazing, I took her on a date just two days ago. From my perspective, I have positivity as my first strength. So my dad dashboard is actually not accurate. I'm generously grading myself.

    I think this is your research. The 75 percent closeness gap that we talked about a few years ago. Dads think they're closer than what the daughters would say they are. Would you explain? Because this is a big deal.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Yes. What I say is, dad, ask your daughter on a scale of zero to ten, with ten being the most, zero being nothing, where would you rank us? What number would you give us of how close you feel we are? Most of the time it's going to be different than the dad.

    Like you just said, there were two studies. These were done with two different organizations. Interesting, this research came out at the same time. Dads basically rank themselves as 75 percent closeness to their daughters. At the same time, this other organization wrote that 75 percent of daughters said, I don't feel close to my dad. I can't talk to him about subjects like sex and dating and body image and some of the harder things. That's how we as women often rank closeness, how much can I open my heart to you, my problems, my hurts. How safe do I feel with you holding what I give you? Or do you use a lot of humor?

    In fact, I've had this recently come up with dad daughter coaching sessions online. I do a lot of that. I love doing that. I want to put that out here. If you're a dad in a tough place with your daughter, reach out to me, drmichellewatson.com. I do this. I've done this for 30 years where I'm in the trenches with people, helping build bridges between dads and daughters, which is strengthening the pursuit muscle in a dad.

    I just had a dad really use humor as a way to diffuse his activated nervous system. It's just getting a little much. I brought it up in a thoughtful, respectful way. Hey, dad, I'm just noticing the last two times I asked a question, you used humor. Can you tell me what that's about? What's going on right in front of the daughter? Let's have a conversation about that. He starts to go, this is getting a little intense, I'm going to diffuse this with humor.

    So dad, whatever it might be that you use as a default to keep yourself from getting too emotionally connected or too fragile or what you might call emotional, your daughter's going to perceive that as you don't want to be as close to her emotions or her heart. That's not at all what you're thinking, but that's how she'll encode that. That's why that zero to ten question is so vital.

    To repeat: ask her on a scale of zero to ten, number one, how close do you feel we are? Number two, is that the number that's good with you, or would you like to see that number change? Number three, what can I do to be closer to you, or to be a better dad to you?

    Jeff Zaugg: I love this. Zero to tens for me, just bringing a notepad with a pen, paper, for me with my girls, the more I can put things on, hey, how's this going, hey, how's this going, I put all these check lines, then they circle, then I'm like, well, there's three check lines on this side. Could you give me three ideas on how I can increase, not be perfect, but increase?

    Back to your question, my way on pursuit and remembering to pursue, I almost need to create a mechanism of accountability to stay in pursuit. I often will recruit a few friends to say, let's do a challenge around the 10 days before Mother's Day. Or you challenged everyone in the month of February because of this is the month of love. Creating a mechanism, an experiment or a challenge, helps surge more intentionality. Otherwise it's just intent and I don't actually follow through. I need that.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Another practical action step for men, if you go to my website, drmichellewatson.com, I have lots of free resources. They're free as a PDF you can download, or I have this in both of my books for dads of daughters. It's a 60 item checklist that I call the Dialed In Dad Checklist. It's not just for you to grade yourself, like, do I know the names of her friends? What songs do I know she loves right now? You're asked specific questions and then you get to rank yourself in three ways, low, medium, high. But then you can give this to your daughter to rate you in 60 items. How well does my dad know my friends? Know the songs I like? Know my taste in this, that, or the other?

    To have a tangible measure is a lot of what you're talking about, Jeff. That's why I love your book, this DadAwesome book, where you've got links to QR codes and action steps all the way through. A dad cannot read your book about these amazing discoveries about how awesome it is to be a dad. Every dad that reads your book, if he does what you challenge and invite him to do and inspire him with joy to do, because you're a joy giver too, by the end his relationships with his daughters will be night and day better, stronger, more activated. I cannot recommend your book enough.

    Jeff Zaugg: You're so kind. I want to do an experiment with you right now. Let's do a little experiment using the five senses. This is something pulling from last fall that you wrote about a little bit around presence. The five senses: see, hear, smell, taste, touch. How might these be anchor ideas to run an experiment as a dad to move the closeness dial, to be more present with our families? I'd love to hear you riff just for a little bit. I'll throw out some ideas as well.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: So good. I love this. We're every day using all five of our senses, to state the obvious. It's something that's already a grid or a template, something known that helps build a bridge to the unknown. If a dad says, I don't even think about the fact that I'm seeing out of my eyes every day, but this heightens my awareness that I am seeing, I'm going to use that, because it's already anchored in my grid, to say, am I seeing her?

