Life’s Kidney Stones

Kidney stones are tiny, common, and infamous for crushing pain. That contrast becomes the launch point for a bigger idea: the smallest unresolved issues in our lives can quietly grow until they demand our full attention, and the pain often spikes the moment we finally start moving through them.

I talk through why discomfort can be a sign of progress, not proof you’re failing. Changing jobs, repairing relationships, grieving, and overcoming addiction can feel like getting squeezed by the moment itself, but the obstacle isn’t just “the way” it’s the way through. We also get practical about prevention, using hydration as a metaphor for the daily habits that protect our mental health, emotional resilience, and spiritual well-being: meditation, prayer, strengthening the body, engaging the mind, and making time to actually enjoy being alive.

From there, I share a few moments of intense gratitude that stop me in my tracks, like appreciating a warm bath and the push-button wonder of modern life. We build a simple “joy list,” then use the jar metaphor to make it actionable: if your schedule is overflowing with duties and worry, empty 30 to 40 percent and refill that space with people, practices, and commitments that bring real joy. I even nod to Marie Kondo style gratitude as a way to train your attention toward what’s working.

Then we head to the river of life. Too many of us stand on the bank, testing the water, backing away after we get scared. My son Jaren joins me and delivers a straight-to-the-heart reminder: take the chance while you can, because you might not get it again. If this hits home, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can jump in too.

Transcript

Kidney Stones As A Metaphor

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Welcome to Life Notes with Sheldon, where we talk about ways to get off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your best view.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hello friends, and thank you for joining me on Life Notes on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. Some interesting facts for you. One being about kidney stones. Did you know that about one in ten people will experience a kidney stone during their lifetime? They can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a cough ball. Many people describe kidney stone pain as among the most severe pain they've ever experienced, often compared to or even exceeding childbirth. A stone can sit quietly for months or years without causing problems. The real pain often begins when it starts moving. Most stones eventually pass on their own, though the process can be uncomfortable. Staying hydrated is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of developing stones. So, friends, in New Mexico, it is hot, it is dry. Stay hydrated for so many reasons, but one of which being to avoid kidney stones. But kidney stones, we shouldn't avoid them entirely. We can learn lessons from them. Valuable life lessons, I believe. And I've been talking to myself, I said self, uh, I talk to myself often, I reason with myself, I think, and I've been thinking and kind of exploring the way that some life challenges are kind of like kidney stones. Even small things can create quite significant pain. A tiny stone can bring an adult to their knees, and likewise a seemingly small problem, a misunderstanding, a debt, a bad habit, can consume our thoughts if left unresolved. And you know, it's the little things we do that make the difference when it's too late to do anything else. My good friend Glenn Gent taught me that when I was working in the car business. He taught everyone that at every sales meeting. And I learned to remember it and I've tried to implement it. It's the little things you do that you don't have to do that will always make the difference when it's too late to do anything else. Sometimes it's those little things that add up over time that cause kidney stones in our life, the things that we do do or the things that we don't do. Small

Small Things That Bring Big Pain

SPEAKER_02 2:36

things can create significant pain.

