The Joy Switch - Chris Coursey

This is Doug Hastings, VP of Moody radio and were thankful for support from our listeners, and businesses like United faith mortgage mortgage commercials are rarely exciting. So to make it slightly more interesting. Here my nieces to do it for me so interest rates continue to drop like my sister's baby teeth, her uncle Larry and Stu last year it was rates are boring. Talk historically low and now this year is even more boring. Talk historically lower than the previous point talk historically low sounds boring for so many listeners who just wanted to deal at refinancing right now could see the amount of light rates have gotten that some borrowers could patently save hundreds monthly and tens and tens of thousands over the life of the loan, and that he didn't put 20% down before somebody ends up having to pay PMI gave uncle Brian I sent we are United faith mortgage United faith mortgage is a DBA of United mortgage Corp. 25 Millville Park Rd., Millville, NY license mortgage banker for licensing information, go to an MLS consumer access.org corporate MLS number 1330. Equal housing lender not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah need help with your relationships flip the switch on your brains secret circuit or some of us we just shut down kind of just turn inward and refreeze were just not a good version of the person that God created me to be an good news is we don't have to stay there we can return to welcome building relationship, author of the New York Times best seller. I love languages. If you feel connected with your spouse one day disconnected easy to become distant. There were a secret switch to flip to fix that will find out more about that as we welcome Chris Corsi to the program Christmas with a circle years ago.

Talk about the four habits of joy filled juice today featuring joints with how your brains secret circuit sexual relationship and how you can find out more at 5lovelanguages.com.

Did you know you had a choice which will Chris do this with you. I am joyful so maybe I return no hopes of looking forward to our conversation about this lesson. In today's world we need joy lie told Chris before we start the program. The hardware store and be able find it, so me wrong while reducing Chris Corsi is an ordained minister, pastoral counselor, author and speaker, his wife Jan lead and designed the Thrive training program that uses brain-based exercises to train leaders, families and communities in the 19 relational skills and the Emanuel lifestyle again or featured resource is the book the joy switch. You can find out more at 5lovelanguages.com Chris, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thank you.

It's great to be here to tell us about the joy switch. Where did you discover it. How did you discover it.

Well I started out my ministry career as a pastor and I also worked with people coming out of a history of severe trauma and abuse and would when you come alongside of friends like that your your very motivated to find tools and resources to help them grow and help them get on their feet, and I came across a fellow by the name of Jim Wilder who was in the process of taking all this great brain research out of UCLA at the time that was coming out in the 90s and what Jim was doing was basically translating it into English, so to speak very dense research, but this amazing pattern started to come out when we were looking at this research, which basically said on the right side of your brain in the right sphere is a progressively integrated and it's a closely connected circuit kind of like a circuit breaker and this circuit can go on or off, and when it's on people going to be able to feel some joy and hold onto joy. The witness goes off is just not pretty were not in our relational sweet spot.

That's usually when strong feelings are present and so when I started to learn this with a number of my colleagues we started to look at. Hey, if we have the switch in our brain we gotta figure out how to help people be able to turn it on and keep it on and that started this whole journey for me over 20 years ago of working and training people so that they can live with joy and hold onto their joy when the going gets tough. Is this joy switch work in all relationships, even our relationship with God. Yes, we know this. This is good news that in many ways this switch is like a relational engine. It has basically for components to it and just like a car engine.

These components need to work together and the car will go and so this is this part of the brain is basically what helps us to interact with other relational beings. Both humans but also with God. This is really exciting that we have a God who is glad to be with us and in a sense, the circuit in is just very similar to how your eyes use the visual cortex in your brain to process visual information will this relational circuit is really the. The circuit breaker that helps us stay connected with people and it helps us in our prayer times are walk with the Lord.

It really helps us to hold onto God's peace and have a sense that the God who is with us. The King of the universe is with us, the good Shepherd is with us in the good or the bad times and so when this circuit is off. We basically feel disconnected from God we feel like our prayers are pumping on the ceiling and coming back and we just feel like God is distant. What we know from the Bible that Jesus is always with us, he'll never leave us nor forsake us.

