{"id":306663,"date":"2021-01-05T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T11:26:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T16:26:43","slug":"cultivating-joy-in-marriage","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultivating Joy in Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Marcus Warner and Reverend Chris Coursey encourage couples to cultivate joy in their marriage. They point out recent discoveries in brain science that are shown to increase joy in couples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Marcus Warner and Reverend Chris Coursey encourage couples to cultivate joy in their marriage. They encourage couples to sow seeds of joy for a more satisfying marriage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"https:\/\/mp3.familylife.com\/fl2021-01-05.mp3","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:28:56","filesize":"26.5M","filesize_raw":"27786102","date_recorded":"2021-01-05 07:00:05","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2885,2862],"tags":[2877],"podcast_series":[8330],"cwp_profile":[9589,9588],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-306663","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-good-marriages-made-better","category-understanding-differences","tag-marriage","podcast_series-the-4-habits-of-joy-filled-marriages","cwp_profile-chris-coursey","cwp_profile-marcus-warner","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/306663\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/306663\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"nhvNs9Ey9s\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage\/\">Cultivating Joy in Marriage<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/cultivating-joy-in-marriage\/embed\/#?secret=nhvNs9Ey9s\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Cultivating Joy in Marriage&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"nhvNs9Ey9s\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"spectra_custom_meta":{"_wp_page_template":["default"],"transcript_url":["https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2021-01-05.pdf"],"audio_file":["https:\/\/mp3.familylife.com\/fl2021-01-05.mp3"],"transcript_content":["<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Marcus Warner remembers the season when his marriage wasn't bad, it just wasn't <em>great<\/em>. He went to work to try to figure out, \u201cWhat's wrong here?\u201d And here's what he came up with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> We had what we call a joy gap in our marriage; that is, a joy gap is simply the amount of time between moments when you share joy together. What I found was that I was not doing things on a daily basis that let my wife know, \u201cI'm happy to be with you.\u201d We weren't sharing that look into each other's eyes and have that sparkle. We weren't sharing that touch; sharing those things. It wasn't a regular feature of our marriage, and I had no expectation that it should be. I did not <em>realize<\/em> that this joy gap in our marriage had gotten quite so big.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> This is <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> for Tuesday, January 5<sup>th<\/sup>. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You\u2019ll find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Is there a joy gap in your marriage? And if there is, how do you fix it? We'll talk with Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey about that today. Stay with us.<\/p>\n<p>And welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. Thanks for joining us. I think we're going to find out what happens today if FamilyLife<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> and Marie Kondo have a mash-up, you know? Because Marie\u2014you know; what's her big thing? You know Marie Kondo; right? [Pause] Do you not know who Marie Kondo is?!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Bob, I don't know who you're talking about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>No, I don't either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Nobody is this room knows who you're talking about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Our guests don't know. Marie Kondo is the woman who's teaching you how to organize everything in your house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Oh, the closet girl.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Oh, yes!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>It's all about, \u201cDoes it spark <em>joy<\/em>?\u201d\u2014that's what it is\u2014so you pick up your old t-shirts and you ask, \u201cDoes this spark joy?\u201d And if it does, you keep it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Wait, wait, wait. Is this a real thing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> If it's not, you don't keep it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>It's a real thing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Is she Japanese? Is this that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Okay, my daughter watches her all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Yes, she is big! I forgot. I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> She is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>You pick up items in your closet, and you decide to keep them or throw them away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>I watched Episode 1 on Netflix<sup>\u00ae<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> She came into these people's house and had them empty out their closets on their bed. Then you go, item by item, and you hold it up and you go, \u201cDoes this still spark joy?\u201d If it does spark joy, you keep it; and if it doesn't, you say, \u201cThank you\u201d\u2014to it\u2014\u201cfor serving me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>It's almost like you bless it for serving you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Then you put it in the pile, so it can bless somebody else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>You don't do this with your spouse or your kids; do you? [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> That's Season 2. [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> We're talking today about sparking joy in marriage: <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages<\/em>. We've got the authors of a book by that name who are joining us\u2014Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey. Marcus\/Chris\u2014welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> It's great to be here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Good to have you guys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Marcus is a conference speaker and author. He's the president of Deeper Walk International, working with issues of recovery, and leadership, and marriage and family life. Chris is president of THRIVEtoday, which is a nonprofit that focuses on training leaders in communities on relationship skills.<\/p>\n<p>Together, they've worked on this book that says on the front: <em>15 Minutes a Day Will Help You Stay in Love<\/em>. That's one of those things you put on the front of a book, because somebody will say, \u201cI'll buy that book if it will tell me how to stay in love in 15 minutes a day.\u201d Pretty bold promise. What's that based on, Marcus?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> It's based on the fact that intentionality\u201415 minutes of actually being happy to be with somebody\u2014can do things in your brain that you might not expect. If you make it a habit\u201415 minutes a day, day after day after day\u2014your brain chemistry literally changes. Your attachment can move out of the fear mode and more and more into the joy mode.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Chris, you've looked at brain science; and there's a lot of brain science in this book, but we should start off by saying the brain science is just affirming what Scripture says is true about the human condition all along; right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> You're exactly right. There are a lot of references in the Bible to joy. What brain science is doing is highlighting the significance of joy, because joy means we're glad to be together. It's a relationship.