When Pain Means You’re Moving

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Now I thought this was interesting that a kidney stone actually hurts when it starts to move. That's when the pain happens, when they start to move. So a stone hurts most when it's moving, and many of life's greatest discomforts come during periods of growth and transition. Changing jobs, repairing relationships, overcoming addiction, grieving, learning something new, having to have a career change or a life change, a major life change. These can be major kidney stones. Uh, when your children leave the house and you become empty nesters, a significant family member gets sick or ill. When we lose those we love, in one way or another, those can be significant kidney stones. And they can be painful. They can be a little bit bigger than some of those larger things. But ignoring life's kidney stones does not make them any better, nor does it make the stone pass faster. You can't pretend like it's not there. So maybe you're passing through a challenging life space right now. Maybe you're experiencing some kind of personal challenge or tragedy. Maybe it's something in your past, trauma that you're dealing with and trying to get through. Maybe you have an addiction, maybe it's not a serious one. Maybe you're addicted to the news. Maybe you're addicted to negative influences, maybe it's a more serious addiction and you're addicted to alcohol or food or whatever it can be, the many addictions that we have. It's a kidney stone, friends, and you have to go through it. You have to pass it. There's no way around it. And life is a series of kidney stones. I'm telling you, if you have not lived very long, if you haven't had very many challenging experiences, you either haven't lived life or you haven't lived it very long. And when these challenges come, sadly, we have to pass them. We absolutely do. We have to pass through them. Uh, the obstacle is the way. We've heard that be said that the obstacle is the way. Well, the obstacle is the way through. And there's no way around the obstacle other than to go through it. So, friends, maybe you're going through something challenging, maybe you're experiencing a significant challenge. Know that the interesting thing about kidney stones is they don't last forever. They don't take over your whole life and never let go. They relent eventually and they pass. And look back on every challenging experiences that you had to bear and endure in life. And likely, you'll agree that you were able to pass through it, that you were able to make it through, that you were able to come off conquer and pass that stone. Now, some stones hurt really bad, and some are really difficult to pass. Maybe put you in the hospital type kind of difficulty. But you gotta pass them nonetheless, and you gotta know that that pain is going to be most severe when you're trying actively to pass it. And so it is with life. When you're trying as hard as you can to get through, whatever this kidney stone is that you're experiencing right now, that's when the pain may be most severe. But it's also where you're going to make the greatest ground and the greatest advance forward by pushing through, by bearing down and maintaining, by pushing that stone out of the way and out of your life. So if you have one challenge after another, and it feels like your whole life may be a challenge, chances are that's a seasonal thing, and we all go through that. It all happens. Sometimes it happens to people around a midlife crisis. Sometimes it happens in something that happens with a spouse or a child or a work situation. But when you're going through these things, if you have a series of kidney stones and your life seems to be a giant kidney stone or series of them, then you gotta figure out what's causing those to come back.

Preventing Repeat Stones With Self-Care

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Are you not drinking enough water? In this case, drinking enough water would be taking care of our mental and emotional and spiritual health, right? Those are probably the prime causes of the kidney stones, figurative kidney stones that we face in this life. Are we taking time to meditate? Are we taking time to pray? Are we taking time to build ourselves, strengthen our bodies, engage our minds, enlarge our spirits, and just to enjoy life.

A Sudden Flood Of Gratitude

SPEAKER_02 7:32

You know, I have this thing that happens every once in a while. It's interesting. I I wonder if I'm dying sometimes, because I have this experience, and I I can't tell you why it comes. Can't exactly tell you when it comes. One time it came as I was sick. I was I was quite ill with the flu. And uh to where my body ached and I had this chills, and it was just a miserable, miserable illness. And I took some Tylenol, and I remember getting in a warm, hot bath. Steamy, warm, hot bath, and sitting there. And as I turned the water on to warm it up again when it started to cool, I was so grateful for just the joy of having a warm bath. And so grateful that I could reach my toe up and move a lever over to the left and have hot water come out of that faucet and not have to go heat it up in a cauldron outside in the cold, but just to literally push a button and have hot water come in. How soothing, how healing, how welcoming that hot water was. And I don't always, you know, I don't always do that. I don't always turn on the shower and think with wonder, it's amazing that we have this, that we're not carrying water for miles on our backs from the Animus River, right? Our ancestors did, but we don't have to. Sometimes I do marvel at those things, and quite often I do, but every once in a while, maybe two to three times a year, I have these overwhelming feelings of gratitude to the point where I really wonder, I'm like, is this it? Am I am I dying? Am I just reflecting so much on how grateful I am? I don't know why they come, but I'm glad they do. And I recently had one, and I was just so grateful. I was grateful to get up in the morning. I was grateful to go on a walk with my dog in the park. I was grateful to see my children and greet them when they came home. I held them in my arms and told them how much I loved them and appreciated them, and it was a wonderful thing. And sometimes we're gonna have these wonderful times and experiences that maybe aren't necessarily in our control or are creating, and we need to embrace those and enjoy those and maybe not question them too much, but find time to enjoy the time when life is good and find ways to actively make it good.

Find Peace And Name Your Joy

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Where do you go and find peace? Some people find it by serving in their church and being around their church community. Other people find it by staying away from their church community and retreating into nature. Other people find it in mountains and by the river and in meditative contemplation alone. Other people find it when they're around their family, when they're around their friends, when they're gathering. Where do you find peace? Where do you find comfort? Where do you find enjoyment? What brings you joy? Now, once you kind of identify what really brings you joy, and if you're at home and available and you can, I'd like you to write down three to five things that bring you joy, or three to five people that bring you joy. What brings you joy in this life? And then when you identify that, I want you to find ways to do more of that, to bring more of that into your life. Because largely our life is like a jar, and we can only fill it with so much until it runs over, and we're a capacity. And many of us, I'm afraid, are running with our jars full of chores and our jars full of duties and worries and obligations to the point that it's running over and there's no room for anything else. Well, friends, I want you to empty your jar. I want us to all empty our jar, not all the way. There are things we have to worry about, things we have to prepare for, but open and empty, say, 30 to 40 percent of your jar. And when you do, start filling it up with things that bring you joy. Start filling it up with time and commitments that bring you joy. Stop filling it up with people and experiences that bring you joy. Because if you start filling your jar with these things, there's going to be less room for the negativity, less room for the pessimism, less room for the things that do not bring you joy. You know,