So as people learn to live with this. Basically the circuit breaker being online. We have this sense of God, the God who is near and not far away.

See this in the Psalms where the psalmist is in some kind of distress. Things are going wrong.

People want to hurt them in the midst of his distress. He is crying out to God and then something changes and he remembers being with God and worshiping God in the temple and by the end of the Psalm. The psalmist is praising God and thanking God for being with him right there now. Nothing changed about the Psalm circumstances and that moment but what did change is the psalmist had a sense of the God who was with me in this God who was with us is glad to be with us and so it does go a long way to learn how to be relational with the living God in our prayer times and are walk over those who read the Psalms sure world and if I were torturous because many of the Psalms are exactly like you describe so so your hope is to help people stay relational and grow enjoy what you mean must study relational so you know what part of this circuit is really what helps us to be the best version of ourselves like this is where we are able to reflect Christ in the good times and the bad times and so when this circuit is on. We stay curious about what people are thinking or feeling. When the circuits off. We don't really care what people are thinking or feeling. We sometimes just wish they would stop talking. But when the relational circuit is on. We can also feel appreciation I call appreciation package joy so we can remember God's gifts. We can we can practice gratitude and we can actually feel it when we think about it and with that circuit goes off-line. We can't really feel appreciation because our brain is way too busy amplifying distress or focusing on what's wrong why you were mad and another quality will see if we are kind and we want to be kind toward one another when the circuits working.

We feel like being kind and tender with weaknesses and gentle and patient. However, when when the circuit goes off being kind is kind.

The last thing we feel like doing in those moments, and the last is just we have eye contact. So when that when the relational circuit is on and working.

We look people in the eyes. We care about what's going on in them, and when our circuit goes off. Unfortunately, we don't really look at people in the eye or if we do, it's usually to blast them or do say things we wish that we could take back. So part of being relational is is being able to stay in the moment treat one another how we would want to be treated and have a sense also of joy and some of God's peace in the moment. Those are all qualities will see when were in our relational sweet spot is you describe that I think all of us think help that's horrible to be let let's define joy because a lot of people have a different definition of what you might joy so what are your thoughts this is a very important question. So one of the things we now know from from brain science is God actually put part of the brain, he created this part of the brain, where it grows in response to what I call glad to be together moments and so when you walk into a room in someone's face lights up to see you. You hear it in their voice you see it in their body language. This part of the brain is called the part of the prefrontal cortex on the right side.

It actually grows throughout the lifespan.

When there's that genuine glad to be togetherness. I now have a lot of people kind of confused joy and happiness. So happiness is basically circumstantial. While joy is relational so we feel happy when a new movie comes out or when we purchase a new computer that's happiness and it is based on circumstances.

Whereas joy is very much relational.

So we if we do up a fun word study in the Bible on joy use, you'll see the context is often this very relational glad to be togetherness, whereas at one point, Jesus is praying for the for the disciples that they would have his joy in John 15, and that their joy would be full so we can see joy as a relationship and we are glad to be together no matter if were going through a good time or a bad time. This joy is a sense that were not alone in what's going on. For someone is with us there. Glad to be with us as far as your brain's concern. Joy is a high energy response. So when infants experience joy when they look at look at mommy's face and daddy's face you see their body language change will see their face light up, you'll hear the sounds of joy you'll see there this kind of spark of energy and when infants have had enough joy.

They as a reflex will look away for a moment to kind of catch their breath. So, joy is kind of the relational transaction where were just sharing glad to be togetherness nets both with living God, as well as with our family and our friends and our communities. Chris, when you are describing somebody who has a connection. The rev relational connection with others. I think of some people that I've known through the years who fear I felt like they've had a diminished relational connection. They don't look you in the way and this is not some clinical think it just kind of the way that they are at least I don't think it's a classically deep have you met those people in and what you say about that situation. I like to think of of joy as a teeter totter and when joy levels go high pain levels. My ability to handle pain and difficulty will will increase so I can suffer well and so joy does very much. Give us strength and you can see often.

