Enneagram and Marriage
Christa Hardin, MA, brings two decades of experience counseling and coaching couples to this podcast, which explores marriage through the lens of the Enneagram personality system. Each episode offers expert marriage advice while using the Enneagram to foster deeper understanding of individual patterns and relational dynamics. The goal is to help couples connect and thrive together, both in their marriage and within their broader community.
Episodes
Breath Prayers for Every Enneagram Type
Each of us struggles with various deep concerns, and in today’s mini episode, Christa walks us type by type through various breath prayers, one for each type. Take some time to pause, breathe, and join us in a collective prayer time as we place a hand on our hearts, release stress, and embrace the light and love of God. Calling on Matthew 11:28, we are all reminded that rest and refreshment, and b
Free Subscriber Series: Spiritually Resetting for a Healthy, Vibrant Faith
Although spiritual loves are collectively shared, in our individual walk with God we each have matters, too. Today, Christa breaks down several areas for you to assess your spiritual journey: service, collective church time, worship, and when it’s time to take a break to heal, rest, or recover. Take some time to sit with this episode so you can grow foundationally today!!
Find more about your typ
Our Daily Breath: Praying with Your Body, Heart, and Mind with Kayla Craig, 7
This week ,Christa sits down with Kayla Craig, a former journalist, bestselling author, and spiritual director whose work blends contemplative faith with tenderness for the world God loves. Kayla shares the story of her mistyping, why wings and seasons of life can blur what drives us, and how her own growth has shaped the way she prays.
Together they explore the practice at the heart of her new b
Bearing Witness at Home: Learning How to Encourage Each Other
Encouragement is essential as you walk together through the emotional, spiritual, and physical ups and downs of your family story. Christa invites you on a journey of spiritual and psychological safety and connection-building as you learn to encourage and bear witness to one another's stories. Together you'll explore what it means to stay present to someone's story without rushing to fix or steer
Healing the Sexual Shame Stories Inside of Us w/Dr. Dan Allender, 8
Many individuals and spouses have experienced or been exposed to materials, whether explicitly sexual or suggestive, that have caused wounds in our marriages. Today we bring an important topic Christians and non-believers alike may struggle with: shame and what to do with it, when it rears its ugly head in a marriage. Whether you're more likely to fight, freeze, or fawn, this episode helps you to
What Grows in the Dark: Spiritual Shadows and the Enneagram with Amy Wicks, 7
Just as roots do their most important work underground, much of our spiritual growth happens in the places we'd rather not look, at the understory of our Enneagram type. Together we explore the shadows we hide from ourselves and how God meets us there with grace instead of shame. Today, Christa welcomes author Amy Wicks to open the pages of her new book, Wholehearted Enneagram: From Type to Transf
I Never Knew: Family Secrets and Shadows w/Phyllis Robertson Thomas, Type 5
Past family shadows affect us in ways we may never know, and today we talk to Phyllis Robertson as she walks us through the story of when you have surprises in your family story. Today we talk about how Phyllis (now married 32 years, 5-4 pairing) found out at age forty-four, and a past that included significant trauma, that Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson was her father. Her life changed dramatical
Attachment Healing for Every Enneagram Type
Friends, no where in the world is there a perfect spouse who is one hundred percent of the time securely attached, yet we all know secure attachment is what we ALL truly want. In this clarifying and practical episode, Christa walks you through every Enneagram type and ways they can move from the shadows of anxious and avoidant attachment to finding deeper security. It takes a bit of healthy risk,
Brave Love, Great Sex - Healing Attachment Shadows in the Bedroom w/Laurie Watson, Ph.D., Type 2
Most couples have deep desire for sensual and intimate love in the bedroom, and today we're looking at perhaps. the biggest shadow, your attachment shadows in the bedroom with best-selling author Dr. Laurie Watson, Ph.D, (2-9 pairing). We get to talk personality a bit here as Dr. Laurie learns about the Enneagram with us but the foremost (and fascinating) conversation here is about how to bring yo
Buried, Not Gone: Rediscovering the Spark You Thought You Lost
To kick off a special Sexy September with Date Your Spouse and a whole collective of marriage voices, Christa reframes fading desire as something covered over rather than lost. Drawing on the dual control model of desire, she shows that most couples don't have a broken accelerator, they have a brake pressed to the floor by stress, resentment, routine, and feeling unseen, plus the hidden shadow lay
Big Feelings, Safe Places: The Shadow of Emotion in Marriage, with Bailey Gillespie, 4