Gratitude For The Push-Button World

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Mary Condo in her life-changing book entitled The Life-Ching Magic of Tidying Up, she talks about having this radical gratitude to the point where she would thank her garage door opener. She would almost talk to like things like her keys and her garage door opener. And she would say, Thank you, keys, for letting me into my car every day. Thank you, garage door opener, for for doing this for me. She recognized that these little mundane things, sometimes we're not grateful for them. And sometimes we forget what a true wonder they are. I mean, we live in this realm where everything is push button. It's like the Jetsons on steroids, right? The things that we saw in the Jetsons, other than the flying cars, okay, we're not there yet, but we're dang close and they're building them and manufacturing them. But I mean, things are like Jetsons level. We push a button and and, you know, we can summon a chauffeur instantly on this magic device on our phone. We can summon, you know, people to deliver food, deliver groceries. We live in this unparalleled time of technological wonder. And I think sometimes we just forget to realize the wonder of it all. And little kids are awesome because they don't forget that. You know, my my eight-year-old Jaren, he is an amazing kid. And one of the things I love him is he loves nature, he loves exploring. He loves, you know, he's just fascinated with people and he collects rocks as we go to the river. And he, you know, he's not just a put your feet in the water kind of guy. He is a jump in the water with his friends, get all in, swim, head underwater. He just jumps into life. And

Jump Into The River Of Life

SPEAKER_02 13:59

I think a lot of us are standing on the river's edge of life. We're on the edge. Life is this beautiful, pristine, amazing, although dangerous at times, rapid. There are rapid areas and dangerous areas in our river of life that we have to avoid and sometimes we have to pass through. But I feel like many of us are standing on the edge of life. Maybe just dipping our toes in, dipping our feet in, and retreating in fear, retreating in bitterness, or retreating in past trauma. We stick our toes in. And sometimes maybe we move both feet in and jump in a little bit into life, but we get stung or we get hurt or we get scared. There's a creature in the water. An ant stings us, whatever it is, we step on a rock. And so we jump back out and we stay on the edge, just putting our toes in. And friends, you only get one chance to go down this river of life. You only get one chance to really ride it to the end, wherever the end is. None of us know. Our days are numbered, but what that number is, not even the angels in heaven. We do not know. And because of that, we have to treasure it all the more. And so I'm asking you, however old you are, whatever situation you are, however far or not far your toes are in the water, to start jumping in to the river of life. To start getting your hair wet, start swimming in the water, start relishing it. You know, it was a hot, hot, hot, hot summer day a few years ago, and I love walking at Berg Park, and I do it almost every day, rain or shine, heat or cold. And it was really hot. It was a dry, hot New Mexico day. And it was darned if it wasn't the only day in months I'd wore jeans to the park. And uh my mom was walking with us here, and she's very active for her age. And uh, we were walking there, and uh I just said, that looks so good. That water. There's this little river reach landing where the water is just beautiful, and there's little cascading uh waterfall kind of things that they've built up on these rocks. It's really a beautiful area. And uh I said, Oh, I want to swim so bad. And I did. I just jumped in, jumped into my jeans, started swimming, and I loved it. And I walked out of that park in wet jeans, and for some reason I didn't have a car. I had to have my my mom, my wife pick me up, and she's just like, What have you done? And anyway, I it was just great. I jumped in the river, my dog jumped in, and maybe I wasn't with her, maybe it was just me and my dog, but I swam and I loved it. It was a hot day. I jumped in, and you gotta jump into the river

Jaren Joins With Simple Courage

SPEAKER_02 17:02

of life. So I actually have my son Jaren with me today. He happens to be with me. Jaron, I got a question for you, okay? Some people are afraid to jump into the river of life, right? They're afraid, but you just jump in, you swim, you fish, you do all of these things. How come you do that? And some people don't.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Because it's like a 1% chance. You don't get to do that all the time, though.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Don't get to do it all the time. Maybe that opportunity won't come around, right? So, what advice do you have, my eight-year-old friend and awesome son, to people who are afraid to jump into the river of life. They're afraid to jump in the river, they're afraid to go on the hike, they're afraid to do these things. What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 17:47

