Brenton sits down with his wife Teri to work through the first two rules of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life — and what starts as a book discussion turns into something much more personal. Teri comes in with pages of notes and questions the book didn't fully settle for her: Why does Peterson assign gender to order and chaos? What does it actually mean that every human being carries the potential for the worst evil in history? And is the line between good and evil really drawn through the middle of every person's heart?

Rule 1 — Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back — opens up a conversation about lobster hierarchies, the Pareto distribution, win and loss cycles in human behavior, and why Peterson's instruction to stand up straight isn't really about posture. It's about accepting the full weight of your life with your eyes open. Teri brings it home with something personal: a season of depression and anxiety that was visible to everyone around her before she could see it herself, and what changed when she started lifting her head.

Rule 2 — Treat Yourself Like Someone You're Responsible For — hits harder. Peterson opens with the fact that a third of people won't take their prescribed medication, while those same people will diligently give their sick dog every dose the vet recommends. Brenton traces it back to a simple problem: we are naked to ourselves in a way we are not naked to anyone else. We know every failure, every bad choice, every inadequacy. So we think ourselves worth less than we think of others — less even than our pets. From there the conversation goes into depression cycles, medication stigma, self-sabotage as identity preservation, and why proving yourself wrong about yourself feels more threatening than failing the exam.

The back half gets into territory Peterson only points at: the snake that inhabits every soul, the knowledge of good and evil as the origin of psychological warfare, why shame grows in darkness, and what it would mean to actually bear your soul before God instead of hiding from him the way Adam and Eve did. Teri asks questions Brenton doesn't always have answers to. That's what makes it worth listening to.

Teri Peck is Brenton's wife, co-host for marriage and family episodes, and a content creator in her own right. She brings a practical, emotionally honest perspective to conversations about faith, marriage, and what it actually costs to build a good life together. She came to Peterson as a first-time reader for this episode.

• Teri's first impressions of Peterson — dense, layered, no fluff, requires full attention

• Why Peterson assigns masculine and feminine to order and chaos — and why Teri isn't sure she agrees

• Chaos as unclaimed potential — not good or bad, just everything that hasn't been brought into being yet

• Why bringing a child into the world is one of the most chaotic things that can happen to a marriage

• How losing a loved one throws a fully ordered life into uncharted territory

• People will hold cult-like beliefs rather than face the chaos of having their identity challenged

• Why political and religious disagreement feels like a physical threat — it is an identity threat

• Yin and yang as the model for living — one foot in order, one foot in chaos

• Church splits, entropy, and why shared belief requires constant effort to maintain

• Dreams as the mind trying to bring order to what it can't yet put into words

• Lobsters, hierarchy, serotonin, and why Peterson uses crustaceans to make a point about dominance

• The Pareto distribution — a small number of people do most of the work in almost every domain

• Win cycles and loss cycles in human behavior — how one loss can reverse a hundred wins

• Romance novels and pornography — Teri's case that the double standard is real and costs marriages

• The "wine mom misery bonding" culture and why Teri is done defending it

• ChatGPT automatically portrayed Brenton as an incompetent oaf — and what that reveals about culture

• What your wife believes about you changes what you are capable of doing

• Words have power — God spoke order into chaos, and all-negative speech creates an all-negative world

• You need seven positives to balance one negative — and dwelling on negatives is a choice

• Stand up straight isn't about posture — it's about speaking your mind and facing your life

• How predators choose victims based on body language, not physical capability

• Teri's personal story — depression and anxiety that strangers could see before she could

• Rule 2 opens with a question Peterson says most people get wrong: why won't you take your own medicine?

• We know every negative about ourselves and none about others — so we think ourselves less worthy than our dogs

• Why people quit their medication when they start feeling better — and what happens next

• The TikTok trend of people performing multiple personality disorder for attention

• Peterson raises the question of bringing back asylums — Teri is firmly against forced institutionalization

• Men as the builders of civilization — and the women who say they don't need men

• Good men create good times, good times create weak men — is America in good times or bad?

• Teri blames men more than women for the current state of things — Brenton pushes back

• The feminization of the church and the old hymns that used to include blood and battle

• The snake inhabits every soul — Peterson's statement that the worst attacks are psychological and spiritual

• The line between good and evil crosses through the middle of every person's heart

• You can protect someone from every external threat — you cannot protect them from themselves

• The closer you are to someone, the more capable you are of hurting them deeply — and no one is closer to you than you

• Self-sabotage as identity preservation — we would rather be proven right than be in chaos

• Proving yourself wrong about yourself is identity chaos — it's more threatening than failing the exam

• The knowledge of good and evil as the origin of our ability to use psychological attacks on each other

• Peterson's closing to Rule 2: if we lived in truth and walked with God, we might treat ourselves like people we cared for

• Shame thrives and grows in darkness — and why Teri says bringing it to light is the only counter

• Why we still hide from God even after He covered our sins — Brenton's honest question without an easy answer

• Faith & Formation

• Story & Identity

• Suffering & Meaning

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