The Enneagram and Marriage Podcast, hosted by Christa Hardin, MA, is rooted in her 18+ years of experience counseling and coaching couples. On top of her expert marriage advice, Christa uses the Enneagram to add in another layer of understanding as to how we work as individuals and gives us deeper i…
The Enneagram and Marriage podcast is truly a game changer when it comes to understanding yourself, your spouse, and all other relationships in your life. This podcast delves into the world of the enneagram and how it can transform your understanding of why you think, feel, and behave the way you do. Host Christa has a remarkable gift for sharing her knowledge of the enneagram and marriage in a way that is both entertaining and impactful. She carefully selects guests for each episode and asks deep, meaningful questions that delve into the intricacies of relationships.
One of the best aspects of this podcast is its ability to normalize certain experiences within relationships. It addresses topics such as vaginismus, which are often not openly discussed or understood. By bringing light to these issues, the podcast helps couples realize they are not alone in their struggles and points them towards valuable resources. Additionally, the podcast provides invaluable insights into different enneagram types and how they interact in relationships. Listeners gain a better understanding of their own motivations and tendencies as well as those of their partners.
While The Enneagram and Marriage podcast offers tremendous value, there are some minor areas for improvement. At times, the delivery may lack perfection or polish. However, this only adds to the authenticity of the show, making it relatable on a deeper level. Additionally, while Christa frames many topics from a Christian perspective, she maintains professionalism by also approaching them pragmatically as a therapist would.
In conclusion, The Enneagram and Marriage podcast is an absolute must-listen for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of themselves and their relationships. Whether you are new to the enneagram or already obsessed with it like many others are, this podcast will provide invaluable insights that can be applied to all areas of life. The combination of Christa's knowledge as a counselor and her ability to balance statistics with emotional connection makes this podcast an indispensable tool for personal growth. The Enneagram and Marriage podcast has the power to transform relationships and bring about a greater sense of empathy and understanding in the world.
As we learn more about what relationship science says, we learn that not only was your brain designed for continued new learning, but fascinatingly, your marriage was designed to benefit from it, too. Researcher Arthur Aron has spent decades studying what keeps couples not just together but genuinely in love, and what he found might surprise you: novel shared experiences do not just make a marriage more fun, they actually restore the feeling of falling in love all over again, sometimes surpassing even the honeymoon stage. In this episode, Christa brings the research to life, weaving together Aron's self-expansion theory, the neuroscience of dopamine and creativity, and what nervous system regulation has to do with whether you and your spouse can actually play together anymore. This episode is practical, research-backed, and full of the kind of insight that makes you want to go try something new with your person as soon as possible! Watch on YouTube! Want even more? Listen to an even deeper dive on Apple here with the subscriber series! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kelly Chase, the breakout star of Love Is Blind, Season 1, brings something to this conversation that goes far deeper than what the world got to see when she said "no" at the altar. As a Type 3. we get to talk about the inside of the life of a type 3, as Kelly talks about both sides of the Performer personality, the side that performs to others and abandons self, and the version of herself that was slowly disappearing in the effort to keep everyone else comfortable, and the side that finally knows more and more who she is and what she needs to do for a healthy and balanced, authentic life. This conversation goes into nervous system regulation, rejection wounds, chemistry versus true compatibility, and what it looks like when a heart type finally stops performing her way through life and starts actually feeling it instead, plus ways for YOU to be coached and dialed in with your own business! Watch on YouTube! Here's the website! https://www.chaselifewithkelly.com/ Kelly's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chaselifewithkelly/?hl=en Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Milana Vayntrub is an actress, comedian, and activist born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who came to prominence as Lily Adams in AT&T commercials — and in 2026 she stepped into something entirely new, playing Olesya Ilyukhina, a Russian engineer and cosmonaut in the blockbuster film Project Hail Mary alongside Ryan Gosling. But this conversation goes somewhere the red carpet does not. Milana is a Type 7 with real threads of 3 and 8 running through her — and one of the most honest things she brings to this conversation is what it actually took to stop hoarding time. The 7 who is always planning the next thing, always keeping an escape route open, always making sure the calendar stays full enough to outrun the feelings — that is the pattern she names out loud. We go deep on what rest means for a type that treats stillness like a threat, what it looks like to actually be present in your own life and your own marriage, her co-founding of Can't Do Nothing, the organization she built to spotlight the refugee crisis, and what Project Hail Mary taught her about the kind of connection that makes survival possible. Warm, funny, and more honest than you might expect. Get your Date Your Spouse kit for 90% off for a limited time here! https://shop.dateyourspouse.com/products/marriage-bundle-2026?sca_ref=6272364.4hv7IY3580 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
There are times in life when you're exhausted, foggy, perhaps having headaches or gaining weight, and running on empty in your energy, and thus your marriage, and yet it's hard to explain why, since your habits haven't changed much. Dr. Alicia Newsome joins us today to talk about all of this and more as a physician who specializes in root-cause hormone care, and she is here to tell you that what is happening in your body is absolutely affecting what is happening in your relationship. In this conversation we talk about hormonal shifts, what blood panels you should actually be asking for, the role of rest as a clinical non-negotiable, and what it looks like to stop settling for a body that is just surviving. If you have ever felt like something is off but nobody has been able to tell you what, this episode is your starting point. Watch on YouTube!! Find Dr. Alicia Newsome here! https://www.dralicianewsome.com/ Follow Dr. Alicia on Instagram here! https://www.instagram.com/dr.alicianewsome/ Get your Date Your Spouse kit for 90% off for a limited time here! https://shop.dateyourspouse.com/products/marriage-bundle-2026?sca_ref=6272364.4hv7IY3580 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It is Maycember and everyone is running on empty, and your marriage still needs you. Not the leftover version. The actual you. In this episode, Christa makes the connection nobody talks about: taking care of yourself is not separate from loving your spouse, it is what makes you capable of the most generous thing a marriage asks of you. Bearing witness. Staying in the dark with your person without fixing, reframing, or rushing toward the light. This one is going to name something you have been feeling but haven't had words for yet. Listen on YouTube! Get your Date Your Spouse kit for 90% off for a limited time here! https://shop.dateyourspouse.com/products/marriage-bundle-2026?sca_ref=6272364.4hv7IY3580 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