At least, like, try to have fun when when you can because you might not get to have that chance, like, again. Because it's like you won't like sometimes like you forget about it and you won't like do it again because you're scared to, and you might not do it.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

So that is awesome. I am so glad you shared that, and I totally believe that. So, you may not get the chance again, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

So do it while you can and do it when you can. So we recently took uh a group of young men to the slot canyons, Buckskin Gulch, over by Page, and we hiked down, uh quite a lengthy hike, down into these amazing slot canyons. It was beautiful. And because uh Jaren went with me, he got to go with the bigger kids, the 12 to 16-year-old kids, and he went with me and he hiked this slot canyon, and he was running around with his shirt off, jumping up on the things, climbing things that no one else was. He just lived it to its fullest. Did you have fun, Jaron? Yeah, were you afraid to go with bigger kids and go on a big hike like that?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Not really.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Why?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Because, like, um, like sometimes you don't get to do that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Well, we went with our friend Steve, right? He was the cook, huh? Yeah. Did he make good food? So remember he took his two grandsons, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

And they were what, uh, 14 and 16, 13 and 15? About 13 and 15, right? Yeah. Well, one of them, did you know, was not gonna go on the hike in the morning. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, Matthew?

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Yeah, he wasn't gonna go on the hike. And so what happened was really interesting. As we were getting ready to go, his grandpa said this. His grandpa said, Oh man, I really wish he would go on the hike. So, do you know what I did? I talked to him and I said, Hey, Matt, let me tell you something. I made a commitment a long time ago that if I would only get the opportunity to do something one time in my life, if I could, I would take it and do it. And I said that. And you know what he said? He said, Okay, I'll go. Just like that. So I think we can be an example to others and we can teach them not to be afraid, and we can help others along the way that are maybe fearful to do that. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Sound like a good plan?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Okay, well, I bet there's people listening to this, Jaren, who maybe have something they want to do. Maybe they have a dream to start a business or a dream to take a journey somewhere or go on a big trip or go and visit with someone they haven't visited for a long time, or go explore something, but maybe they're just afraid to do it. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I would say like don't be afraid. Because like if you like because you because you won't like if you're scared, then you won't do it. And like if you won't do it, then you won't get to like do things other in life too, if you're scared of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Well that's a great point. If we're scared and we don't ever take that first step, we're never gonna take the next step, right? Maybe we go and try something and we jump in the river and we realize, hey, I really like that. I'm gonna go try and jump in the ocean, or I'm gonna try and scuba dive. You know, we try one thing and then we can go to another thing. Awesome advice from the mouth of babes. He's a really smart kid. He's an awesome kid. He is a kid who jumps in, full forward, jump in with both feet in the game of life. He's not afraid to talk to anybody. He'll talk to anybody. He hangs with the big kids, the small kids, uh, everybody. And Jaren, you're just an awesome young kid. Do you know that? Yeah. You're a great, awesome person, and I love you. And I think you've taught people a lot today by just being here. So thanks for coming with me.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So,

Pass The Stone And Get Help

SPEAKER_02 21:58

friends, wherever you are, whatever you're going through, this challenging time in your life, recognize it for what it is. It's a kidney stone. Maybe it's a small one, maybe it's a big one, maybe it's one that's really hard to pass, but it's a kidney stone nonetheless. It's not going to last forever. And you can pass it. You may need professional help to pass it. You may need mental health professionals, physical health professionals, spiritual professionals, physical therapy professionals, medical professionals. You may need help to pass this kidney stone, as some people do. You may be able to pass it on your own, but it's going to take effort and it's probably going to take some pain. But don't give up. Keep pressing, kept pushing, kept getting through, and then move on to the next one. You'll be, you'll grow, you'll learn, and you won't be as afraid as when the next one comes. And so, above all, just be like Jared. Jump into the river, feet first, go swim, get your hair wet, and enjoy life while you can. Summertime in New Mexico is a great time to do it. Lots of outdoor things going on. Go do something you've never done before, and tell me about it. Tell your friends about it. Maybe you'll inspire someone else to do the same thing. Until then, Jaren, tell them goodbye. Bye. To see you.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

You have been listening to Life Note. Listen every week for the brand new note of the mic. We hope that we have given you away to the side of mine. And back into the new life.