<\/p>\n<p>It's really interesting to look at Scripture with this lens\u2014a relational lens\u2014of this \u201cglad-to-be-together\u201d joy. We have a God who's really glad to be with His people. It's good to see brain science really starting to highlight that, \u201cWow! Our brain works <em>best<\/em> when joy is there; when joy is present.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Yes, I found it fascinating, as I picked up your book. I feel like I\u2019m with two brainiacs today; right? Is that what you guys are?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Absolutely, just think of us like that! [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> There you go.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, it is interesting\u2014I haven't seen a lot of marriage books that start with brain science, and how our brain works, and how that affects your relationships and your marriage. Talk about this: how the brain works, brain science, and even the motivator that sparks something good in your marriage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Well, in the 1990s, all this brain science came out, because technology had advanced where they could now scan the human brain while people are alive. They didn't have to wait until people died. What happened is that you could see, really, how the brain works, and you could actually observe changes in the brain, as well, over time.<\/p>\n<p>This guy by the name of Dr. Allan Schore, out of UCLA, just spent a lot of time in a library, pulling together <em>all<\/em> this brain research. As we looked at all this research that came out, he highlighted something very significant about the brain; and that was, when you look at how the brain works, relational joy is what it's all about. In other words, from even before we are born\u2014actually, while we are still in the womb\u2014with just the sounds and everything, to when babies are born and different senses develop, joy is that feeling that someone is glad to be with me.<\/p>\n<p>He looked at joy\u2014really is the best motivator for the brain. In other words, if you want to build a <em>really<\/em> good brain and develop a really good brain, what you need to have present\u2014one of the very important ingredients has to be\u2014this \u201cglad to be together,\u201d where, \u201cYou are the sparkle in my eye.\u201d I show it with my face, and my voice tone, and my body language, and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>Just looking at how significant joy is on a human brain really impacted Marcus and [me] as we started to try to figure out, \u201cOkay; how could we share this news in a very useful resource, where people can actually, not just talk about joy, but <em>build<\/em> some joy in their marriages?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> What you're describing is the wedding day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> When a couple looks at each other, all you see is <em>joy<\/em> emanating from one another, and love, and anticipation of the future. Dave and I have been working with couples for 30 years, and then we find this couple that's been married maybe 15 years, and there's <em>no joy<\/em>; so what happened?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Well, what happened with you, Marcus?\u2014because 11 years into your marriage, you had a no-joy evening with your wife; right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>Yes, absolutely. I was a pastor, and decided we were going to do the date night thing. Our first three dates ended in fights. So, at dinner one night, my wife starts giving me the image that's in her mind of feeling like she's in a cave; there are bars in front of the cave. I'm outside, and basically ignoring her and occasionally throwing her scraps.<\/p>\n<p>You can tell the tears are starting to come for her as she's telling me this. I am so detached from my right hemisphere\u2014completely in the left part of my brain\u2014that I'm getting angry as she tells me this. I'm not feeling compassion. I'm feeling like, \u201cHere I am, taking you on a date night. You don't understand the sacrifices I make for you. You don't understand the priority I'm putting on this,\u201d and \u201cYou feel like you're getting scraps.\u201d I'm getting <em>angry<\/em> while she's pouring out her heart, wanting me to feel compassion.<\/p>\n<p>All of a sudden, she said, \u201cWait a second; wait a second.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat?\u201d She said, \u201cJesus just showed up in my picture.\u201d I'm like, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d She said, \u201cHe just unlocked the gate and let me out.\u201d She goes, \u201cI don't know what this means, but I feel different.\u201d I was still mad [Laughter], which kind of shows you where my emotional maturity was at that particular point.<\/p>\n<p>What had happened was what we call a joy gap in our marriage; that is, a joy gap is simply the amount of time between moments when you share joy together. What I found was that I was not doing things on a daily basis that let my wife know that, \u201cI'm happy to be with you.\u201d I did not <em>realize<\/em> that this joy gap in our marriage had gotten quite so big. It was shortly after that, that we began discovering the brain science that put words and language into what we were experiencing and began to give some tracks to run on to begin repairing that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> So, did you just, you know, the next day, go, \u201cI need these practices in my marriage,\u201d and \u201cI'm going to look and bring a sparkle back,\u201d and \u201cI'm going to touch her hand,\u201d and that whole thing? Take us on a journey of the brain science that really impacted <em>your<\/em> marriage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Sure. Well, I didn't know any of this brain science at that point, so we hadn't learned it yet. I discovered it in a different context, began bringing it in, and all of a sudden, when we understood the importance of joy, I realized, \u201cOkay, so what I'm after<\/p>\n<p>in my marriage is actually joy.\u201d It just changed my whole paradigm, because before, when my wife and I would have a fight, I would go into what I call my mental man cave. You know, I'd just go into this room, and I would sit here and feel sorry for myself and tell myself how unlucky I was that I had a wife like this.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, now, I began to realize, actually, what has happened is that half of my brain has shut down and is not working. Now, when I'm tempted to go into that mental man cave, I have a very different paradigm; and that is, my task now is to get my brain completely back online: \u201cHow do I get my brain re-engaged so I can act like myself here?\u201d\u2014because, actually, if I think about it, I'm not acting like myself right now; I've turned into a different person.<\/p>\n<p>Learning the brain science gave me some terminology to put to this and say, \u201cI have an on\/off switch in my brain; and when it goes off, I turn into a different person; I don't act like myself. I can't find joy; I can't find appreciation; I forget why I like you. I forget why I even got married to you in the first place.\u201d I'm going to have to do some things in those moments to get that switch flipped back on, so that I can, once again, even <em>feel<\/em> appreciation, and feel curiosity, and feel some of these things. It was a journey to get there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> But how do you do that? I mean, if you're sitting around going, \u201cI would rather watch ESPN than talk to my wife. I'm not feeling any joy. I'm kind of isolated,\u201d\u2014how do I flip the switch so that\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>Yes, I think every listener is like, \u201cTell me how to flip this switch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes, right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> I actually don't think my switch works. [Laughter] I\u2019ve flipped it and flipped it. No, I'm thinking that a lot of us think that: \u201cI have tried, and it just doesn't flip\u201d; so how do I do this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> One of the best ways to do this is by focusing on remembering the good stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Appreciation is what we call \u201cpackaged joy.