We are kicking off a new month of Enneagram and Marriage on health and wellness in marriage, and we are starting it in the deeps, in the heart of physical suffering. Today Christa interviews Sydney Anne Bennett, author, military wive, and storyteller with over 300K followers who became disabled two weeks after her honeymoon. Diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder, a condition where the brain misfires its signals to the body, she now lives with daily seizures, chronic pain, and mobility loss. What she built inside of that is something I could not stop thinking about. Her new book Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken is part memoir, part survival guide, and entirely honest about what it looks like to fight for faith when your body, your world, and sometimes your church are not cooperating. If you are walking through anything chronic, physical, mental, emotional, relational, this conversation is for you. Watch on YouTube! Show Links: Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken: Fighting for Faith When You're Falling Apart, Get Sydney's brand new book here! https://a.co/0cnmhIBE Follow Sydney on Instagram here! https://www.instagram.com/the.annegirl/ Get your Date Your Spouse kit for 90% off for a limited time here! https://shop.dateyourspouse.com/products/marriage-bundle-2026?sca_ref=6272364.4hv7IY3580 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today's guests are #1 high-level ICF-trained (top 2% of coaches) Jamie Slingerland, MCC and Ruthie Perez Slingerland, MCC married coaches, Enneagram mentors, and business partners who, brick by brick, have built a healthy communication pattern across years, even with opposite though both joyful personalities. Listen as we chat with Jamie and Ruthie Slingerland (7-9 pairing), and what happened when and why their previous dynamic finally had to change, and what it took to find a healthy voice for both of them. If you've been living in a similar dynamic, but haven't had words for it yet, or you'd like to learn more about becoming an ICF coach under their academy, this episode is for you! Watch on YouTube! Find Jamie and Ruthie's Coaching Academy for an ICF Credential here: www.CatalystCoachAcademy.com To get coaching with Jamie or Ruthie, visit www.FreedomLifeJourney.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Russ Hudson, co-founder of the Enneagram Institute and author of The Wisdom of the Enneagram, joins Christa for a masterclass on conflict. This isn't just "here's what your type does wrong", Russ breaks down the deeper architecture of how we fight: shock points (the places where we get triggered and can't think), harmonic groups (the patterns underneath how we process conflict), and the instincts (how self-preservation, sexual, and social show up when we're wounded). He explains why understanding these frameworks changes everything. This episode is the capstone that ties it our work together all month, theoretically, practically, and full of heart and hope for you both! Watch on YouTube! Get connected with ALL Russ is doing in NYC, Cali, and all over the world! www.RussHudson.com Learn about your type and his work at www.EnneagramInstitute.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with Jason VanRuler (type 2), therapist and author who specializes in communication and relationships, for a conversation about why couples can walk away from the same conversation with completely different experiences. Jason breaks down the PATHS Assessment he developed to help couples understand their communication types and why what you say isn't always what your partner hears. They discuss how your family system growing up shapes the way you communicate now, the five communication types and how they show up in conflict, and what to do when you think you're aligned but your spouse is somewhere else entirely. If you've ever had a conversation where you thought everything was fine only to discover later it absolutely was not, this episode will show you exactly what's happening and how to bridge the gap. Watch YouTube! Show links: Jason VanRuler's new book: https://www.jasonvr.com/book/ Jason's website to get on the list! https://www.jasonvr.com/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with Dr. Dan Allender and Dr. Steve Call, longtime therapists, professors, relationship theorists and practitioners, and authors of The Deep-Rooted Marriage: Cultivating Intimacy, Healing, and Delight, for a powerful conversation about trauma-informed couples therapy through the lens of The Narrative Focused Trauma Care® (NFTC) Model Dan Allender created. Here in this juicy and deep diving episode, Dan and Steve explain how the stories of our past drift into the present and create friction in our marriages - and why not stuffing the stories, but understanding those stories is the key to transformation. They break down why we fight the way we fight, how to address past trauma with courage and compassion, and how to disrupt cycles of conflict based on shame, judgment, and resentment, even those in place since childhood. With over 70 years of combined therapeutic experience, Dan and Steve offer hope that marriage can be more than just "getting along" - it can be a place of healing, intimacy, and genuine delight - their truest motivation for sharing with us. If you're stuck in repeating patterns, wondering why the same fights keep happening, or looking for a way to write a new story for your marriage, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are. Watch on YouTube!! Find Steve and Dan's work on Narrative Focused Trauma Care at Allender Center here! https://theallendercenter.org/about/nftc/ Find Steve and Lisa's couples intensive work at the Reconnect Institute here! https://www.thereconnectinstitute.com/ Find the book, Deep-Rooted Marriage here! https://online.theallendercenter.org/courses/growing-in-marriage-series?coupon=GROWING30 Find the $99 course mentioned on the pod here! Use the code enneagram30 if the discount does not appear! https://online.theallendercenter.org/courses/growing-in-marriage-series?coupon=GROWING30 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with Jessica Claire Bond, founder of the wildly influential Instagram account Salt & Light Collective, for a conversation about learning to love and forgive one another even when it's hard. Jessica shares how her Type 3 gift for truth-telling - balanced by her 9 arrow - helps her navigate divisiveness with grace and bring people back to the example of Christ in a chaotic world. They discuss what it looks like to forgive when you've been deeply hurt, how to hold truth and love together without compromising either, and why forgiveness isn't weakness but the hardest form of strength. Jessica's work inspires thousands to choose love over division, and this episode will challenge you to do the same in your marriage and relationships. If you've been struggling to forgive someone or wondering how to speak truth without creating more division, this conversation will meet you right where you are. Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this pivotal conflict solution focused episode, Christa breaks down the 4-step apology framework that actually works (spoiler: it's not just saying "I'm sorry") and shows how each Enneagram type sabotages repair when they're stuck in their stress pattern. Together we joyfully walk through where each type goes under stress during conflict, from various caves and caverns on the mountain, we get ourselves stuck in as we're drowning in our stress numbers. This episode teaches you how to turn your stress arrow into your secondary growth arrow of sorts so conflict becomes reparative instead of destructive. If you've ever wondered why the same fight keeps happening or why your apologies don't land, this episode will show you exactly what's blocking repair and how to fix it. Plus, Christa gets personal about being a 7 who goes to 1 in stress and what she's learned about climbing out of idealism continually. Don't miss! Watch on YouTube! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More often than not, couples are just tired - there is so much to do, plus so much conflict to work through. What do you do when you and your spouse are too emotionally drained for another big conversation? Discover simple repair moves, easy, low-hanging fruit solutions, and permission to take breaks from heavy processing. Learn one quick tip for each Enneagram type plus five easy ways to reconnect when you're running on empty. This is an E + M mini you don't want to miss! Watch on YouTube! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today, we get practical with Type 8 counselor duo Chris Bruno and Tracy Johnson from ReStory Counseling and the Thrive Marriage Lab Podcast to talk about marriage conflict. Chris is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in men and masculinity, sexual addiction, trauma, and abuse, while Tracy is a storywork coach who sits with people in their untold stories, specializing in trauma, abuse, sexuality, marriage issues, and pregnancy loss. Together, they help couples discover the why behind the what in their marriage, and here they discuss the levels of conflict, why communication issues often stem from deeper emotional stories, how conflict reveals the landscape of your heart, and why understanding your narratives can enhance your marital connection. Chris and Tracy explain their ReStory approach: they don't settle for external behavior change or hand out tips and techniques. Instead, they hold out hope for true life-change that comes from heart-change. This conversation is about moving beyond surface-level communication problems to understand what your conflict is really revealing about your story, your wounds, and the restoration God wants to bring to your marriage. Find out more about ReStory here! Use the code ENNEAGRAMMARRIAGE for $20 EVERY Month of the Monthly Membership Group here! https://www.restory.life/thrive Restory for Men, Women, and Couples, https://www.restory.life/ Find the Thrive Marriage Lab Podcast here! https://thrivemarriage.transistor.fm/ Restory for Churches https://www.restory.life/restory-for-churches Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this month's new series, we're talking about conflict all month, and we're going to work at it together! Here today, we can discover together how the three Enneagram harmony groups approach conflict differently in terms of their worldview on a bigger picture scope before we get more granular. Learn how 147 Idealists can critically fight from their lofty principles, how 258 Relational/Rejection/Intensity types battle from the emotional middle ground, and how 369 Resourcing/Grounded types get caught up in the practical chaos as they try to resource everyone well. This episode is critical as a baseline for understanding your spouse's conflict style and finding your way to healthier disagreements. Take the Enneagram & Marriage quiz for COUPLES together here: QuizForCouples.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with Randi Zuckerberg, entrepreneur, Social 7, and elite ultrarunner who recently set an FKT on the 82-mile Baja Sur trail and finished the wildly difficult 250-mile Cocodona race. Randi opens up on this month's final family systems episode about being more than "Mark Zuckerberg's sister", "Brent's wife", and mom, and becoming unapologetically and authentically her own person. As she moved from just type 7 encourager sideline energy to digging deep for her own purposes and goals too (she also has some 3), she also shares the deep threads of joy and empowerment that were released for her and her family as she's stepped fully into her own identity, strength, and path. Christa and Randi discuss the types that encourage Randi along the way (hello side character power!), what she'd say to parents who think their own life is over after kids, how she transitioned from corporate life at Facebook with all men to finding her (winning) path, and so much more! Randi also shares her hardest setback with injuries, how she works through challenges without losing joy (hello pivots!), what balance looks like across seasons, and what she hopes her kids learn from watching her do hard, seemingly impossible things. This conversation is about identity, growth, energy, becoming a solid person even as a 7 who is learning to finish things, and becoming more fully who you are. As Christa wraps up the Family Systems series this month, Randi's story offers a real and hopeful example of waking up to your own gifts even when the world already has a label for you, and is perfect for anyone who has ever been labeled in a family system who needs a fresh spark and encouragement. Watch on YouTube! Follow Randi's adventures here on Threads and Instagram! @RandiZuckerberg on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/randizuckerberg/?hl=en @RandiZuckerberg on Threads https://www.threads.com/@randizuckerberg Take the Enneagram & Marriage quiz for COUPLES together here: QuizForCouples.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What happens when you realize your family's version of "normal" wasn't actually healthy? Whether conflict meant someone stormed out and didn't speak for days or big emotions were shut down with "you're fine" or "stop crying, or even that maybe family problems were swept under the rug and never discussed, today we're talking about how you're looking at your own children and engaging with them around healthy communication in the family system. This episode is for the cycle breakers (you!) - the parents who are determined to create the family culture they wished they'd grown up in. Learn practical strategies for teaching emotional regulation when you didn't learn it yourself, how to validate your children's feelings when yours were dismissed, and simple daily shifts that rewrite (or build upon if you had a great upbringing) your family's legacy story as you get tools to actually break the patterns and give your kids what you never had. Watch here on YouTube! Take the Enneagram & Marriage quiz for COUPLES together here: QuizForCouples.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa has a special guest fave on the show today, her husband Wes, Enneagram Type 1 as she dives into something new she and the E + M team created together: a couples Enneagram quiz. Today Christa and Wes share some of their inherent differences they saw on the fun DC E + M adventure they just took, and discuss how they compassionately dealt with them too, as they applied family systems differentiation and Enneagram to their relationship aspirations as well. This quiz will help you learn about how your types correlate and connect, too! Built specifically for relationships, you can take this Enneagram test FREE at QuizForCouples.com Your results tell you your type AND your spouse's type, gives you personalized strengthening areas for your couple dynamic, and we would LOVE your feedback as you take it. Christa uploaded her most clarifying E+M content to build the system, using language from her community and focusing on deep motivations rather than surface behaviors and we invite listeners to take the quiz together at the same time, first one and then the other! CONTEST WINNERS: Congrats also to our two contest winners: Dana from the E+M contest and Melanie from Supper Sleuths!! Watch the episode on YouTube here! Take the Enneagram & Marriage quiz for COUPLES together here: QuizForCouples.com Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today, Christa helps you explore the crucial difference between the family systems concepts of emotional cutoff and healthy boundaries in family relationships. Learn why going completely silent often creates more problems than it solves, how cutoff patterns affect your marriage, and when boundaries might be a better (and even better for your nervous system) solution! Discover a simple repair framework for addressing family conflict without resorting to low blows, but also discern when cutoff might actually be necessary for safety! Listen here to this do-not-miss episode!! Watch on YouTube here! Show notes: CONTEST ALERT: We're doing a St. Patrick's Day week contest, too! Email your fave St. Patrick's day story to melody@enneagramandmarriage.com for a chance to win a FREE copy of The Enneagram in Marriage or another of Christa's books! The Allender Center is offering a whopping 50% discount to our community! Your team can learn more about their Narrative Triaing NFTC Level I training here and apply using the code nftcEM by May 31 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Listener-favorite and couples therapist Shane Birkel (host of The Couple Therapist Couch podcast) is back! Though last time Shane talked about how men can be