    Start at the top of your head and move down. We're going to start with eyes. Every day say, what's one thing? I end every podcast with one thing. I ask every guest, what's one thing you would tell dads today to do with this theme? This one theme idea, Jeff and I are all about it because if you get the macro view, you may do nothing because it's so much to know, so much to do. We bring it down into practical ways you can be the dad you want to be and your daughter needs you to be.

    Start with eyes. What's one thing that I see, you can do her outer beauty, what's one thing I see about her today in her outer beauty, or maybe inner beauty. It may be a character thing. You saw her share. You saw her hold back her anger. You saw her do a chore unasked. Look for one thing you can see that she has as a character quality, and you highlight that. You are a servant. You are a giver. You're such a good sharer.

    Yesterday I told my granddaughter, you're the best hugger. I want to enforce and reinforce, you are a giver of love. We're using words, but we're starting with eyes. Notice, because here's the thing, like I said earlier, we see every flaw. That's why I tell dads, write your messages on a sticky note and put it on her mirror that you're beautiful, or write it with a dry erase marker on her mirror. What you see, she doesn't see. You may say, I see how much time you put into putting that outfit together, you look beautiful. I see you put so much thought into that outfit or into how you decorated your room. Look for one thing you can see, inner outer beauty.

    Ears. We have two of those and one mouth. This whole idea of listen twice as much as you talk. How can I listen better today, listen longer? I say dads, add one minute to how much longer you listen than yesterday. It's hard to listen and not give advice or interrupt. Think, how am I doing? It's your own checklist. What did I see in her today? How did I listen one minute longer today than yesterday? What did I hear her tell me?

    Then smell. That might be a funny one, but you know how much I've loved perfume day with my dad, where once a year he buys me the most expensive perfume, before I got married. Meaning he didn't put a price tag, I could buy any one I wanted at Christmas. When I wear that scent, anytime, I'm remembering that my dad invested in me. Smell might be a little funky one, but maybe it's a way to say, do you have one for smell? What would you say for smell?

    Jeff Zaugg: Either there's anticipation with smell of something we're about to eat. Or it is funny moments around smell. Or it's like, dad, you need to work on this project because we smell this part of the house still needs some help, some TLC.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: That's creative.

    Jeff Zaugg: Smell could tie with service when it comes to cleaning or things that need to be done.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: What else is interesting, they say the olfactory part of our sensory system actually is the strongest of all five. We're both going, how do we make it tangible? But we encode memory often with a smell. That's why I love this idea of perfume, because it's locking in some reps with a long term memory system that both you and your daughter have. Maybe we say, dads, you come up with something, be creative on how you can activate smells that tie to memory and bonding with your daughter.

    Then of course, what are you saying? Are you speaking in anger? Jeff, you know one of the big areas I focus on with men is to help them be aware of their anger. I talked just last week with a national leader who has four daughters, just like you. He said to me, I was telling him about this Drop Your Anger video that went viral three years ago.

    I, numbers are not my forte. 4.3 million views or 3.4. It must have been the 3.4 million views. I've never had anything do that. All I had said to dads was, drop your anger, because in 47 seconds I highlighted that your anger will do more to destroy her spirit, make her stop trying and give up, make her believe she's unworthy. She'll internalize that negativity that something's wrong with her. Saying, you will do more to destroy her, to shut her down and make her stop trying with your anger than anything else. You can do nine things right and one anger response can wipe it out. I don't mean to discourage men, but to say, you've got to make repair for the rupture.

    Jeff Zaugg: So true. Often the words are part of what's expressed. There's facial expression, there's tone. Tone is part of words and the words spoken. The mouth is a big part of this.

    Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Yes, which James highlights. He's like, it can be a spark instead of a whole forest. It's like a blade on a rudder on a ship and the whole thing turns. This is a reminder to dad, not only be mindful of your mouth and what you say, but it's also being mindful of speaking words of life into your daughter. One word of life.

    I love to use the analogy of a number of years ago, I got all these plants at Costco I was going to plant in my yard. They were in pots, little flower bushes. I was busy that week and I couldn't believe four days later I come out and the things look like they'd been dead for a month. I'm like, shoot, I just bought these, I spent all this money. So I just doused them with water. Within a few hours, they look like they had never been withered. I literally brought these into the Abba Project. I took a picture before and after and I'm showing these dads.