\u201d If my wife and I are in an \u201coff\u201d space, one of the things that will help, once we quiet, would be to remember, think about, and share: \u201cWhat were some special moments? What were some good things from your day?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For example, every evening in my household, my wife and I will do an exercise that\u2019s in this book\u2014we call it \u201cHappy and Sad\u201d\u2014we do this with my sons: \u201cSo what were three things from your day that were good?\u201d \u201cOh, I had this <em>great<\/em> moment! I met some new friends, and we got to talk about joy.\u201d I'd share the three things, and then we would talk about what made us sad from the day as well. For every sad thing, we'd have to do three joyful things\/three good things.<\/p>\n<p>When that switch is off, just doing this exercise is remarkable. At the end of the day, dinnertime's stressful. Our family\u2019s switch is probably flickering; but after this exercise, the switch is on; everybody's engaged: we're smiling; we're laughing.<\/p>\n<p>The goal, if you can\u2014take a little bit of time, even if it's just <em>three minutes<\/em>\u2014to think about, talk about, and <em>feel<\/em> the good stuff, and notice, \u201cHow are you feeling as you remembered that fun getaway that we had on the beach?\u201d It's <em>amazing<\/em> what can happen. The goal is that I have to <em>feel<\/em> it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> I'm not necessarily having to go get out the photo albums and say, \u201cLet's remember a fun thing <em>we<\/em> did together.\u201d If I just talk about what's brought <em>me<\/em> joy today, whether you've been involved in that or not, you're saying that kind of opens up the whole joy capacity, and it starts to happen <em>between<\/em> us?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Yes, so if I'm offline, and my wife is online, I can even just think about those good things from <em>my<\/em> day, but what happens is, when you share it with your partner, you get more mileage out of it. In other words, the switch is kind of brighter, so to speak. My goal would be: \u201cI want to get my switch on.\u201d And then my goal would be for my wife and [me]: \u201cOkay; now, let's talk about some <em>shared<\/em> moments.\u201d That's just going to give you <em>more<\/em> mileage in that joy moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>Let me add to that too. In our book, we have a very concrete answer to your question; which is, \u201cHow do you get the switch back on?\u201d That is that, first, you disengage and acknowledge that, \u201cI'm disengaged.\u201d But you use your disengagement to try to <em>find<\/em> four things: curiosity, appreciation, kindness, and eye contact: CAKE.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> CAKE\u2014I like all your acrostics in the book. [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>He\u2019s an acrostic guy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> That's how my brain works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> There you go. It's like I can't remember anything without them, so that's why we have that in there. You notice that, when your switch goes off, \u201cI lose all curiosity about you,\u201d and partly because I think I have you all figured out; right? In marriages, that's really common; it's like: \u201cI already know what you think about this,\u201d \u201cI already know how you feel about this,\u201d \u201cI have no curiosity about what you think, because you <em>always<\/em> do this, and you <em>never<\/em> do that,\u201d\u2014or whatever\u2014so I have no curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>If I don't have curiosity, my switch goes off; and I need curiosity to get it back on. One of the things I do when I disengage\u2014is I'm looking for\u2014\u201cIs there anything I can be curious about here? Let's use some curiosity to re-engage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second one is appreciation, which is really where Chris is camping out here; because appreciation, whether it's <em>for<\/em> that person or not, helps to get what we call your \u201crelational brain circuits\u201d back on. That gets your switch back on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>So walk me through this. Dave and I really struggled around our ten-year anniversary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Our ten-year anniversary was a little bit like your eleven-year date.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>Yes; so let's say I go back, and I think, \u201cThese are the things that I <em>used<\/em> to appreciate [about] Dave.\u201d I could see myself opening a picture album and thinking, \u201cOh, he used to be blah, blah, blah,\u201d and \u201cHe used to be\u2026.\u201d; but \u201c<em>Now<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> You know what I mean? How do we get out of that? Because I'm thinking, \u201cHe's <em>none<\/em> of those things <em>now<\/em>.\u201d I think a lot of people could say that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Well, the good news is God designed our brain that it can update. When this joy part of our brain is on, you can update, and say, \u201cYes, this is how it <em>feels<\/em>, but <em>maybe<\/em> this can change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even trying to build some joy in the present, actually, and noticing, \u201cHow do you feel right now?\u201d You just spent five minutes together, doing this fun joy exercise. Now, let's talk about: \u201cHow does it feel? If I were in your shoes right now, what would I be thinking?\u2014what would I be feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The moment you do something that's joyful, but then you kind of pay attention to it and go, \u201cOh! Well, that was fun!\u201d That, basically, is like putting some cement into that memory for your brain, going, \u201cOh, this is good. This is really good.\u201d It's actually letting your brain update when you start to notice, \u201cHey, this was meaningful; this was special. I really enjoyed what you shared about me. That made me feel loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, how does it feel that we did that?\u201d That's why every exercise in the book has this component of, not just physically connecting, like holding hands or something, but also, pay attention to how you <em>feel<\/em>. It's like your brain is going, \u201cOh, okay. Even though this isn't how it's <em>always<\/em> felt, this is how it <em>used<\/em> to feel.\u201d Your brain always looks back in order to predict the future.<\/p>\n<p>In those moments your brain's looking back and going, \u201cOh, yes, this is just how he is,\u201d and \u201cI feel pretty discouraged right now. Is this ever going to change?\u201d Well, with a little bit of joy, what happens is your brain says, \u201cOkay, let me look forward now. Let's see what's around the corner. Maybe there's something good here. Maybe there's hope.\u201d The moment you get hope into the equation, that's a <em>really<\/em> good thing to have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>There are two other points I'd make on that. First of all, whenever you're doing an appreciation exercise, we have one firm rule and that is, \u201cThere is one forbidden word whenever you do appreciation, and that is the word, \u2018but,\u2019\u201d\u2014okay? You can't say, \u201cI really appreciated when you did this, and when you used to do that,<em> but<\/em> you don't do this anymore.\u201d You're not allowed to say that when you share appreciation with people; because, obviously, it pulls the rug right out from under it. It also does it for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you find yourself, in your mind, having a lot of these \u201c\u2026buts\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> \u2014that becomes an opportunity for prayer. Now, what you do is, you take that to God and say, \u201cWhat perspective do You want to give me about this thing that I'm feeling about my husband right now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I find that the devil wants to give us a narrative, and the Holy Spirit wants to give us a narrative. Where we have those problems with our spouse, is often where those narratives collide; and without realizing it, because the devil's narrative <em>feels<\/em> true, and there's evidence to support it, I don't realize how fully I've bought into that narrative.