Enneagram and Marriage

Although the Enneagram is a wonderful tool to assess our relationship depths, other personality assessments also offer us excellent insight for our relationship love styles. Here Christa introduces you to Myers Briggs (the MBTI) in this listener-requested mini episode to give you a brief tutorial on how you may grow in love and work life together using this robust system. Explore Introverting vers...

Often you want so desperately to relate well and with joy together, but when a relational rupture happens, we don't know how to repair it with healthy shifts and boundaries. Here we are joined by neuroscience expert and licensed marriage and family therapist Juliane Taylor Shore to help us sort out how to handle more difficult experiences together. Juliane takes us through the heavy lifting of rel...

Humility is the absence of pride and conceit in a relationship, and unfortunately, the underbelly of an individualistic Western philosophy is often a lack of it. Yet, sometimes we believe that if we’re humble, our partner will take narcissistic advantage of us, and if they’re not healthy, that may well just happen. Tune into this must-listen mini episode for tools for both of you to truly find the...

When you share the gifts you have, the whole world is improved, little by little. In contrast, when couples and individuals get caught up in the dark desire to get ahead for themselves despite what happens to others, those who are weaker, elderly, less affluent, less desirable or otherwise more culturally marginalized get forgotten and discarded. In this episode, Christa walks you through sharing...

What do women find attractive long-term? How do you show strength and softness as a man? How do you allow for femininity without becoming weak? Join us today for this special love episode as we give tips for all of this, and moreover, as we give your love just the boost it needs in this mini-must listen episode on ascending the peaks of your relationship together! Watch on YouTube here! Sign up fo...

So many times in marriage there are arguments that don't get resolved, underlying anger that doesn't get diffused, and tempers flying out of control, depending on your personality type. Today we are joined by world-renowned mediator and attorney Hesha Abrams who is an expert at not only helping you to find your power and self-control, but also in truly finding intimacy through actually resolving t...

Music can speak to us in a way that words alone often cannot. In this week between the Grammys and the Superbowl, we're having fun sharing songs by Taylor Swift for each and every Enneagram type to enjoy in love, life, and times of lament, too. Watch on YouTube here!   Enjoy this E + M curated Taylor Swift & the Enneagram Spotify Playlist here. There are 2 songs for each type, in order 1-9, per th...

Parenting requires nuanced architecture and then releasing kids to learn for themselves bit by bit - and all of this as you're navigating mood changes that start becoming real even in the grade school years. To help us through this sensitive topic, we are gifted with parenting expert Nellie Harden of Family Life, Enneagram 2, who shares her relational and brain-based biological expertise, as well...

Emotional agility is a necessary skill for relationship-building, so that when we find ourselves dysregulated, we can self-soothe. We need this practice time and again considering all of the ways we lose our footing in life and relationships. Enjoy and save this episode so you have a special practice to help you find your way back to joy and peace time and again. This guided imagery and relaxation...

How do you balance work and life? How do you grow at work but also leave room for family? What do successful leaders wish you knew at the beginning of an entrepreneurship journey? Today Christa is joined by superstar Amy Wicks and they are not holding back as they share tips for those wanting to create a better work-life balance. Join the chat here and sign up for the Elevate and Activate conferen...

When you or your spouse are experiencing mood shifts, don’t forget that between ages 35-55, perimenopause may beat work. Today we talk with Bria Gadd aka “Bria the Period Whisperer” about her specialty of perimenopause as she helps to identify symptoms and also helps to support families through this often foggy period. Here we invite empowering conversation around shifting health rhythms and perso...

When you're in a really thin season with your temperaments both on override and also hiding vulnerabilities, you're bound for difficult marriage territories you hardly recognize, territory where you're tempted to blame your spouse or lose your marriage altogether. For Josh and Katie Walters, it was too, and it was a big something: infidelity. Today as guests on the pod, Josh and Katie speak to the...

