Cross-Cultural Couples Podcast

Erica and Hamada El Hilali discuss confronting our shadows spiritually and how this can help connect and bring us closer together. We discuss the role of shadow in different cultural contexts and how by addressing our shadow individual and as a couple we can grow closer together. Hear Hamada's story of exorcism in Morocco and how confronting shadows and darkness has helped bring them closer in their cross-cultural relationship. Learn tips to start addressing your shadow as a person and in the context of your relationship. Make 2022 the year you confront your shadow, so you connect in the light and form deeper, stronger, and more soulful relationship with yourself and your partner. 

7 tips and ideas how to have #fun in a #relationship  

We explore the secure attachment style and how to foster it as a parent in your children. We will also examine the 3 insecure attachment styles, anxious/preoccupied, avoidant/dismissive, and disorganized/fearful-avoidant. Learn how these attachment styles may be impacting your partner or you and how you can help identify the root causes of them and have relationships based in honesty, tolerance and emotional closeness. 

Loving yourself is looked down upon as selfish in many cultures. We'll dispel this myth and dive deep into why self-love is so important for your relationship success. We'll discuss how not loving yourself enough causes perfectionism, being overly critical, self-sacrificing and resentment. We'll discuss how this can create a martyr complex and cause resentments, lack of energy, and co-dependency. Then we'll provide some examples or ways you can love yourself and how this can help you as a parent and as a partner. You can also love yourself by forgiving yourself and being honest with yourself. This will help you show up to your relationship with your full vibrancy. 

First day moving to America... it was April, and it snowed. I was very exited to see snow for the first time. Learn about what it was like for Co-Host Hamada El Hilali when he immigrated to America in honor of the 4th of July and Independence Day. He had to learn things like what garage sales were to navigating the job market during the Great Recession. 

Becoming a father. 

In this episode we will go through the different Human Design types including: Manifestors, Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors, and Reflectors. We'll explain to you what Human Design is and what each of the types are and how they may be impacted in different relationships. Connect with us on IG @crossculturalcouples and tell us your design type and if you want more episodes on Human Design. 

Boundaries can keep people apart or keep people together. They can help us know what is expected in relationships and help us let others know when we have reached our limits. Boundaries are different in each cultural context and so for cross-cultural couples can be a challenge. Learn how to reflect on boundaries, engage in conversations with your partners about boundaries and determine which person in the relationship should enforce boundaries with others like in-laws. 

Learn about the Vedic dosha archetypes, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha and discover how they can impact your relationships. This can give you a framework to understanding yourself and your partner and gain insight into improving your relationship. In Ayurveda, the dosha's have commonly been used to discuss health and wellness about individuals. The doshas can also impact your relationships and knowing about them can give you additional techniques for relationships. 

To celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary we discuss 13 tips on how to make a relationship last long term, especially with the increased complexity of being in a cross-cultural couple. From understanding your core values, dealing with in-laws, communication, and more we dive deep into lessons we have learned in our relationship and give you insight into how you can strengthen yours. 

We'll dive deep into experiences we have had with racism. We'll examine 8 underlying causes including: self-interest, scientific racism, maintaining the status quo, discriminatory policies, "good" people who do nothing, racist depictions in the media, living in an echo chamber, and not examining racism within yourself. As cross-cultural couples we have the power to introduce different cultures and race and can help open people hearts and minds to humanity at it's full expression and not just in the familiar expression. 

Religion and Spirituality are different and understanding those differences can help you find common ground with your relationship and help you make a deeper soul connection with your partner. We discuss the differences between them including, Faith vs. Spiritual Experience, Exclusion vs. Inclusion,  traditional vs. evolutionary, organized vs. unorganized and fear vs. love. Learn how finding common ground in the spiritual can help you overcome differences in faith. 

In this episode we will be discussing how we experienced motherhood, the spirituality found in motherhood, and how the bond between mother and child transcends culture and time. We discuss what pregnancy, childbirth, post partum and beyond is like. We discuss how to show your mother love, using her love language. We also provide three tips for expecting mothers to help them on their sacred journey of motherhood. 