<\/p>\n<p>When you do find that coming up, this is a good opportunity to back up and say, \u201cGod, has the devil been influencing my narrative here?\u201d and \u201cDo you have another one for me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Tell me this: what do you do when you feel like, \u201cI\u2019m trying to flip on the switch. I realize I\u2019m off; I\u2019m discouraged, I\u2019m mad; there\u2019s <em>no<\/em> joy! I\u2019m supposed to, right now, flip the switch and be curious and be appreciative. I can\u2019t! I\u2019m stuck!\u201d Even if you\u2019re talking to your seven-year-old, you know, they\u2019re like, \u201cNo! I don\u2019t want to; I\u2019m just stuck!\u201d It\u2019s almost like the power board is disconnected or has been shut down. How do I get out of that <em>rut<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> You know, for some people, they\u2019re high-energy responders; some people are low-energy responders. If you\u2019re a high-energy responder, it might help to go walk; go move. People, you know, will notice if they go for a jog, they actually find it helps to get them back into relational mode pretty fast. Or, for some people, they\u2019re overwhelmed by stimulation or noise, so they have to go find a nice, quiet place with some soft music, and then they can actually do the CAKE that Marcus was talking about.<\/p>\n<p>When couples are going through the exercises in this book, at first, they find, it\u2019s a bit of an uphill climb. It\u2019s work, because they\u2019re used to this switch being off; but what surprises them is, if they\u2019re building some joy and they\u2019re feeling some joy, and they\u2019re actually starting to smile, your brain starts saying, \u201cHey, this is good!\u201d If your brain says, \u201cI like how I feel when this happens,\u201d then your brain wants to do it again and again.<\/p>\n<p>But if our switch is off and we\u2019re just trying to, like, talk it through, your brain is going to say, \u201cThis is <em>not <\/em>fun! I don\u2019t enjoy talking with my wife when our switch is off, and we\u2019re talking about the finances,\u201d or whatever those buttons are. You\u2019re brain just says, \u201cI want to avoid that; therefore, I want to avoid <em>her<\/em>.\u201d The goal is: spark some joy. You\u2019ve got to do it, you know, for a while; that\u2019s why we say 15 minutes per day to start. Just get the joy growing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>What's the first step? If we're talking to a couple today, and they would say, \u201cWe're kind of in the doldrums\/just blah. We're not mad at each other; there's just not a lot of desire\/a lot of joy in our marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>What I would have them do is actually pick an exercise and do an exercise. Here's an exercise I would do: my favorite exercise is what we call \u201cTriple Three Appreciation.\u201d And this exercise started because my wife, when it was time to go to bed, her mind would race and race and race, for up to several hours. With this brain science in mind, I was like, \u201cLet\u2019s try an exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first step of this exercise\u2014we\u2019re lying in bed, so we\u2019re cuddling, and the first step\u2014is, we share three highlights from the day. We're cuddling, and I share these three things. And then Jen, my wife, shares her three things. [Sigh] We're already breathing a little easier; okay? Then, the next step is three qualities I appreciate about my wife. Even though there's another step here, this would be the step for my wife. I could literally feel her body relax. After I shared my three things of what I appreciate about her, physically, her body would relax. She would breathe deeper. She was calming down. It was noticeable. Then she would share her three things about me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Then the third is three qualities we appreciate about God. This exercise would take us, you know, less than 15 minutes. Every time we would do this exercise, my wife would fall asleep within 10-15 minutes. The nights that we wouldn't do the exercise, she could be up for, easily, two hours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>And you're saying, if you looked at the brain as that was happening, it would look different from beginning to end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Yes; because what happens is\u2014the moment you think about an appreciation file\/you remember that special moment\u2014as far as your brain is concerned, your brain is reliving the moment; so this is why the stuff\u2019s so powerful.<\/p>\n<p>It's kind of interesting, because God designed the brain for joy; but you can imagine, what horror movies and scary movies like that [do]. Your brain responds as though you're living those moments. What Marcus and I want to do is help couples learn to amplify the good stuff\/to share the good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>You have, in the book, a number of exercises like this that couples can do that are a part of your 15 minutes a day. This is your new workout for your marriage, to try to grow joy. The book we're talking about is called <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages: How 15 Minutes a Day Will Help You Stay in Love<\/em>. We've got copies of this book in our <em>FamilyLife Today <\/em>Resource Center. You can order the book from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website is FamilyLifeToday.com if you want to order a copy of the book, <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages<\/em>; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to request your copy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And I know many of you have wanted to know about our plans for <em>Weekend to Remember<\/em><sup>\u00ae<\/sup> getaways this spring. We have a handful of getaways scheduled; we\u2019re still adding dates this spring. Of course, all of this is contingent upon restrictions that apply in various locations. You can go to our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to find out more about some of the upcoming getaways that we expect to be having this spring. I should say we expect these getaways will be sold-out; we have limited availability, because of social distancing. If you\u2019re interested in attending a getaway, sign up now and plan to join us for a <em>Weekend to Remember<\/em> this spring.<\/p>\n<p>And for those of you who can\u2019t get to a getaway, we are making plans to send a getaway to you\u2014it\u2019s FamilyLife\u2019s Date Box\u2014that we\u2019re still putting the finishing touches on. It\u2019s a great way for you to have some customized dates that will help unlock some great conversations in your marriage. Again, stay tuned to <em>FamilyLife Today <\/em>for more about the Date Box. It should be out before Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n<p>And we hope you can join us, again, tomorrow when we\u2019re going to talk about communication, and how when communication breaks down in a marriage, so does the joy. What can we do to keep joy at the center of our marital communication, even when we're not seeing things, eye to eye? We\u2019ll talk more about that tomorrow. I hope you can be with us for that.<\/p>\n<p>I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I\u2019m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru<sup>\u00ae <\/sup>Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?<\/p>\n<p>Copyright <sup>\u00a9<\/sup> 2021 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/\">www.FamilyLife.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>1<\/p>\n"],"duration":["00:28:56"],"show_notes":["<ul>\n<li>Find Your Getaway at one of FamilyLife's Weekend to Remember\u00ae marriage getaways.