During these winter months when everyone is hibernating, it can be tempting to turning inwards and shut off your love. In this mini-episode, Christa helps you to rev up your love together again as you learn tips to relight the fires of desire. We’ll talk about safety, sex, and society as you warm up by the glow of your love! Let us also know if you’d like to join us in our E + M Certified Coaches...

When we're feeling weary, our temptation is often to run away from the very things that heal - authenticity, community, sacred daily rhythms, and most of all, Christ. We can even allow our creative outlets to be another way of escapism, or move so fast into the "post-human" world of bots and "ten easy steps" that we miss relating and sharing Christ's love. Today we get to talk about this human ten...

The 4.5 space in marriage is a beautiful place to create, plan, dream, and think, yet this pensive space can keep partners lonely without healthy habits and movement. Today we give our audience tips for finding safety and respect in the depths of the heart and mind with the generous help of the wildly popular husband-and-wife podcast host team, Sharleen Joynt, 4w5, and Andy Levine, 5w4 of the Dear...

In this inspiring getting-your-love-back-on-track episode, Christa takes you through several seeming paradoxes of relationship health on this heart-to-heart journey. We look closely at the work every personality type needs to do as they face the issues of independence versus leaning in, self regulation versus spousal care, and how to establish social bonds to encourage you both as you begin walkin...

One of the key factors that will determine how healthy you are in your marriage is and will always be working with your attachment styles and responses to threats and triggers. Yet the typical attachment wiring labels (secure, disorganized, anxious, withdrawing, and more) also need more fleshing out as well as acceptance, for each part of you has a role to fulfill to protect you and make you feel...

When it comes to personal and marriage growth this 2024, it's helpful to have not only a type-finding tool like the Enneagram but a trait finder like the most empirically scientifically studied personality test, the Big Five, to go along with it. Let Christa guide you on a relationship-based Big Five convo as you find out how you score on Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, a...

When any one of your SP (self-preserving), SX (sexual), and SO (social) instincts is taking over, you'll find yourselves in a sad or collapsing marriage state, maybe even metaphorically dying as a couple. Couples who want to grow and thrive need to use thinking skills also as well as to distinguish feelings versus just using automatic responses. In this final episode of the year, join Christa in w...

Author Scott Kedersha, Enneagram 3 (3-9 pairing) is not only a fellow Baker author with Christa but also the long-standing marriage pastor at Harris Creek Baptist Church out of Waco, TX. His conversations with couples over the last seventeen years have led him to understand the biggest themes in marriage issues also involve a lack of vulnerability and prayer in marriage. In fact, he's discovered t...

Every personality type in marriage DESPERATELY needs compassion and kindness if they expect the marriage to be joyful, yet kindness and compassion look different across personality types. Since each has a different main emotional and mental struggle, today on this E + M mini, Christa walks you through a baseline and type-by-type reminder of how you can stay strong yet kind and deeply joyful this h...

Giving space for suffering and holding space for one another, as well as working through life and generational trauma in marriage are essential practices for long-term couples. Almost everyone has been through something hard or incapacitating by the time they are married for any number of years. Today Christa is joined by the esteemed Dr. Dan Allender and Becky Allender, co-founders of The Seattle...

Relationships are all about learning to connect, challenge, and adapt to one another’s gifts and ways of thriving in the world. When we are no longer thriving in our instincts, but over-or-under usng them, our spouse or partner tends to feel incompatibility with us and our inflexible behaviors do not bring us the joy they promise. We are no longer seen as comforting, fun, adaptive, and expansive b...

The number one question Christa has been getting on her podcast tour has been about partner compatiblity. Why does it feel like partner incompatibility often only grows with time in marriage? What can you do when the years have disconnected you? How can you prevent rigidity in personality structure from leading to the perceived incompatibility in relationship that many divorcing couples cite? List...

When Ebenezer Scrooge is hit with the alarming totality of death in a fever-dream like observation of his past, present, and future, he is awakened to the magnificent springboard of joy that comes with the awareness of all the good one can still do in the world with and for others. You too, as you look deeply at your life with us in this episode, can view your past, your present, and your future w...