Send us a text We often try to avoid conflict because it usually doesn't go well. So, what's the point of working through conflict? To create understanding and connection. Listen in As Dr. Steve Call and Lisa Call offer insight through a practical example into engaging conflict that leads us toward the desired outcome.
Send us a text There are 3 common and core issues couples experience sometime in their marriage: 1) feeling stuck 2) loneliness 3) contempt Listen in as Dr. Steve Call and his wife, Lisa Call, engage in a conversation that helps listeners become more aware of the three common and core issues for couples and how to engage these issues well.
Send us a text There is often some resistance, perhaps caution, to remembering our past. Naturally, remembering the past, particularly experiences in our family of origin, is painful. Yet, many of our everyday moments in marriage reflect the past and can be difficult to navigate well if we choose not to remember the past. Listen in as Dr. Steve Call and his wife, Lisa Call, engage in a conversation that helps listeners connect to the importance of linking the past to the present and the potentia...
Send us a text Envy is a common feeling and experience in marriage! Yet, for many of us, envy can imply there is something wrong or that we ought not to feel it. In marriage, envy shows up often, and it can create disruption and disconnection, and we aren't aware of the source. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into navigating envy and helpful ways to communicate when it is present....
Send us a text Lingering in the discomfort can feel uncomfortable. We often rush or hurry to solve or fix what our spouse may be feeling or experiencing. Yet, we often need our spouse to linger - to stay present and be with us. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how lingering in the discomfort fosters and develops a sense of resilience and reminds our spouse of the soothing comfort of presence....
Send us a text A common fear we each have is the fear of abandonment. It's the core fear from the moment we are born. It's common for us to experience this fear when we experienced an emotionally unavailable parent. Sometimes, this fear can become activated in our marriage when our spouse is emotionally unavailable. Listen in as Dr. Steve Call and Lisa Call have a conversation about the fear of abandonment and helpful ways we can navigate the fear....
Send us a text Containment is the relational engagement with our partner or spouse, particularly in times of distress or need. Containment is a movement toward and the capacity to hold what the other might be feeling or thinking. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation on the need for containment and how couples can pursue containment with one another.
Send us a text The struggles and tensions in marriage are often connected to differences. We can have different thoughts, beliefs, ideas, needs, and these differences can lead to a sense of disconnection rather than connection. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer an engaging conversation about how differences in our marriage can create a level of intimacy in marriage.
Send us a text Often in a marriage relationship, we have reactions to one another when our spouse's thought, idea, feeling, or belief is different or unexpected. We simply have reactions rather than reflections. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer helpful insight into the value of reflections with our spouse rather than reactions.
Send us a text Attunement is vital and essential in a marriage relationship. Attunement can be defined as "bringing into harmony." But for many of us, attunement wasn't a consistent experience in our family of origin. As a result, the lack of attunement can be a significant source of conflict and tension in marriage. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into the importance of attunement and how attunement can be cultivated and developed in your marriage relationship....
Send us a text When we don't have access to our spouse's attention or focus, we can sometimes feel distress in our bodies. And, of course. It's such a natural and common relational experience in marriage. Yet, it can be a difficult tension in a marriage. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer listeners insight into how couples can navigate the lack of access well without perpetuating a sense of disconnection....
Send us a text Each of us develops particular loyalties that protect us. Loyalties are often a strategy to relationally cope both in our early story and in our marriage. Yet our loyalties can inhibit connection and/or perpetuate disconnection. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer listeners an opportunity to become aware of how loyalty to our early experiences in our family of origin limits our core desire, which is to be seen and known by our spouse....
Send us a text One of our four primary emotions is sadness. Sadness, unfortunately, is often met with judgment, whether from ourselves or our spouse/partner. And sometimes, when sadness is felt, it is met by an attempt to talk the other out of what they feel. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a vulnerable reflection of common dynamics when sadness is experienced and what we need from the other when we feel sad....
Send us a text Contempt can be a disruptive and divisive force in marriage. It often reveals itself in the form of judgment and usually implies that one's thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and feelings are minimized. Contempt can become an embedded pattern for many couples experiencing a sense of disconnect and lack of emotional intimacy. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how contempt reveals itself and helpful responses to our contempt that invite connection rather than perpetuate...
Send us a text Sometimes the emotional reactivity we have with our spouse is connected to the remembering of trauma which can cause significant distress. And when our body remembers the trauma/loss/heartache of what we have endured, we crave a presence from our spouse that reminds us we are not alone in the remembering. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how trauma reveals itself in particular interactions in our marriage and how we might offer helpful responses to one anoth...
Send us a text Trauma is part of each couple's story. Meaning, each individual brings a story of trauma into marriage and for many couples, there is trauma within their marriage. We may not be aware that our emotional responses to our spouse are often connected to the trauma we have endured. Sometimes the trauma in our body is remembered, felt, and re-experienced and the way in which it reveals itself in marriage can create significant disruption. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insig...