We explore five tips to help you grow the grit in your relationship and make your cross-cultural relationship work in the long term. Couples with more grit tend to have longer marriages. We'll explore five tips that have helped us weather the challenges and thrive as a cross-cultural couple together for over a decade and a half. 

We will go through the sixth of the six Gaert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions which is Indulgence for Denmark, Ireland, Morocco and the United States of America. This tool helps give you insight into the 6 dimensions of culture from countries from around the world and is helpful to cross cultural couples in learning about their partner's culture and their own. This tool can help you business and personal relationships but is especially helpful for intercultural couples in gaining insight and comparing their culture with their partner's culture. Indulgence and restraint is the extent to which individuals in a culture try to control their desires and impulses. Relatively weak control is called “Indulgence” and this is where Denmark, Ireland, and the United States scored and relatively strong control is called “Restraint”. Cultures can, therefore, be described restrained which is what Morocco is classified as. This can come up in parenting and a society's preference for instant gratification. In relationships, coming from different cultural contexts can come up in parenting, investing, savings, and more. Listen to see how it can impact your relationships. 

As a cross-cultural couples we both have different experiences fasting during Ramadan. We go through 7 tips to help you celebrate Ramadan in America and help you fast. From being strategic about water intake at night and eating nutritious food to finding ways to connect to your higher self, your soul and find a purpose for fasting we get practical and spiritual. During this holy month whether you are Muslim or not, whether you fast or don't we hope you all have a happy and healthy Ramadan and find a deeper connection to your spirituality and find gratitude in your heart. 

We will go through the fifth of the six Gaert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions which is Long Term Orientation for Denmark, Ireland, Morocco and the United States of America. This tool helps give you insight into the 6 dimensions of culture from countries from around the world and is helpful to cross cultural couples in learning about their partner's culture and their own. This tool can help you business and personal relationships but is especially helpful for intercultural couples in gaining insight and comparing their culture with their partner's culture. Long Term Orientation specially will examine the relationship between the past with current and future challenges. Normative societies that score low on this index are value tradition and strong societal norms and view social change with suspicion. Societies with higher rankings on long-term orientation focus on the future at the expense of the short-term gains.  This cultural dimension can impact how your relationships view longer term investments, tradition, parenting and a number of other areas in a relationship so it's an important dimension to explore. 

In this episode we examine uncertainty avoidance as a cultural dimension laid out by Hofstede and how that can impact relationships. We specifically discuss it from an Danish, Irish, Moroccan and American cultural context. Uncertainty Avoidance is how cultures handle unpredictability and how they handle unknown situations. As humans we all face the question, how do we deal with the unknown and each cultural context has different approaches for this question. 

The third part of our 6 part series exploring the 6 cultural dimensions laid out by professor Hoftstede. Learn how a culture's tendency towards masculine or feminine can impact the culture and thus impact cross cultural relationships and couples. 

The second part of our series exploring the 6th cultural dimensions by Hofstde. Learn how a culture's tendency towards individualism or collectivism can impact relationship dynamics. From differences to in-laws to differences in relationship expectations and giving. 

We will go through the first of the six Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions which is Power Distance for Denmark, Ireland, Morocco and the United States of America. This tool helps give you insight into 6 dimensions of culture from countries throughout the world and is helpful to cross cultural couples in learning about their partner's culture. This tool can help you in business and personal relationships but is especially helpful for intercultural couples in gaining insight and comparing their culture with their partner's culture. Power Distance specifically will examine the relationship between higher and lower ranking members of a society and what expectation for equality there is in any given culture. 

We discuss how cross cultural and interracial couples reacted to the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry and how even royals have to face racism. 

We'll discuss religion and cross cultural relationships. Co-Host Erica will discuss her conversion from Irish Catholic to Islam and how Ramadan helps her connect with her Irish ancestors who survived the potato famine. 

Learn about the Big Five Personality Traits and learn how this can help navigate cross cultural relationships. Big Five Personality Traits include: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism  

Learn how cross-cultural couples are on the rise and explore how love languages helped Co-Hosts, Erica, from Minnesota, and Hamada from Morocco understand their different ways to receive love.