Almost all of us carry a shadow around our own feelings, either we fear them, stuff them down, or let them flood a room until no one can hear each other anymore. In this warm and honest convo, Christa welcomes writer Bailey Gillespie to talk about the shadow of big emotions, and how to bring real containment and boundaries to our feelings without silencing them. Bailey and her husband navigate a r
The Shadows That Cost You Closeness For Every Type
We're deep in our month on shadow work, and this one gets personal. Your shadow is the part of you that you'd rather not look at, the old reactions, fears, and wounds running beneath the surface, formed long before you ever met your spouse. And here's the catch: what we won't look at, we tend to act out, usually on the person closest to us. In this episode Christa explores how your shadow shows up
Couples in the Shadow of Addiction, with Caroline Beidler, MSW, Type 1w9
Addiction rarely stays in one person, it touches the whole family, and it casts a long shadow over marriages, parents, children, and homes. As we continue our month on shadow work, Christa welcomes Caroline Beidler, author, speaker, and Managing Editor of Recovery.com, for an honest and hopeful conversation about loving someone in recovery, with a non-shaming yet healthy boundaried stance as neede
NEW Sept Series: The Shadow Side of Selflessness
Serving is beautiful, but there's a shadow side to it, the point where selflessness turns into self-erasure and a person, more often a woman, slowly disappears inside their own marriage or role. In this episode, Christa gently names coercive control, the slow stripping away of a person's freedom, voice, and even their grip on reality, and how it can hide behind spiritual words and show up alongsid
Subscriber Series (FREE): The Two Shadows in Every Type: Overly Controlling and Complying
Here in this (free) subscriber series episode, Christa goes deeper into how self-erasure takes root for each of the nine types in this subscriber episode released for our entire audience. For a lot of women, it started early, praised for being easy, agreeable, and self-sacrificing, until saying no felt impossible. That's not always humility. Sometimes it's a wound wearing the costume of virtue. Sh
When You're Too Weary for the Work, with Amy Wicks, 7
So many this 2026 are bone-tired, pouring themselves out for everyone around them until there is nothing left, and then feeling guilty for having no energy left for the inner work they know matters, especially if they're going to have anything to bring to their spouse or familiy. In this warm and honest conversation, Christa welcomes Amy Wicks to talk about the conference she has created just for
The Gift Your Marriage Never Knew It Needed: A Full You
As we have named what our spouses cannot carry for us, now we turn the corner to the best gift your marriage never knew it needed, and it is not a date night or a new technique, it is a full you. If your spouse cannot give you your worth, your aliveness, or your sense of purpose, then where do these things actually come from? Christa explores the needs that do not disappear when we stop asking our
When Parenting Takes Everything, with Abbey Howe, 3
When the kids need everything, there is often very little left over for the marriage, and yet if our family is going to make it, fighting for it is your work to do. To this end, Christa welcomes Abbey Howe, theater graduate, beloved Enneagram voice, and the mind behind memes that have made so many of us laugh and feel seen on IG and YouTube, for a real talk about marriage in the thick of the paren
What Your Spouse Can and Can't Hold (Mind the Gap!)
As we're talking about all month, every marriage has gaps and seasons where connection runs thin or a need goes unspoken for too long. As you're learning to healthily differentiate, don't move so far away that you lose sight of the connections you DO need to have. Find where your healthy and unhealthy gaps are right here and make the healthiest move for you and your family as we learn together in
Grief, Remarriage, and the Love That Lasts, with Clarissa Moll, 6
This is a special and tender episode to close our month on what our spouses can and cannot carry for us, because some things, like grief, are simply too heavy for any one person to hold alone. Christa welcomes the award-winning writer and podcaster Clarissa Moll, who produces and moderates Christianity Today's flagship news podcast, The Bulletin, and who has become one of the most trusted voice
Your Virtue, Your Vice, and Awakening to Your True Purposes
So much of what we hand our spouse to fix is really our own inner work in disguise. In this episode, Christa turns to two of the most useful words the Enneagram gives us: your vice and your virtue. Your vice is the emotional pattern that runs the show under stress, the overused survival strategy of your type, and your virtue is the higher quality that naturally emerges as you heal and grow.
We'l
The Blind Spots Between Us, with Beatrice Chestnut, 2
Christa welcomes the beloved Beatrice Chestnut, one of the most respected voices in the Enneagram world, for a rich conversation on the three centers of intelligence, the body, the heart, and the head, and how each one shapes the way we love, fight, and connect in relationships.