Send us a text Sometimes we can't be what our spouse needs. Sometimes we don't know what to say or how to respond to our spouse's needs. And often, we don't know how to react or what to say. And sometimes, in not knowing, we may communicate that what our spouse needs is too much or off limits. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a unique perspective on how to respond to our spouse when we are unsure of what they need or what could be helpful....
Send us a text Conflict can certainly be difficult for most couples. Conflict is common and familiar and can be a stuck point that can perpetuate disconnection. In conflict, many couples are reenacting their family of origin experiences, and avoiding conflict is avoiding intimacy. So what is the goal or hope of conflict? Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a thoughtful and engaging conversation about how couples can navigate conflict that leads to greater intimacy, awareness, and understa...
Send us a text Internal scripts are part of how we navigate the relational world of marriage. Internal scripts are what we say to ourselves regarding an event and experience and often can create a sense of disconnect relationally. Sometimes, we aren't aware of our internal scripts and the role or impact they can play. Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call in a conversation on becoming aware of internal scripts and how they can impact relational dynamics....
Send us a text Each of us desires to be known and seen by our spouse. Sometimes we develop strategies and ways of being known and seen by our spouse and strategies and coping responses when we experience being unseen and unknown. Often this struggle can be the undercurrent of the tension in marriage. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call explore in depth how the desire to be seen and known can lead to a hopeful connection in marriage....
Send us a text Our body remembers events and experiences from the past, especially experiences in our family of origin. And sometimes our emotional responses to our spouse can be related to something being remembered in our story. Our body gives us clues to what we might be feeling and what we might be remembering from our past, from our story. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some reflections, insight, and ways to engage one another well when our body remembers something that is famil...
Send us a text How we respond to our spouse's need, desire, request, and hope plays such a significant role in what happens next. Yet a common experience in marriage is one of dismissal and even judgment. Often, we believe we can respond to our spouse's request with a sense of frustration or even irritation. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight and reflection into common dynamics that can create a sense of disconnection and what might help us in those moments....
Send us a text Awareness offers the key to understanding difficult moments in our marriage. Awareness can help us make sense of what's happening in moments of tension, hurt, and disappointment and awareness can lead to repair. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a conversation on how awareness can be such a helpful relational tool when couples struggle in a moment of misunderstanding, hurt, disappointment, and/or frustration....
Send us a text Intentional curiosity can be such a connective tissue for couples in moments and experiences of disconnection. Often when we feel frustrated or irritated with our spouse's behavior, we turn away or we become more bothered and/or more irritated. Sometimes our spouse's behavior is communicating something and we can't quite make sense of what's happening. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight into how couples can embrace the connective experience of intentio...
Send us a text Withdrawing from our spouse is common in marriage and sometimes it can be difficult to navigate well. Sometimes one withdraws as a way to cope with the helplessness one feels when feeling overwhelmed, yet the withdraw can cause significant distress for the other. Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call for a conversation into understanding the relational dynamics that contribute to the common withdraw pattern that occurs for couples and helpful ways to navigate the withdraw well....
Send us a text Sadness can often feel off-limits, and we usually try to avoid feeling and expressing sadness. Sometimes we aren't sure what our spouse needs when sadness is present and we aren't sure how to respond. What do we need when we feel sad? Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation about helpful ways to navigate and stay present to our spouse's sadness.
Send us a text Sometimes in our marriage relationship, we can feel like we are too much and/or not enough. Often there is a longing for more intimacy, more emotion, or more connection, and in that longing, there can be a sense for the other that they aren't enough. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call validate the struggle that couples often experience in the not enough/too much interaction and helpful ways to navigate the interaction....
Send us a text Validation is an essential relational ingredient. It's an essential relational ingredient in the midst of a different idea, thought, belief, and/or feeling between spouses. Validation is the intentional reflection that what our spouse is experiencing is valid. Yet the lack of validation implies to your spouse that what they are thinking or feeling is less than or doesn't matter. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight and strategies into how we navigate val...
Send us a text Couples often struggle with the experience of repair. It can be a difficult process to navigate for so many reasons. And the inability to repair can perpetuate disconnection. The lack of repair is often connected to the resistance to repair. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa have a thoughtful and hopeful conversation that provides insight into how couples can repair well when experiencing hurt, frustration, silence, withdrawal, or some form of disengagement and disconnect....
Send us a text For many couples, it can be difficult to connect emotionally at times. The expression of emotion and the response to our spouse's emotion can lead to a sense of disconnection rather than connection. Emotional intimacy can be difficult to cultivate especially if emotion was off-limits in our own family of origin experience. Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call as they offer an insightful conversation about how couples can make a few subtle shifts in cultivating emotional intimacy in their ...