strong but soft, this episode tackles the other side of the #1 issue Christa is seeing with couples these days: women who have learned to use their voice but how now she is coming across abrasively in a way that hurts versus helps in their marriage. This is specifically about tone, delivery, and how empowerment can accidentally create new imbalances. Shane shares the techniques he uses with his couples to help wives recalibrate without going back to silence, and husbands re-engage without shutting down. We cover personal anecdotes, family systems dynamics between husband and wife, and practical tools for finding the healthy path between silenced and too strong. If you've been told you're "too much" or if your spouse has shut down since you found your voice, this episode is for you. Watch on YouTube here! Show links: Find Shane on his podcast, the Couples Therapist Couch Podcast here https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/ The Allender Center is offering a whopping 50% discount to our community! Your team can learn more about their Narrative Triaing NFTC Level I training here and apply using the code nftcEM by May 31 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ever wonder why your body still tenses around certain family members even after years of therapy or spiritual formation? Today we explore a topic Christa works on as well, and explore the difference between cognitive safety and somatic safety - why your nervous system keeps reacting even when your mind has moved on. Learn three simple body-based practices you can use before, during, and after family interactions, plus quick nervous system tips specific to your Enneagram type. Discover why proximity affects your nervous system regardless of forgiveness, and get permission to love someone from a healthy distance. Watch on YouTube! Show links: The Allender Center is offering a whopping 50% discount to our community! Your team can learn more about their Narrative Triaing NFTC Level I training here and apply using the code nftcEM by May 31 Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with Andrea Clark, marriage and family therapist with 28 years of experience helping thousands of women reignite spark, polarity, and devotion in their marriages. Andrea breaks down the overfunctioning-underfunctioning dynamic that kills attraction and explains how it's deeply connected to masculine and feminine polarity. They discuss why women often take on masculine energy in their marriages (managing, controlling, doing everything), how this creates distance and resentment, and what it looks like to create space for your husband to step up. Andrea offers practical guidance on how to stop overfunctioning without becoming passive, how to access your feminine energy without losing yourself, and why polarity matters for desire and connection. If you're exhausted from carrying the mental load and wondering why the spark is gone, this conversation will help you understand the deeper pattern at play. Watch on YouTube here! https://www.instagram.com/andrea.clark.mft/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "I didn't get affection as a kid, so I'm going to make sure my kids get it" and then noticed you overwhelm them just a tad? Or maybe, "My parents never helped me, so I'm going to do for mine what I didn't get", but then your spouse gets your leftovers? That's the family ledger at work, an invisible accounting system tracking what you got, what you didn't get, and what you think you're owed. In this episode, Christa unpacks how this ledger from your family of origin often has so much to do with marriages right now (in the Contextual Family Systems Therapy frame), and how to finally put it down and build something new. Learn about the "revolving slate" (over-giving what you didn't get), destructive entitlement (withholding because you're "owed"), and the path to building merit instead of collecting debts. Practical homework prompts are included to help you and your spouse break free from ledger-keeping and choose love and light over scorekeeping. Watch on YouTube here! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Christa sits down with listener fave Jay Stringer, therapist and author of his brand new book Desire: The Longing Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow, for a conversation that bridges family systems, differentiation, and sexual intimacy in marriage. Jay breaks down how your family of origin shapes not just your attachment style but your sexual desire, why differentiation is essential for healthy intimacy, and how couples can stop triangulating their kids into their marriage. They discuss the family systems work that transforms your relationship in and out of the bedroom, how to work through attachment issues together as a couple, and why understanding where your desire comes from is key to healing and growth. If you've been doing family systems work and wondering how it connects to your sexual relationship with your spouse, this episode is a must-listen. Jay offers practical, research-backed insight into how we can grow in desire by doing the deeper work on our family patterns. Watch on YouTube! Get Jay's book and workbook here! https://a.co/d/00mubz6x Follow Jay on Instagram here! https://www.instagram.com/jay_stringer_/?hl=en Find Jay's website with his courses, The Journey, and more that Christa refers to in the episode! https://jay-stringer.com/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this special listener-requested episode, the tables turn! Christa's daughter Hannah (the graphic designer behind Enneagram and Marriage) takes over as host to interview Christa about the questions you've been asking AND to share special E + M family news as another MFT in training gets added to the family: Hannah asks questions, What was her childhood like? What does she wish she'd known before marriage? Why does she love family systems theory so much? How does she regulate her nervous system after hard therapy days? Hannah asks the personal questions, from Christa's favorite thing about Wes, book talk, and more! This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the person behind the podcast and a perfect bridge from the attachment series into March's family systems focus. Christa shares how her family of origin shaped her attachment style, what she's intentionally done differently as a parent, and what she hopes her kids remember about their family when they're adults. Whether you're a longtime listener or new here, this conversation will help you understand why Christa does this work, and maybe inspire you to look at your own story with fresh eyes. Watch on YouTube! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this final episode of the attachment series, Christa sits down with another Enneagram expert, Jeff Cook, Enneagram Type 1, philosopher, former pastor, and co-host of the popular Around the Circle Enneagram podcast, as we talk about attachment and how couples can process conflict. We also talk about his new book Around the Circle: An Enneagram Book (June 2025). Unlike most Enneagram books that profile types individually, Jeff's book explores nine essential questions everyone faces (like "How do I solve my problems?") and answers them for all nine types, creating a richer, more nuanced understanding. Jeff brings a Christian philosophical lens to the Enneagram, reminding us of the fact that relationships are all we bring with us into eternity, so it's important to grow here as an individual, and we try to answer what it means to be our healthiest selves. They discuss the power of naming our motives, why the Enneagram isn't about "putting people in boxes," the Harmonic groups (Positive Outlook: 2, 7, 9 who reframe; Competency: 1, 3, 5 who problem-solve; Reactive: 4, 6, 8 who intensify emotions). Whether you're new to the Enneagram or a seasoned student, this conversation will deepen your understanding and help you see yourself and your spouse more clearly. Watch on YouTube! Important Show Notes from the Allender Center's Marriage Class Marriage class coming up! Get live teaching from The Allender Center 's prolific teachers Dan and Becky Allender across three dates, starting tomorrow (or watch over Zoom) and use the code enneagram30 to get $30 off the course here! Growing in Marriage: A Guided Journey with Dan & Becky Allender. Jeff's Exciting Around the Circle Materials! Get Jeff's book here! https://www.amazon.com/Around-Circle-Enneagram-Jeff-Cook/dp/B0FD46YT16 Listen to the Around the Circle pod here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/around-the-circle-an-enneagram-channel/id1466446583 Visit the entire Around the Circle crew on their website as well! www.AroundtheCircle.org Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today we're diving into what we're all working toward: secure attachment. What does it actually look like when both partners feel safe, seen, and able to be themselves? We'll explore the markers of secure attachment in marriage, how to recognize it, and most importantly - how to build it even if you didn't start there. Secure attachment isn't about being perfect; it's about repair, trust, and showing up consistently. Whether you're anxiously attached, avoidantly attached, or somewhere in between, this episode will show you the path toward greater security in your relationship. Because earned security is possible - and it changes everything. Watch on YouTube! Happening This Week! Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode, Christa sits down with Alli Patterson, type 8 (8-1 pairing), teaching Pastor at Crossroads Church, author of Blueprint for Belonging and How to Stay Standing, and founder of the Ignite Conference to talk about the five types of relationships we all need to thrive: your core, circle, comrades, community, and crowd. Alli, who holds a seminary degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and just also released Spirit-Led Bible Study in February 2026 (this month!), breaks down how loneliness isn't about the quantity of relationships but the quality and variety of connection. Join us as we discuss how understanding these five relationship types can transform your marriage, friendships, and sense of belonging, and why so many of us are drowning in loneliness despite having more ways to connect than ever before. Christa also shares exciting updates and contests. Plus, we're giving away 5 copies of Alli's book Blueprint for Belonging. Follow Alli on social media Instagram account below (or on another social) and let us know at melody@enneagramandmarriage.com that you did for a chance to win one of them! This conversation is for anyone who's ever felt lonely in a crowded room or wondered if their relationships are truly satisfying their soul. Alli reminds us: your relationships are the key to a thriving life and healthy attachment, don't settle for lonely. Watch on YouTube! Follow Alli Patterson on Instagram and enter the contest for a copy of her book, Blueprint for Belonging, here! https://www.instagram.com/theallipatterson/ Find Alli's books, The Spirit Led Bible Study and Blueprint for Belonging here on her website! https://www.allipatterson.com/ Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode, Christa continues the February series on Attachment Styles Meets Enneagram by walking through all nine types and exploring two critical questions: How do you attach well to yourself, and how do you attach well to your partner? She opens by acknowledging the need for God and self-regulation (and five fun Valentine's Dates!), and then we breaks down each type's unique attachment challenges and growth narratives together. Christa makes it clear that secure attachment starts internally, but you cannot give your partner what you haven't given yourself. Listen now! ❤️ We also give a final call for your chance to join the E + M Coaching Certification & Masterclass Course starting February 12th (last day for $250 off with code COACH). This episode is practical, compassionate, and grounded in the truth that real intimacy requires showing up fully, with God, with yourself, and with your spouse as we celebrate our love and marriage this month of love ❤️. Watch on YouTube! Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this conversation, Christa sits down with Kendall Mariah, author of the brand-new book This Little Fire of Mine: How Flickers of Doubt Can Spark a Bolder, Brighter Faith, to explore what happens when you stop performing faith and start living it authentically, especially in marriage. Kendall Mariah, 3, an adoptive mom, Army wife, and founder of Unapologetic Ministry, invites us to embrace holy discomfort, lean into doubt, and ask the hard questions we've been told to avoid. In this episode, they discuss how doubt can lead to discernment, why good friction is healthy in relationships, how to navigate different faith journeys with your spouse, and what it means to pursue an integrated life where your words and actions reflect the full truth of Scripture, not just on Sundays, but in your actual day-to-day marriage. Kendall says her book is about finding "a deeper, truer version of your soul," and Christa believes that when you find that truer version of yourself, you also find a truer version of your marriage. If you've ever felt the disconnect between your beliefs and your lived experiences, or if you're navigating faith questions alongside your spouse, this conversation will give you permission to embrace the journey and discover a bolder, brighter faith together as we work on deepening attachment all month long here on the pod! Watch on YouTube! Get your copy of Kendall's brand new book here! https://www.amazon.com/This-Little-Fire-Mine-Flickers/dp/1400251672 Learn about Kendall here on her website! https://kendallmariah.com/ Get connected with Kendall on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendallmariah/ Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this mini but important episode, Christa tackles the most common, and most painful, dynamic in marriage: the anxious-avoidant pairing. If you've ever felt like you're constantly chasing your spouse for connection while they pull away, or if you feel overwhelmed by a partner who won't give you breathing room, this episode will help you understand why these attachment styles are magnetically drawn to each other and how the pursue-withdraw cycle keeps you stuck. In this intro episode, Christa gives practical steps each partner needs to take to break the cycle and move toward earned secure attachment. The key insight: Your Enneagram type is the engine, your attachment style is the steering, understanding both is where real change begins. Whether you're anxious, avoidant, or somewhere in between, this episode gives you language for what's happening and hope that change is possible. Listen right here or watch on YouTube! Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What if the real reason marriages fail isn't a lack of connection but years of staying silent and avoiding conflict? Licensed marriage and family therapist Colette Jane Fehr joins us in an attachment-based discussion to discuss her new book The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love (releases February 3, 2026). As a Type 7, Colette shares how even optimistic, future-focused types can fall into avoidant patterns, sidestepping day-to-day disputes and brushing problems under the rug to "keep the peace." We explore how silence (as well as to damaging reactivity) often lead to emotional disconnection, self-abandonment, and essentially "quiet quitting" your marriage. Drawing from attachment science and evidence-based therapies, Colette gives us tools to approach our spouse with openness, honesty, and vulnerability. Whether you're the one staying silent or living with someone who won't speak up, this conversation will show you why a good relationship is worth fighting for—and how to start having the hard conversations that create secure, lasting love. Find The Cost of Quiet wherever books are sold starting February 3rd. Watch on YouTube! Get Colette's book here! https://a.co/d/5HMlsJh Get on her email list here! https://www.colettejanefehr.com/ Visit Colette here on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/colettejanefehr/ Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