So much of what we wrongly ask our spouse to carry comes from the parts of ourselves we have not yet done our own work
Where Our Deeper Needs Really Belong with Coach Linda Hannigan, 3
This week Christa welcomes Linda Hannigan, 3 (3-1 pairing), an Enneagram and Marriage certified coach, gifted orator, and truth teller whose candor and artistry make her a joy to learn from. Together they continue the August question of what our spouses can and cannot carry for us, and where our deeper needs actually belong. Linda brings her signature honesty, willing to talk openly about the stre
Feeling Unnoticed in Marriage: What Your Spouse Can't Do for You
So many of us have handed our spouse a job description they were never meant to fill, to notice our every need, validate our worth, provide our purpose, and keep us feeling seen, alive, and whole. And when they fall short, we feel unnoticed, disappointed, and we start to wonder if something is wrong with the marriage. In this opening series episode, Christa asks a different question: what if the p
The Intimacy of Being Believed In: The Michelangelo Effect
Close partners sculpt one another by drawing out each other's ideal self, as we learn from the Michelangelo phenomenon, we find that couples who idealize each other are more likely to last and even grow into the best version the other sees in them, Christa explores how love, at its healthiest, is not blind but prescient. She also names the wise center of it all: we are not called to flatter a par
The Body Keeps the Score in the Bedroom: Intimacy, Safety, and Learning to Regulate
We often treat physical intimacy as something that happens only in the moment, but the body carries far more than the moment. It carries our history, our stress, and our old wounds, everything it has learned about whether it is safe to open. Drawing on Bessel van der Kolk's landmark work, The Body Keeps the Score, Christa explores how stress and trauma live not just in the mind but in the body its
How The Odyssey Maps the Journey of Your Own Growth
Many Enneagram teachers have used the Odyssey as a way to talk through the nine types, since there are nine temptations, nine believable reasons to never make it home. Yet each island of trials offers the hero (you!) a real gift of virtue, if you can look past the trap of the very thing keeping you from home. When we instead finally face God and the open sea, when we finally humble ourselves, virt
When Sex Feels Like One More Thing to Do
Here Christa turns to a different weight so many couples carry: what happens when the body is simply depleted, exhausted, touched-out, and running on empty, and sex stops feeling like connection and starts feeling like one more thing on an endless list. Going under the hood of the dual control model, she explains why exhaustion is one of the most powerful brakes on desire there is, why the deplete
The Art of (Married) Seduction w/Dr. Anna Elton, PhD
Seduction inside a long marriage sounds like a contradiction, and Dr. Anna Elton is here to tell us it is anything but. In this rich conversation, Christa welcomes Dr. Elton to unpack her framework for what she calls the desire equilibrium, the idea that desire is not one thing but three: desiring yourself, desiring your partner, and letting yourself feel wanted. Most couples pour all their energy
Beloved and Imperfect: Meredith Hite Estevez, Loving One Another As Works of God's Art
As a special invitation in the middle of our summer exploring desire and intimacy in marriage, Christa pauses to learn from and to share an experience with a soulful friend, welcoming Meredith Hite Estevez, a Juilliard-trained oboist, writer, creative coach, and Enneagram Type 4 married to a Type 7, for a conversation about her beautiful new book, Art Is How God Loves Us. Meredith reframes art no
Play as a Path Back to Desire: How Fun Reignites Your Sexual Intimacy
Today, Christa reveals the surprising other half of the connection coin when it comes to sexual intimacy: desire does not only need safety, it needs aliveness. Christa names the play deficit that creeps into long marriages as we become expert co-managers of a household and forget how to delight in each other, and shares Amy Muise's fascinating research on self-expansion, the finding that novel, cr
Seen, Known, and Wanted: The Three Keys to Real Sexual Intimacy
Why do so many couples feel stuck in the bedroom even after decades of marriage? Christa goes straight at the real reason in this episode, the armor we put on to avoid being truly seen. Being physically intimate with your spouse asks something genuinely brave of us, to be seen not just in body but in our wanting, our desire, our reaching, and most of us have gotten very good at hiding those tender
Afterglow: The 48 Hours That Change Your Marriage
We tend to think of physical intimacy as a moment, here and then gone. But the research reveals it is actually a window, a lingering afterglow that lasts up to forty-eight hours, and what happens inside that window may matter even more than the moment itself. In this episode Christa unpacks Andrea Meltzer's fascinating research on sexual afterglow, the finding that satisfaction stays elevated for
Initiation: Who Reaches, Who Pulls Back, and Why
Almost every couple navigates it, and almost nobody talks about it openly: the vulnerable dance of initiation. Who reaches for whom, who tends to pull back, and the quiet hurt that builds around it over the years. In this tender and practical episode, Christa brings one of the most unspoken dynamics in marriage into the light. She explains why the lower-initiating partner is so often not less inte