\u00a0 https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/weekend-to-remember<\/li>\n<li>Download FamilyLife's new app! https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/app\/<\/li>\n<li>Find resources from this podcast at https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/Products.aspx?categoryid=130.<\/li>\n<li>Check out all that's available on the FamilyLife Podcast Network.\u00a0 https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/familylife-podcast-network\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n"],"_thumbnail_id":["294104"],"filesize":["26.5M"],"filesize_raw":["27786102"],"_edit_lock":["1738168017:47000"],"_edit_last":["47000"],"theme_header_position":["Sticky"],"post_header_is_sticky":["default"],"is_header_overlay":["0"],"episode_type":["audio"],"date_recorded":["2021-01-05 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Marcus Warner and Reverend Chris Coursey encourage couples to cultivate joy in their marriage. They encourage couples to sow seeds of joy for a more satisfying marriage.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"<ul>\n<li>Find Your Getaway at one of FamilyLife's Weekend to Remember\u00ae marriage getaways.\u00a0 https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/weekend-to-remember<\/li>\n<li>Download FamilyLife's new app! https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/app\/<\/li>\n<li>Find resources from this podcast at https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/Products.aspx?categoryid=130.<\/li>\n<li>Check out all that's available on the FamilyLife Podcast Network.\u00a0 https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/familylife-podcast-network\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2021-01-05.pdf","transcript_content":"<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Marcus Warner remembers the season when his marriage wasn't bad, it just wasn't <em>great<\/em>. He went to work to try to figure out, \u201cWhat's wrong here?\u201d And here's what he came up with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> We had what we call a joy gap in our marriage; that is, a joy gap is simply the amount of time between moments when you share joy together. What I found was that I was not doing things on a daily basis that let my wife know, \u201cI'm happy to be with you.\u201d We weren't sharing that look into each other's eyes and have that sparkle. We weren't sharing that touch; sharing those things. It wasn't a regular feature of our marriage, and I had no expectation that it should be. I did not <em>realize<\/em> that this joy gap in our marriage had gotten quite so big.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> This is <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> for Tuesday, January 5<sup>th<\/sup>. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You\u2019ll find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Is there a joy gap in your marriage? And if there is, how do you fix it? We'll talk with Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey about that today. Stay with us.<\/p>\n<p>And welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. Thanks for joining us. I think we're going to find out what happens today if FamilyLife<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> and Marie Kondo have a mash-up, you know? Because Marie\u2014you know; what's her big thing? You know Marie Kondo; right? [Pause] Do you not know who Marie Kondo is?!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Bob, I don't know who you're talking about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>No, I don't either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Nobody is this room knows who you're talking about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Our guests don't know. Marie Kondo is the woman who's teaching you how to organize everything in your house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Oh, the closet girl.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Oh, yes!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>It's all about, \u201cDoes it spark <em>joy<\/em>?\u201d\u2014that's what it is\u2014so you pick up your old t-shirts and you ask, \u201cDoes this spark joy?\u201d And if it does, you keep it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Wait, wait, wait. Is this a real thing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> If it's not, you don't keep it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>It's a real thing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Is she Japanese? Is this that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Okay, my daughter watches her all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Yes, she is big! I forgot. I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> She is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>You pick up items in your closet, and you decide to keep them or throw them away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>I watched Episode 1 on Netflix<sup>\u00ae<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> She came into these people's house and had them empty out their closets on their bed. Then you go, item by item, and you hold it up and you go, \u201cDoes this still spark joy?\u201d If it does spark joy, you keep it; and if it doesn't, you say, \u201cThank you\u201d\u2014to it\u2014\u201cfor serving me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>It's almost like you bless it for serving you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Then you put it in the pile, so it can bless somebody else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>You don't do this with your spouse or your kids; do you? [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> That's Season 2. [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> We're talking today about sparking joy in marriage: <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages<\/em>. We've got the authors of a book by that name who are joining us\u2014Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey. Marcus\/Chris\u2014welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> It's great to be here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Good to have you guys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Marcus is a conference speaker and author. He's the president of Deeper Walk International, working with issues of recovery, and leadership, and marriage and family life. Chris is president of THRIVEtoday, which is a nonprofit that focuses on training leaders in communities on relationship skills.<\/p>\n<p>Together, they've worked on this book that says on the front: <em>15 Minutes a Day Will Help You Stay in Love<\/em>. That's one of those things you put on the front of a book, because somebody will say, \u201cI'll buy that book if it will tell me how to stay in love in 15 minutes a day.\u201d Pretty bold promise. What's that based on, Marcus?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> It's based on the fact that intentionality\u201415 minutes of actually being happy to be with somebody\u2014can do things in your brain that you might not expect. If you make it a habit\u201415 minutes a day, day after day after day\u2014your brain chemistry literally changes. Your attachment can move out of the fear mode and more and more into the joy mode.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Chris, you've looked at brain science; and there's a lot of brain science in this book, but we should start off by saying the brain science is just affirming what Scripture says is true about the human condition all along; right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> You're exactly right. There are a lot of references in the Bible to joy. What brain science is doing is highlighting the significance of joy, because joy means we're glad to be together. It's a relationship.<\/p>\n<p>It's really interesting to look at Scripture with this lens\u2014a relational lens\u2014of this \u201cglad-to-be-together\u201d joy. We have a God who's really glad to be with His people. It's good to see brain science really starting to highlight that, \u201cWow! Our brain works <em>best<\/em> when joy is there; when joy is present.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Yes, I found it fascinating, as I picked up your book. I feel like I\u2019m with two brainiacs today; right? Is that what you guys are?