As we wrap up the conversation on instincts, Christa brings you a powerful episode exploring how our three instincts—self-preservation, sexual, and social—can turn dark or animal-like when we're scared, threatened, or in pain in our marriages or world, and we talk about how to slow down, stay kind stay human, godly, and loving in hard or dystopic times. Though the episode is grounded and practical, Christa addresses cognitive heuristics and mental shortcuts humans can use to dehumanize the "other" including the Halo Effect as well as examines how each instinct goes dark, self-preservation leading to hoarding, sexual instinct leading to using people, and social instinct leading to outgrouping and tribalism—and offers practical ways to stay strong in faith. Drawing on CS Lewis's wisdom that evil must be unwound bit by bit, she calls listeners to not rush the stories of pain away or abandon friends who voted differently as you fight for justice - we're one human body, and we must rise together. Watch on YouTube! Need mental health tips in this time? Sign up for the FREE EnneaSummit here! https://www.tylerzach.com/mh26/enneasummit?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylerzach.com%2Fa%2F2148228842%2FLS2nNmzL The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dorothy Littell Greco, marriage ministry leader and author joins us for a powerful conversation about abandoning misogyny and misandry (disdain for all men or women) in favor of mutual flourishing in marriage, including sexual flourishing, especially since pornography use, perpetrating harm to women is rampant. Despite undeniable progress as we discover the mental loads women and men carry in the 20th and 21st centuries, misogyny and misandry are still alive in culture, often in ways more subtle and insidious than outright sexism of the past, and it shows up in marriages in ways couples don't always recognize. Statistically, misogyny especially hurts marriage intimately and sexually. In this conversation, we focus specifically on how it shows up in Christian marriages and what it costs both women and men since this is a lose-lose system where no one wins. A type 1 justice fighter with a long and successful marriage of faith and confession, Dorothy unpacks how dismantling misogyny isn't just good for women, it benefits men and marriages too, creating space for true partnership where both spouses can grow and flourish. Join us as we talk about why we need to abandon both misogyny (disdain for women) and misandry (disdain for men) in favor of a partnership that honors the image of God in both. Find Dorthy's book, "For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America" on Amazon: https://a.co/d/55qxeyd Find Dorthy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorothylgreco/?hl=en Find Dorthy's riveting blog: https://www.dorothygreco.com/ The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Week 3 of our January instincts series reveals the hidden fears that block intimacy for SP, SO, and SX types. Why does your SP partner hoard resources? Why does your SO spouse need constant social validation? Why does your SX partner panic when you're emotionally distant? Understanding these core fears changes everything - plus, discover how to rebuild weakened instincts instead of watching them decline. Watch here on YouTube! The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Casey and Meygan Caston, creators of the Marriage365 platform that reaches millions each week, join us as authors of the brand new book, The Marriage Habit (recommended by Dr. Gary Chapman and many others, including Christa right here)! Join us for a riveting and inspiring conversation about the ten non-negotiable habits that successful couples use to maintain and repair their relationships. After fifteen years of helping couples and working through their own deep hurt, Casey and Meygan have gained tremendous insight into the common issues couples from all walks of life face and how they choose to solve or not solve them. Drawing on user data and candid stories from couples around the world, Casey and Meygan show how we create massive results including taking a four step apology process, the sex talk, weekly regular awareness inventories to appreciate how your partner's preferences, opinions, and differences are evolving, offering unsolicited apologies that break down walls of resentment and disconnection, and removing assumptions by being clearer about the specific ways you want to be loved. Focused on action and practicality (Casey and Meygan's 7-8 pairing gifts), this couple and episode provide hope for couples in any circumstances to solve their own problems as they work to create the relationship of their dreams. Watch on YouTube! Find Casey and Meygan on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/marriage365/ Pre-order your copy of The Marriage Habit now and get $320 worth of bonuses, too! (releases Feb 3!) The Marriage Habit right here! https://a.co/d/b9ZBUjW (Get bonuses here: https://marriage365books.com/ Find Casey and Meygan's courses, app, and SO much more right here! www.Marriage365.com The Enneagram and Marriage Coaching & Certification Masterclass course begins again February 12, use code COACH for discount here or at https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Now that you know more about the Enneagram instincts and desires, and you've heard that they're even MORE important than your types, what's one way you can build a bridge in an opposites attract pairing? Today we explore exactly that - what happens when different dominant instincts collide in marriage and what can you do. What happens when Security-focused (SP) marries Intensity-focused (SX)? Or when Social-focused (SO) pairs with Security-focused (SP)? I break down all 6 possible combinations with quick fixes for each. Real couples, real solutions, simple framework you can use today. Watch on YouTube! Deeper dive with us on Apple Pod, too! Don't forget! Use the special E + M Code Marriage100 for $100 the Russ Hudson Three Instincts course here! https://russhudson.com/the-instincts-and-inner-work-building-practices-for-transforming-our-life-patterns/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
As we shift into this new year with intention, best-selling author and influencer Hannah Brencher, Type 4, author of The Unplugged Hours: Cultivating a Life of Presence in a Digitally Connected World, joins us for a conversation about building healthy tech habits in marriage and family life. Featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and more with a reach of 200K+, Hannah brings beautiful creative ways to unplug that cover all three instincts: self-preservation (creating time for health and rest), sexual (more presence in your marriage), and social (intentional with people, not just scrolling). As a Type 4 who needs depth, authenticity, and space for creativity, Hannah shares her end-of-day phone ritual where she turns her phone down, uses a brick phone of sorts, how she helps her type 2 hubby with his phone, and fascinatingly relies on yellow legal pads to inspire analog creativity instead of defaulting to screens. She and Christa explore how to navigate tech boundaries in marriage without conflict, too. Hannah also shares how she's thinking about tech habits for her family and building boundaries while her kids are young and most impressionable with habits. This conversation is full of practical wisdom, gentle encouragement, and honest reflection on how to reclaim presence in a digitally connected world with intention, too. Watch on YouTube! Find Hannah's work at HannahBrencher.com Follow Hannah at Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hannahbrencher/?hl=en Find Hannah's book, The Unplugged Hours here! https://a.co/d/fmw0XqV Other E + M News: Don't forget! Use the special E + M Code Marriage100 for $100 the Russ Hudson Three Instincts course here! https://russhudson.com/the-instincts-and-inner-work-building-practices-for-transforming-our-life-patterns/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After Monday's incredible conversation with Russ Hudson, we're diving into our January theme: Instincts & Intimacy. Today's episode reveals how your dominant instinct (Self-Preservation, Social, or Sexual) often shows up differently when dating versus being married. We talk through not only how those differences may look, but how you can still try to find the healthiest and most achievable desires you're missing from those early honeymoon days. Break down each instinct's dating “performance” versus