Lighting (Safe but Sexy) Fireworks in Your Marriage
Today we open the July series on sexual intimacy, and there's no better week for lighting the (safe but sexy) fireworks. Not the ones in the sky, the ones in your marriage. Christa dismantles the myth that real passion just strikes like lightning and reveals what the thriving couples actually know: fireworks are built, not stumbled upon, and synthesizes her decades of experience of working with co
The Foundation Before the (Sexual) Fireworks
This is the turning point of the Summer of Intimacy, the bridge from everything we have built in June into the sexual intimacy series beginning in July. But this episode names something deeper that has been happening all along. All month, Christa has not been teaching you to try harder at your marriage, she has been guiding you toward second-order change, a concept from family systems work that me
Two Essential Paths to Intimacy: Joy and Connection
In this crowning summer episode every listener needs to lean in for, Christa unpacks the two paths back to each other: connection, the path of being deeply known, grounded in John Gottman's research on love maps and turning toward bids, and joy, the path of shared aliveness, grounded in Arthur Aron's self-expansion studies on novelty and lasting passion. You will learn why you and your spouse may
25 Years In: What I've Learned About Intimacy
Today Christa talks through 25 years of marriage to Wes - and instead of a typical teaching episode, we're reflecting on the story arc of marriages that thrive. Christa shares a lessonn about her own parents and their 25th, that didn't go the way she expected, what her dad unwittingly taught her about really seeing the person you love, and what 25 years has shown her about intimacy. She also share
What to Do When Sharing Backfires: Emotional Processing Containers
When you finally open up and say the vulnerable thing that needed to be said and shared, what next? Often, your spouse gets defensive, shuts down, or fires back, and now you're less likely to ever share again. This is one of the most common and heartbreaking cycles in marriage: vulnerability that backfires actually creates MORE hiding, not less. In this episode of the Summer of Intimacy series, Ch
Subscriber Series: The Container Method - Emotional Safety for Every Type in Marriage (Free to All This Week!)
This week's deep dive is FREE for everyone, and we mean everyone. Whether you're a longtime Collective member or brand new here, this one's a gift. We're going deeper into emotional processing containers, but this time we're breaking it down by Enneagram type. We cover every type in marriage: what backfires for each, what container works best, and how to create emotional safety with your specific
Hiding in Your Marriage: What It's Quietly Costing Your Connection
Do you tell your spouse every sip of coffee, every flirt at the grocery store, every small moment of frustration? Probably not, and that is not automatically a problem. But there is a real difference between healthy discretion and quiet hiding, and when we do the latter, it costs us more than we realize. This week we are opening up the question of what we share, what we keep to ourselves, and why.
The Tiny Moments That Make or Break Your Marriage: Emotional Bids
What if the thing that determines whether your marriage thrives or slowly fades isn't the big fights or the grand gestures, but the hundred tiny moments in between? In this episode, Christa unpacks one of Gottman's most important and least-talked-about discoveries: emotional bids. Every day your spouse is making small, quiet requests for connection, and you're either turning toward them, away from
How to Stop Assuming the Worst About Your Spouse: Positive Sentiment Override
What if the distance you feel in your marriage isn't about love at all, but about a bank account that has quietly run low? In episode three of the Summer of Intimacy series, Christa dives into one of Gottman's most powerful research findings, positive sentiment override, and the hidden force that erodes it faster than almost anything else: mental load. If you have been quicker to snap, quicker to
The Emotional Intimacy Secret Behind Couples Who Last
The couples who drift apart are rarely the ones fighting the most, they are the ones who simply stopped being curious. In this episode, Christa unpacks the love maps research and then hands you the exact questions each Enneagram type secretly longs to be asked, the kind of conversation starters made for a porch swing, a long summer drive, or those quiet few minutes at the end of the day. She also
The Summer of Intimacy Starter Special
As we reflect on what irt really takes to create long-lasting, satisfying love, this summer season, we're coming into a place of focus, and this kickstarter episode launches the Summer of Intimacy, sixteen episodes across June and July covering every layer of what it means to be truly known and truly chosen by your spouse. June goes deep into emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and playful intimac
Limerence Uncovered: When Romantic Obsession Replaces Real Love w/Author Amanda McCracken
Meet author, New York Times viral writer, and wife/mom Amanda McCracken, the woman who sat beside Katie Couric and was told she had 'fairytale princess syndrome' as she dreamed of romantic love. This comment launched a ten year research journey that became the book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover: Breaking from Infatuation, Rejection, and Perfectionism to Find Authentic Love, that we're talking