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Absolutely, just think of us like that! [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> There you go.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, it is interesting\u2014I haven't seen a lot of marriage books that start with brain science, and how our brain works, and how that affects your relationships and your marriage. Talk about this: how the brain works, brain science, and even the motivator that sparks something good in your marriage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Well, in the 1990s, all this brain science came out, because technology had advanced where they could now scan the human brain while people are alive. They didn't have to wait until people died. What happened is that you could see, really, how the brain works, and you could actually observe changes in the brain, as well, over time.<\/p>\n<p>This guy by the name of Dr. Allan Schore, out of UCLA, just spent a lot of time in a library, pulling together <em>all<\/em> this brain research. As we looked at all this research that came out, he highlighted something very significant about the brain; and that was, when you look at how the brain works, relational joy is what it's all about. In other words, from even before we are born\u2014actually, while we are still in the womb\u2014with just the sounds and everything, to when babies are born and different senses develop, joy is that feeling that someone is glad to be with me.<\/p>\n<p>He looked at joy\u2014really is the best motivator for the brain. In other words, if you want to build a <em>really<\/em> good brain and develop a really good brain, what you need to have present\u2014one of the very important ingredients has to be\u2014this \u201cglad to be together,\u201d where, \u201cYou are the sparkle in my eye.\u201d I show it with my face, and my voice tone, and my body language, and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>Just looking at how significant joy is on a human brain really impacted Marcus and [me] as we started to try to figure out, \u201cOkay; how could we share this news in a very useful resource, where people can actually, not just talk about joy, but <em>build<\/em> some joy in their marriages?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> What you're describing is the wedding day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> When a couple looks at each other, all you see is <em>joy<\/em> emanating from one another, and love, and anticipation of the future. Dave and I have been working with couples for 30 years, and then we find this couple that's been married maybe 15 years, and there's <em>no joy<\/em>; so what happened?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> Well, what happened with you, Marcus?\u2014because 11 years into your marriage, you had a no-joy evening with your wife; right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>Yes, absolutely. I was a pastor, and decided we were going to do the date night thing. Our first three dates ended in fights. So, at dinner one night, my wife starts giving me the image that's in her mind of feeling like she's in a cave; there are bars in front of the cave. I'm outside, and basically ignoring her and occasionally throwing her scraps.<\/p>\n<p>You can tell the tears are starting to come for her as she's telling me this. I am so detached from my right hemisphere\u2014completely in the left part of my brain\u2014that I'm getting angry as she tells me this. I'm not feeling compassion. I'm feeling like, \u201cHere I am, taking you on a date night. You don't understand the sacrifices I make for you. You don't understand the priority I'm putting on this,\u201d and \u201cYou feel like you're getting scraps.\u201d I'm getting <em>angry<\/em> while she's pouring out her heart, wanting me to feel compassion.<\/p>\n<p>All of a sudden, she said, \u201cWait a second; wait a second.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat?\u201d She said, \u201cJesus just showed up in my picture.\u201d I'm like, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d She said, \u201cHe just unlocked the gate and let me out.\u201d She goes, \u201cI don't know what this means, but I feel different.\u201d I was still mad [Laughter], which kind of shows you where my emotional maturity was at that particular point.<\/p>\n<p>What had happened was what we call a joy gap in our marriage; that is, a joy gap is simply the amount of time between moments when you share joy together. What I found was that I was not doing things on a daily basis that let my wife know that, \u201cI'm happy to be with you.\u201d I did not <em>realize<\/em> that this joy gap in our marriage had gotten quite so big. It was shortly after that, that we began discovering the brain science that put words and language into what we were experiencing and began to give some tracks to run on to begin repairing that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> So, did you just, you know, the next day, go, \u201cI need these practices in my marriage,\u201d and \u201cI'm going to look and bring a sparkle back,\u201d and \u201cI'm going to touch her hand,\u201d and that whole thing? Take us on a journey of the brain science that really impacted <em>your<\/em> marriage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> Sure. Well, I didn't know any of this brain science at that point, so we hadn't learned it yet. I discovered it in a different context, began bringing it in, and all of a sudden, when we understood the importance of joy, I realized, \u201cOkay, so what I'm after<\/p>\n<p>in my marriage is actually joy.\u201d It just changed my whole paradigm, because before, when my wife and I would have a fight, I would go into what I call my mental man cave. You know, I'd just go into this room, and I would sit here and feel sorry for myself and tell myself how unlucky I was that I had a wife like this.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, now, I began to realize, actually, what has happened is that half of my brain has shut down and is not working. Now, when I'm tempted to go into that mental man cave, I have a very different paradigm; and that is, my task now is to get my brain completely back online: \u201cHow do I get my brain re-engaged so I can act like myself here?\u201d\u2014because, actually, if I think about it, I'm not acting like myself right now; I've turned into a different person.<\/p>\n<p>Learning the brain science gave me some terminology to put to this and say, \u201cI have an on\/off switch in my brain; and when it goes off, I turn into a different person; I don't act like myself. I can't find joy; I can't find appreciation; I forget why I like you. I forget why I even got married to you in the first place.\u201d I'm going to have to do some things in those moments to get that switch flipped back on, so that I can, once again, even <em>feel<\/em> appreciation, and feel curiosity, and feel some of these things. It was a journey to get there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> But how do you do that? I mean, if you're sitting around going, \u201cI would rather watch ESPN than talk to my wife. I'm not feeling any joy. I'm kind of isolated,\u201d\u2014how do I flip the switch so that\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>Yes, I think every listener is like, \u201cTell me how to flip this switch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes, right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> I actually don't think my switch works. [Laughter] I\u2019ve flipped it and flipped it. No, I'm thinking that a lot of us think that: \u201cI have tried, and it just doesn't flip\u201d; so how do I do this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> One of the best ways to do this is by focusing on remembering the good stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Appreciation is what we call \u201cpackaged joy.\u201d If my wife and I are in an \u201coff\u201d space, one of the things that will help, once we quiet, would be to remember, think about, and share: \u201cWhat were some special moments? What were some good things from your day?