    Your words are like water to her dry soul. She will spring forth with beauty and color and life with your words. You may think it's not even a big deal to give her one word of affirmation, one word of encouragement. Watch what happens. Out of all five, if this is the only one you do this week, it will be the difference maker. One positive affirmation. If you don't live by her, text her. I've had dads say, I put messages on mirrors and I take a screenshot and send it in real time from where I am to her at college. Dad, one word of life to water the soil of your daughter's heart every day this week. Watch what happens.

    Then the last one, of course, touch. Safe touch is a gift that more men need to give to their daughters. Sometimes, especially as daughters hit 12, 13, their bodies start changing. Jeff, I have so many conversations. I'm talking, getting a pedicure with the lady next to me, my dad, something happened when I was 13, I started developing and he pulled away and I don't know why. Dads, this may be the message you need to hear today in our conversation.

    The dad last week, this national leader, said, I needed to hear that today about anger. I'm saying, here's somebody that does this day in and day out, investing in people. He said, I needed to be reminded of that. Today we're just bringing up things that maybe a dad says, I needed to be reminded of that today.

    Jeff Zaugg: Jesus, the parents brought the little children to Jesus for him to pray for them and place his hands on them. There's a loving placing of hands. This is maybe a research focus for me, loving touch, physical touch, cuddle time, wrestle time, but also just driving the car, reaching my hand back and just placing my hand on her knee. It's a small touch.

    This morning we ran to the grocery store on the e-bike. It's my wife's e-bike for the record, it's not mine, but I rode it. I like to qualify that. I reached back and I'm doing little high fives with my four year old, just holding her hand. This touch matters.

    To tag back for a moment to words, the lunchbox from homeschool co-op, I found it's like eight or nine of my notes that I'd written each week, but they were all collected in the lunchbox, these little notes. These notes took me 30 seconds to write, and my seven year old had kept all of them. These notes, the post-it notes, the mirror notes, they matter more than we could ever imagine.

    I want to take us into a story of what happened last night to me. This is asking for help, Michelle. I had a moment, I had three of my daughters home with me last night, and we're doing some cleanup. I threw away, I was a part of it, but so was one of my daughters, throwing away my four year old's one of her little art projects that looked like trash from my perspective. It was still in progress, one of her little projects.

    I was trying to keep the momentum of our cleanup party, and I just didn't take enough time. I didn't take enough time to address the hurt that she felt, and I kind of rushed them to keep cleaning. I missed it. After the cleanup I apologized.

    What happened later though is what I wanted to bring up. At bedtime my wife gets home, and my 12 year old is recapping the pain that I caused right at bedtime. She's recapping to my wife in front of all the girls, dad did this. In the moment I'm defensive, I'm like, we had so much sweetness that evening. But I missed it there. I found myself, the frustration, defensiveness, the correcting my 12 year old, like speaking like two adults trying to justify. It went immature. That's what I did. I went immature, defensive. I felt hurt in the moment.

    Here again, my four year old is hearing dad almost double down on, it wasn't that big a deal. This has happened a few times recently of basically I'm putting expectations that they're older than what they are. Each of my girls, I'm like, not enough care, not enough time, and I'm proving it later that my heart actually didn't learn anything. I'm bringing this to you and to all of our wonderful dads listening to say, I'm missing it and I want to grow.

    Jeff Zaugg: I decided to leave Part 1 of this conversation with Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield as a cliffhanger. Guys, come back next week. I want you to hear her coach me. There's so much coaching that is so helpful. How often do we hit record on microphones and walk through a vulnerable, this is how I struggled?

    We'd love to welcome you back next week. Join us for Part 2. All the show notes, all the conversation links, the transcript, the action steps, are all going to be found at dadawesome.org/podcast.

    One more time, I want to invite you guys to be a part of the Mom Awesome Challenge kicking off tomorrow, this daily activation. All you have to do is text the word MOM to 651-370-8618 to get that daily text message with encouragement around pursuing Mom Awesome.

    Guys, thanks for listening today. Thanks for prayerfully taking action. Let's not be dads of intent. Let's be dads who take action this week. Praying for you and cheering for you. Have a great week, guys.

    • "Your words are like water to her dry soul. She will spring forth with beauty and color and life with your words."

    • "You can do nine things right and one anger response can wipe it out. You've got to make repair for the rupture."

    • "Every one of us as women have a God given place in us that wants to be seen, adored, championed, celebrated."

    • "Ask your daughter on a scale of zero to ten, where would you rank us? What can I do better?"

    • "What you see, she doesn't see. By pursuing and seeing and knowing us, we internalize it."

 

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