marriage reality, plus how to work with (not against) your and your partner's instinctual drives as you do so. Watch on YouTube! Don't forget! Use the special E + M Code Marriage100 for $100 the course here! https://russhudson.com/the-instincts-and-inner-work-building-practices-for-transforming-our-life-patterns/ Find Russ Hudson's books here! https://russhudson.com/books/ For more about Russ, visit https://russhudson.com/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In our biggest kick-off of a new year yet, we introduce our listeners today to Russ Hudson, co-founder of The Enneagram Institute, best-selling author, and one of the world's most respected Enneagram teachers for over 30 years! Russ joins us for an hour-long, jam-packed conversation clarifying the three instincts: self-preservation, social, and sexual. This isn't surface-level learning, so get ready to transform with us while Russ explains what the instincts actually are at their core and why they're the engine of your relationships and marriage, not just an overlay to your type. Russ also dismantles common misunderstandings, and tells us about his deep diving course coming up! This conversation between Christa (Type 7) and Russ (Type 5) is full of joy, depth, and practical wisdom for you as you begin afresh this new year. Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen or watch here on YouTube! In his riveting and personal deep-diving eight-week course coming up Feb 18, The Instincts and Inner Work: Building Practices for Transforming Our Life Patterns, Russ will walk you through these instincts in even far more depth in an 8-week live course "The Instincts and Inner Work". Join here to dive into personal and relational transformation together with Russ himself. Use the special E + M Code Marriage100 for $100 the course here! https://russhudson.com/the-instincts-and-inner-work-building-practices-for-transforming-our-life-patterns/ Find Russ Hudson's books here! https://russhudson.com/books/ For more about Russ, visit https://russhudson.com/ Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Happy New Year! We're completing our comprehensive series with the final 15 pairings - all combinations with Types 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Today explores how Head types (5-6-7) navigate their safety strategies in relationships, plus the powerful dynamics of Body types 8 and 9. From the double-withdrawal of 5+5 couples who risk becoming roommates, to the explosive intensity of 8+8 pairs, to the conflict-avoidant 9+9 dynamic that looks perfect until it isn't - each pairing gets practical insights and breakthrough moments. Whether you're navigating the 6+7 anxiety-meets-optimism dance or the classic 8+9 power-meets-peace dynamic, discover what makes your specific combination work. Plus, exciting news about Russ Hudson joining us Monday to discuss instincts and his upcoming course! Watch on YouTube! Get Your Glow Pairing Guide here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/store/c4/enneagramglow Get Your Type Deeper Dive Here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/deeper-dives Use code HAPPYNEWYEAR for 30% off everything at the website here! Become an E + M Certified coach here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/the-e-m-coaching-masterclass Get coaching packages here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/coachingpackages Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Happy holidays from the E+M family! In Part 2 of our comprehensive series, we're covering more Enneagram types! (2+8 through 4+9)! From the 2's emotional giving, to the 3's achievement drive, to the 4's search for authentic connection, we're learning about what happens when double Heart types unite (hello, intensity!) and how they dance with Body and Head types as well. Each pairing includes real marriage examples and breakthrough insights you can apply immediately. Plus, get ready for an Instincts Masterclass as master Enneagram teacher Russ Hudson joins us next week! Whether you're navigating the 3+3 power couple dynamic or the 4+5 pursuer-distancer dance (or another!), this episode illuminates your unique relationship blueprint for you and your spouse or helps you understand another close family or friend dynamic as well. Listen here! Watch on YouTube! Get Your Glow Pairing Guide here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/store/c4/enneagramglow Get Your Type Deeper Dive Here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/deeper-dives Use code HAPPYNEWYEAR for 30% off everything at the website here! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Merry Christmas Eve! Today we're kicking off something special that was listener requested, something that will dazzle some and perhaps overwhelm others who are here for straigt up marriage tips only, but don't worry, we'll be back for those in the new year! Today on this holiday break, we're covering ALL 45 Enneagram couple combinations over three episodes. In Part 1, we explore every Type 1 pairing (1+1 through 1+9) and begin the Type 2s (2+1 - 2+7) Discover how those types that fight for justice, those types that tend to lean out emotionally, and how those looking for security plan for safety in relationships and how they merge together. Whether you're a 1+2 navigating righteousness with tender expression, or any other pairing, you'll gain insights into your unique dynamic as you see all the couples and families in real life and in media too. Each pairing gets practical marriage examples and key breakthroughs. This episode makes for perfect holiday listening as you reflect on you and your marriage and family relationship patterns heading into the new year! Watch on YouTube! Use code December for 30% off everything at the website here! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In the final week of our Advent series, we explore love as the gift of understanding. After three weeks of learning about hope, peace, and joy through the lens of our instincts, we arrive at what matters most: choosing to understand your partner's instinctual needs instead of judging their behavior. When you see that your SP spouse isn't being cheap but protecting security, that your SO spouse isn't people-pleasing but creating belonging, or that your SX spouse isn't being needy but protecting intimacy, everything shifts. This episode recaps the four-week journey and invites you into a practice of choosing curiosity over blame, understanding over fixing, and compassion over criticism. If you've been following along this Advent season, this is where it all comes together, the gift you can give your spouse this Christmas and every day after. Watch on YouTube! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/deeper-dives Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sara Billups (type 4, 4-5 pairing), author of "Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics," joins us for a conversation about anxiety that's especially needed as we head into Christmas. Sara explores how anxiety manifests in three interconnected ways, and how couples who are in the sandwich generation (Millennial, Gen X especially) navigate personal anxiety, church disillusionment, and political division all at once as their nervous systems rise up in anxiety. Drawing from her experience caregiving for aging ill parents while parenting teens with their own anxiety along with her own anxiety, Sara offers wisdom for couples in the sandwich generation stretched thin caring for multiple generations while trying to protect their marriage. She also unpacks scrupulosity and how being trained to pursue "being good" is often far from healthy holiness, especially for those raised evangelical, and how this performance anxiety shows up in marriage. Sara's prescription for anxiety is holy indifference, the Ignatian concept of open-handedness toward both blessings and trials, not as giving up but as giving into the Spirit, and what this looks like practically when anxious about outcomes or when life isn't going as hoped. Rather than offering prescriptive how-to lists, Sara offered a soothing balm for anxious hearts heading into holiday chaos. Find "Nervous Systems" wherever books are sold. Watch on YouTube, too! Get Sara's book, Nervous Systems, here! https://a.co/d/ieVOMum Deeper Dive Guides on sale here! Use code DEEPERDIVE for $10 off! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/deeper-dives Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The third episode in our Advent series explores why most couples don't feel joyful during the holidays and how to protect joy when everything feels like obligation and chaos. Joy becomes elusive when we expect it to be natural, when we prioritize mere survival over connection, when we forget to dig deep to remember God's love for us is the deepest reason for joy, when we lose ourselves in others' never-ending needs, when we escape instead of engaging, and when we don't pause during the chaos that puts your nervous system in survival mode where delight is impossible. There is so much to learn and we can take it step by step together! Listen here as you find centering and re-embrace delight this holiday or anytime of year!! Watch on YouTube! Use the code "GLOW" for $10 Couple Pairing Guides here! Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anna Rollins, author of "Famished," joins us for an honest conversation about the intersection of purity culture, eating, body image, and sexual intimacy in marriage in general and especially Christian marriage. We explore what happened in the Christian movement around weight and body image that went beyond general cultural dysfunction and became particularly harmful in church spaces, such as Anna's church creating an eating based programs as she talks about here in and in her book. Drawing on research from Sheila Wray Gregoire's survey of 20,000 women (one of our favorite past guests), Anna unpacks the connection between body shame and sexual intimacy, including the often-hidden correlation between body shame and painful sex that many women don't realize exists. She shares her personal journey of moving from controlling her body through over-exercising to actually caring for and stewarding it well, how she's parenting with intention, and how her relationship with her body has drawn her at first farther but ultimately closer, ultimately, back to God. This conversation is essential for anyone navigating body image in marriage or raising children in the intersection of faith and culture. Find "Famished" wherever books are sold and connect with Anna's work. Listen here on YouTube! Get Anna's book Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing up a Good Girl here! https://a.co/d/eO5BbMa Follow Anna Rollins'Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/annajrollins/?hl=en Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Get on our Advent adventure together too where we'll discuss hope, love, and joy starting December 1st at www.EnneagramandMarriage.com. Mark your calendars for Dec 9 as we meet over Zoom 1PM EST to discuss how to keep you from fighting all season long, too! Sign up for emails to get your link. Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode, Christa sits down with men's marriage coach Eric MacDougall, an Enneagram 4 with 8 tendencies (4-3 pairing), to talk honestly about why so many men unknowingly disconnect emotionally, even while trying to “do everything right.” Eric shares the breaking-point moment when his Enneagram 3 (with-9) tendencies wife told him she loved him but wasn't in love anymore, and how that revelation pushed him to confront his patterns of overworking, performing, and using sex or productivity as substitutes for true intimacy. Together, they explore why men often rely on sexual touch to soothe deeper loneliness, and how emotional leadership creates the connection they're really longing for. Christa and Eric dive into differentiation, attunement, and how to become a safe, grounded presence instead of a fixer or withdrawer. Eric offers practical tools for rebuilding trust, cultivating intimacy that lasts, and leading with steadiness instead of intensity. This conversation is vulnerable, creative, and deeply hopeful for any couple wanting more connection and passion in their marriage. Listen here and watch on YouTube here! Find Eric's podcast at Evolved Marriage: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-evolved-marriage-podcast/id1564452959 Find The Evolved Marriage website and men's coaching groups: https://www.evolvedmarriage.com/ Find Evolved Marriage on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evolved_marriage/?hl=en Get on our Advent adventure together too where we'll discuss hope, love, and joy starting December 1st at www.EnneagramandMarriage.com. Mark your calendars for Dec 9 as we meet over Zoom 1PM EST to discuss how to keep you from fighting all season long, too! Sign up for emails to get your link. Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Get Christa's Best-Selling Book, The Enneagram in Marriage, here! https://a.co/d/df8SxVx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What are you really waiting for this December? Not the polished answer—the honest one. What's keeping you up at night? What's making your spouse anxious? In this first episode of our 4-part seasonal series, we explore the three types of hope that show up in marriages during the holidays: Security (Will we be okay? Will we have enough?), Connection (Will everyone get along? Will anyone feel left out?), and Intimacy (Will we stay close intimately or sexually)? Will we lose each other in the chaos?). You'll discover why you and your spouse are often "waiting" for completely different things this season, and why that difference creates so much tension. More importantly, you'll learn how to honor both longings without making either one wrong, so you can actually experience renewal together instead of just surviving until January. Whether you're the one watching the budget, managing family dynamics, or protecting your marriage connection, this episode will help you name what you need and understand what your spouse needs too. Watch on YouTube, tooz1 Get your "Me-Time Coaching Session" package here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/coachingpackages-2 Use code BLACKFRIDAY for 55% off here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Get on our Advent adventure together too where we'll discuss hope, love, and joy starting December 1st at www.EnneagramandMarriage.com. Mark your calendars for Dec 9 as we meet over Zoom 1PM EST to discuss how to keep you from fighting all season long, too! Sign up for emails to get your link. Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Leave Christa a podcast question anonymously by sending an MP4 recording to enneagramandmarriage@gmail.com. Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The third episode in our family systems series explores triangulation, the pattern where a two-person relationship becomes unstable so you pull in a third person to stabilize it. Instead of dealing with issues directly with your spouse, you complain to your mom, get your best friend to tell them they're wrong, focus all your energy on the kids, or text your sister about your marriage. Triangulation feels safer than direct conflict because it gives you validation and emotional support without vulnerability, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Christa breaks down how each Enneagram type triangulates and also gives general tips in this quick, must-listen holiday prep episode! But here's the nuance: sometimes you need to triangulate for a moment. Listen for how to do both! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com if you're not on the email list yet. Watch on YouTube! Get your "Me-Time Coaching Session" package here! https://www.enneagramandmarriage.com/coachingpackages-2 Use code BLACKFRIDAY for 50% off here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Get on our Advent adventure together too where we'll discuss hope, love, and joy starting December 1st at www.EnneagramandMarriage.com. Find more about your type, the pod, freebies, and SO much more at our website right here! www.EnneagramandMarriage.com Leave Christa a podcast question anonymously by sending an MP4 recording to enneagramandmarriage@gmail.com. Love what you're learning on E + M? Make sure you leave us a podcast review so others can find us, too here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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