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For example, every evening in my household, my wife and I will do an exercise that\u2019s in this book\u2014we call it \u201cHappy and Sad\u201d\u2014we do this with my sons: \u201cSo what were three things from your day that were good?\u201d \u201cOh, I had this <em>great<\/em> moment! I met some new friends, and we got to talk about joy.\u201d I'd share the three things, and then we would talk about what made us sad from the day as well. For every sad thing, we'd have to do three joyful things\/three good things.<\/p>\n<p>When that switch is off, just doing this exercise is remarkable. At the end of the day, dinnertime's stressful. Our family\u2019s switch is probably flickering; but after this exercise, the switch is on; everybody's engaged: we're smiling; we're laughing.<\/p>\n<p>The goal, if you can\u2014take a little bit of time, even if it's just <em>three minutes<\/em>\u2014to think about, talk about, and <em>feel<\/em> the good stuff, and notice, \u201cHow are you feeling as you remembered that fun getaway that we had on the beach?\u201d It's <em>amazing<\/em> what can happen. The goal is that I have to <em>feel<\/em> it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob:<\/strong> I'm not necessarily having to go get out the photo albums and say, \u201cLet's remember a fun thing <em>we<\/em> did together.\u201d If I just talk about what's brought <em>me<\/em> joy today, whether you've been involved in that or not, you're saying that kind of opens up the whole joy capacity, and it starts to happen <em>between<\/em> us?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Yes, so if I'm offline, and my wife is online, I can even just think about those good things from <em>my<\/em> day, but what happens is, when you share it with your partner, you get more mileage out of it. In other words, the switch is kind of brighter, so to speak. My goal would be: \u201cI want to get my switch on.\u201d And then my goal would be for my wife and [me]: \u201cOkay; now, let's talk about some <em>shared<\/em> moments.\u201d That's just going to give you <em>more<\/em> mileage in that joy moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>Let me add to that too. In our book, we have a very concrete answer to your question; which is, \u201cHow do you get the switch back on?\u201d That is that, first, you disengage and acknowledge that, \u201cI'm disengaged.\u201d But you use your disengagement to try to <em>find<\/em> four things: curiosity, appreciation, kindness, and eye contact: CAKE.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> CAKE\u2014I like all your acrostics in the book. [Laughter]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>He\u2019s an acrostic guy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> That's how my brain works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> There you go. It's like I can't remember anything without them, so that's why we have that in there. You notice that, when your switch goes off, \u201cI lose all curiosity about you,\u201d and partly because I think I have you all figured out; right? In marriages, that's really common; it's like: \u201cI already know what you think about this,\u201d \u201cI already know how you feel about this,\u201d \u201cI have no curiosity about what you think, because you <em>always<\/em> do this, and you <em>never<\/em> do that,\u201d\u2014or whatever\u2014so I have no curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>If I don't have curiosity, my switch goes off; and I need curiosity to get it back on. One of the things I do when I disengage\u2014is I'm looking for\u2014\u201cIs there anything I can be curious about here? Let's use some curiosity to re-engage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second one is appreciation, which is really where Chris is camping out here; because appreciation, whether it's <em>for<\/em> that person or not, helps to get what we call your \u201crelational brain circuits\u201d back on. That gets your switch back on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>So walk me through this. Dave and I really struggled around our ten-year anniversary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave: <\/strong>Our ten-year anniversary was a little bit like your eleven-year date.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>Yes; so let's say I go back, and I think, \u201cThese are the things that I <em>used<\/em> to appreciate [about] Dave.\u201d I could see myself opening a picture album and thinking, \u201cOh, he used to be blah, blah, blah,\u201d and \u201cHe used to be\u2026.\u201d; but \u201c<em>Now<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> You know what I mean? How do we get out of that? Because I'm thinking, \u201cHe's <em>none<\/em> of those things <em>now<\/em>.\u201d I think a lot of people could say that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>Well, the good news is God designed our brain that it can update. When this joy part of our brain is on, you can update, and say, \u201cYes, this is how it <em>feels<\/em>, but <em>maybe<\/em> this can change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even trying to build some joy in the present, actually, and noticing, \u201cHow do you feel right now?\u201d You just spent five minutes together, doing this fun joy exercise. Now, let's talk about: \u201cHow does it feel? If I were in your shoes right now, what would I be thinking?\u2014what would I be feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The moment you do something that's joyful, but then you kind of pay attention to it and go, \u201cOh! Well, that was fun!\u201d That, basically, is like putting some cement into that memory for your brain, going, \u201cOh, this is good. This is really good.\u201d It's actually letting your brain update when you start to notice, \u201cHey, this was meaningful; this was special. I really enjoyed what you shared about me. That made me feel loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, how does it feel that we did that?\u201d That's why every exercise in the book has this component of, not just physically connecting, like holding hands or something, but also, pay attention to how you <em>feel<\/em>. It's like your brain is going, \u201cOh, okay. Even though this isn't how it's <em>always<\/em> felt, this is how it <em>used<\/em> to feel.\u201d Your brain always looks back in order to predict the future.<\/p>\n<p>In those moments your brain's looking back and going, \u201cOh, yes, this is just how he is,\u201d and \u201cI feel pretty discouraged right now. Is this ever going to change?\u201d Well, with a little bit of joy, what happens is your brain says, \u201cOkay, let me look forward now. Let's see what's around the corner. Maybe there's something good here. Maybe there's hope.\u201d The moment you get hope into the equation, that's a <em>really<\/em> good thing to have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus: <\/strong>There are two other points I'd make on that. First of all, whenever you're doing an appreciation exercise, we have one firm rule and that is, \u201cThere is one forbidden word whenever you do appreciation, and that is the word, \u2018but,\u2019\u201d\u2014okay? You can't say, \u201cI really appreciated when you did this, and when you used to do that,<em> but<\/em> you don't do this anymore.\u201d You're not allowed to say that when you share appreciation with people; because, obviously, it pulls the rug right out from under it. It also does it for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you find yourself, in your mind, having a lot of these \u201c\u2026buts\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marcus:<\/strong> \u2014that becomes an opportunity for prayer. Now, what you do is, you take that to God and say, \u201cWhat perspective do You want to give me about this thing that I'm feeling about my husband right now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I find that the devil wants to give us a narrative, and the Holy Spirit wants to give us a narrative. Where we have those problems with our spouse, is often where those narratives collide; and without realizing it, because the devil's narrative <em>feels<\/em> true, and there's evidence to support it, I don't realize how fully I've bought into that narrative.