Hormones, Marriage, and Shifting Desire: Dr. Cathleen Gerenger, 7, on Thriving When Everything Changes
After a car accident sent her on a deeply personal journey into bodywork and healing, Dr. Cathleen Gerenge, Type 7, discovered that the path to thriving was not just clinical but deeply embodied, and that lesson changed the way she practices and the way she lives, and she brings her brilliance to us about thyroid, specific hormones, and taking care of us, just as she too found results and also the
The Science of Staying in Love: Novel and Creative Events
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 marriag
Love Is Blind Star Kelly Chase: When a Type 3 Finally Comes Home to Herself (And Stops Self-Abandonment)
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 wa
Up Close and Personal w/Milana Vayntrub, Type 7, Project Hail Mary, Finding Rest, and Growing Into Your Best Self
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
When Your Hormones Are Costing Your Health and Family w/Dr. Alicia Newsome, Type 3
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 i
Taking Care of You So You Can Bear Witness to Each Other
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
Finding Strength in Marriage When Your Health Fails w/Sydney Bennett
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 br
Finding Your Healthy Voice in Your Marriage w/Jamie and Ruthie Slingerland, 7-9 Pairing
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
How We Really Fight - And Heal: A Conflict Masterclass w/Russ Hudson (Shock Points, Harmonics & the Instincts)
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
Same Conversation, Different Experience: Why Couples Miss Each Other w/Jason VanRuler, 2
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
When the Past Shows Up in Your Marriage: Narrative-Focused Trauma Care w/Dan Allender & Steve Call (8-9 Pairing and 3-4 Pairing)
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 d
Learning to Love & Forgive One Another in a Divisive World w/Jessica Claire Bond (Salt & Light Collection)
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. T
How to Apologize By Type + Using Your Stress Arrow in Conflict
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 o
Too Tired to Process: Quick Conflict Wins for Overwhelmed Couples
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 reconnec
From Communication to Story: What Your Conflict Is Really About w/Chris Bruno, 8 & Tracy Johnson, 8
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,
The Mountain of Marriage Conflict: How Your Harmony Group Fights
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/
Finding Main Character Energy in the Family System w/Randi Zuckerberg, Type 7 (7-6 Pairing)
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
Cycle Breakers: Raising Kids Who Don't Repeat Your Story
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 aroun
An Enneagram Quiz Built for Marriage w/Wes Hardin, 1
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 differen
Emotional Cutoff Versus Healthy Boundaries: When You Stop Talking
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 frame
From Silenced to Strong - Finding A Healthy Path w/Couples Therapist Shane Birkel, 7
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 ma
Why Your Nervous System Still Reacts to Family (And What We Can Work On)
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 fami
Reigniting Polarity: Overfunctioning, Underfunctioning & Desire w/Andrea Clark
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 t
The Family Ledger: What You're Holding Onto & What You Need to Release
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
The Longing Inside: How Family Systems Shapes Love and Sexual Desire w/Jay Stringer, 3 (3-4 Pairing)
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
Listener Requested Interview Flip: Christa’s Work in Marriage & Family Systems w/Hannah Hardin, 4
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
How Your Type Processes Conflict (Attachment Series Finale) w/Jeff Cook, 1
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 p
What Secure Attachment Actually Looks Like (And What To Do to Get It!)
In this episode, Christa breaks down one of the most hopeful concepts in attachment theory: earned secure attachment. You are NOT stuck with the attachment style you developed in childhood. Whether you're anxious, avoidant, or disorganized, you can actually rewire your brain and nervous system to respond differently in relationships. Christa dives into the six-step roadmap to earning secure attac
Don't Settle for Lonely: Relationships Your Soul Needs Now w/Alli Patterson, Type 8
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
Valentine's Special: Attachment Styles Meet Enneagram for Every Type ❤️
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 ch
This Little Fire of Mine: Addressing Doubt as You Build a Bolder Faith w/Kendall Mariah, Type 3
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
Attachment: Anxious Meets Avoidant - The Most Common (and Painful) Dance in Marriage
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 draw
Using Your Voice in Marriage: The Cost of Being Too Quiet w/Colette Jane Fehr, Type 7
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 optimi
When Instincts Turn Dark: Staying Human in Hard Times
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
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