<\/p>\n<p>When you do find that coming up, this is a good opportunity to back up and say, \u201cGod, has the devil been influencing my narrative here?\u201d and \u201cDo you have another one for me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave:<\/strong> Tell me this: what do you do when you feel like, \u201cI\u2019m trying to flip on the switch. I realize I\u2019m off; I\u2019m discouraged, I\u2019m mad; there\u2019s <em>no<\/em> joy! I\u2019m supposed to, right now, flip the switch and be curious and be appreciative. I can\u2019t! I\u2019m stuck!\u201d Even if you\u2019re talking to your seven-year-old, you know, they\u2019re like, \u201cNo! I don\u2019t want to; I\u2019m just stuck!\u201d It\u2019s almost like the power board is disconnected or has been shut down. How do I get out of that <em>rut<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> You know, for some people, they\u2019re high-energy responders; some people are low-energy responders. If you\u2019re a high-energy responder, it might help to go walk; go move. People, you know, will notice if they go for a jog, they actually find it helps to get them back into relational mode pretty fast. Or, for some people, they\u2019re overwhelmed by stimulation or noise, so they have to go find a nice, quiet place with some soft music, and then they can actually do the CAKE that Marcus was talking about.<\/p>\n<p>When couples are going through the exercises in this book, at first, they find, it\u2019s a bit of an uphill climb. It\u2019s work, because they\u2019re used to this switch being off; but what surprises them is, if they\u2019re building some joy and they\u2019re feeling some joy, and they\u2019re actually starting to smile, your brain starts saying, \u201cHey, this is good!\u201d If your brain says, \u201cI like how I feel when this happens,\u201d then your brain wants to do it again and again.<\/p>\n<p>But if our switch is off and we\u2019re just trying to, like, talk it through, your brain is going to say, \u201cThis is <em>not <\/em>fun! I don\u2019t enjoy talking with my wife when our switch is off, and we\u2019re talking about the finances,\u201d or whatever those buttons are. You\u2019re brain just says, \u201cI want to avoid that; therefore, I want to avoid <em>her<\/em>.\u201d The goal is: spark some joy. You\u2019ve got to do it, you know, for a while; that\u2019s why we say 15 minutes per day to start. Just get the joy growing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>What's the first step? If we're talking to a couple today, and they would say, \u201cWe're kind of in the doldrums\/just blah. We're not mad at each other; there's just not a lot of desire\/a lot of joy in our marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris: <\/strong>What I would have them do is actually pick an exercise and do an exercise. Here's an exercise I would do: my favorite exercise is what we call \u201cTriple Three Appreciation.\u201d And this exercise started because my wife, when it was time to go to bed, her mind would race and race and race, for up to several hours. With this brain science in mind, I was like, \u201cLet\u2019s try an exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first step of this exercise\u2014we\u2019re lying in bed, so we\u2019re cuddling, and the first step\u2014is, we share three highlights from the day. We're cuddling, and I share these three things. And then Jen, my wife, shares her three things. [Sigh] We're already breathing a little easier; okay? Then, the next step is three qualities I appreciate about my wife. Even though there's another step here, this would be the step for my wife. I could literally feel her body relax. After I shared my three things of what I appreciate about her, physically, her body would relax. She would breathe deeper. She was calming down. It was noticeable. Then she would share her three things about me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Then the third is three qualities we appreciate about God. This exercise would take us, you know, less than 15 minutes. Every time we would do this exercise, my wife would fall asleep within 10-15 minutes. The nights that we wouldn't do the exercise, she could be up for, easily, two hours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann: <\/strong>And you're saying, if you looked at the brain as that was happening, it would look different from beginning to end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris:<\/strong> Yes; because what happens is\u2014the moment you think about an appreciation file\/you remember that special moment\u2014as far as your brain is concerned, your brain is reliving the moment; so this is why the stuff\u2019s so powerful.<\/p>\n<p>It's kind of interesting, because God designed the brain for joy; but you can imagine, what horror movies and scary movies like that [do]. Your brain responds as though you're living those moments. What Marcus and I want to do is help couples learn to amplify the good stuff\/to share the good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bob: <\/strong>You have, in the book, a number of exercises like this that couples can do that are a part of your 15 minutes a day. This is your new workout for your marriage, to try to grow joy. The book we're talking about is called <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages: How 15 Minutes a Day Will Help You Stay in Love<\/em>. We've got copies of this book in our <em>FamilyLife Today <\/em>Resource Center. You can order the book from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website is FamilyLifeToday.com if you want to order a copy of the book, <em>The Four Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages<\/em>; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to request your copy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And I know many of you have wanted to know about our plans for <em>Weekend to Remember<\/em><sup>\u00ae<\/sup> getaways this spring. We have a handful of getaways scheduled; we\u2019re still adding dates this spring. Of course, all of this is contingent upon restrictions that apply in various locations. You can go to our website at FamilyLifeToday.com to find out more about some of the upcoming getaways that we expect to be having this spring. I should say we expect these getaways will be sold-out; we have limited availability, because of social distancing. If you\u2019re interested in attending a getaway, sign up now and plan to join us for a <em>Weekend to Remember<\/em> this spring.<\/p>\n<p>And for those of you who can\u2019t get to a getaway, we are making plans to send a getaway to you\u2014it\u2019s FamilyLife\u2019s Date Box\u2014that we\u2019re still putting the finishing touches on. It\u2019s a great way for you to have some customized dates that will help unlock some great conversations in your marriage. Again, stay tuned to <em>FamilyLife Today <\/em>for more about the Date Box. It should be out before Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n<p>And we hope you can join us, again, tomorrow when we\u2019re going to talk about communication, and how when communication breaks down in a marriage, so does the joy. What can we do to keep joy at the center of our marital communication, even when we're not seeing things, eye to eye? We\u2019ll talk more about that tomorrow. I hope you can be with us for that.<\/p>\n<p>I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I\u2019m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru<sup>\u00ae <\/sup>Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?<\/p>\n<p>Copyright <sup>\u00a9<\/sup> 2021 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/\">www.FamilyLife.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>1<\/p>\n","theme_header_position":"Sticky","post_header_is_sticky":"default","is_header_overlay":"0"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast\/306663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/podcast"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306663"},{"taxonomy":"podcast_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast_series?post=306663"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=306663"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=306663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}