Even in my body language you can see if someone is is coming across as it is a joyful person or if someone's kind of poked a hole in their joy balloon and so what I would do is just very purposefully I would try to share appreciation with them the good news is a little bit of joy can go a long way so I would therefore suggest very genuinely convey that I'm glad to be with them and I would maybe say some of the qualities I enjoy about them. In fact, one time I was at the grocery store and the young man working the cash register did not look me in the eye just looked and sounded like he was having a bad day and so as he was checking out my groceries. I said you know what I really appreciate your help today. Thank you. I'm glad I'm glad to be able to be with you here and in just a matter of moments, he looked up at me with this confused expression. He said do I know you I said no not at all, but I'm I'm just glad to be with you here and I really appreciate your help today and as I walked away I heard him greet the person behind me with this very joyful response. He looked the person in the eyes. His face lit up.

You could see the difference just a little bit of joy can go a long way and is not forced we don't fake it till we make is just very genuinely coming across authentically. I'm glad to be with you and what can we appreciate about one another that that little bit can actually go a long way.

So hear you saying that we can actually increase the joy of another person just by being friendly to them and acknowledging the this is good news that you know it. In a sense I think one of the great waves we can reflect the God that we love and that we serve is by sharing the good stuff. And as we now know about the brain.

Joy is the best fuel for the brain, so it's not fear it's not anger it's joy. And so when neuroscientists are saying. Joy is foundational for the human brain. We pay attention to that because the Bible has a lot to say about joy and so one of the best ways we share joy is is visually so how we come across to others.

What am I wearing on my face. What is my my voice tone, conveying, and of course what are my words saying so were very purposeful about connecting with people and sharing some joy and some appreciation with them. One of the great ways to increase joy is through telling stories of joy. So when we tell stories of those moments where we were enjoying God's gifts are just those special moments where we watched a sunset together when you share those stories of joy. Your brain responds as though you relive the moment all over again. So all the feel-good chemicals are released when you tell these joy stories and what it does for your listener is. It also sparks joy in them. And so this joy is a gift that keeps on giving. So the other side. On the flipside know what happens when the brain's relational circuit is turned off. Yeah. So this is where we've kind of fallen out of our relational sweet spot as I say in the book and I I paint a picture in the book that in these moments when our brains relational circuit goes off. We know one thing's going to happen is joy will feel elusive. It's hard to hold on to. Glad to be together. Joy in a sense, our brain, relational brain goes into an airplane mode so if like if you take your phone and put an airplane mode.

There's no sending or receiving signals. There's no updating.

And so when were interacting with people when our brain is an airplane mode.

Joy is not part of that equation were probably focused on pain or problems or we blast others with our anger or any other negative emotion in my my friend Jim Wilder calls the state enemy mode because the people we normally enjoy actually feel like enemies. So I normally enjoy interacting with my wife and my sons and I soak up all the joy I can from those interactions with my brains and enemy mode.

I might be annoyed by my children, I might think all I just wish they would go away or there'd be into loud I wish they would just stop talking. So our brain goes into this kind of problem-solving mode. We don't really want to listen to what others feel.

Our mind is locked onto the things that's upsetting we don't want to be connected to the people we normally enjoy.

Are we just want to get away or we want to fight and argue or some of us we just shut down.

We kind of just turn inward and refreeze. So when your brain is in this enemy or airplane mode were just not a good version of the person that God created me to be and the good news is we don't have to stay there we can return to joy. So what are some of the common reasons that the relational circuit goes off-line. You know, one of the most common reasons is anything that causes a strong emotional response so it can be my spouse's voice tone so I can even if it's just the wrong tone of voice that might cause my joy to leave, so to speak, and cause my brain relational circuit to turn off fatigue is a common reason is hard to keep this relational circuit on I'm just tired if I didn't sleep well the night before. Everything feels big. Everything feels hard so fatigue would be a very common one that's pretty much anything that causes my brain to response to respondent a negative emotion so I might be driving and having a delightful time with my family and then somebody pulls out in front of me on the road or maybe flashes a hand gesture at me suddenly my relational brain can turn off and instead of enjoying the peace of the joy with my family, my brain is now in problem-solving mode so I focused on what's upsetting and I'm feeling those big feelings and it's enemy mode. Your brain just kind of innocence makes the upset bigger so I'm just stuck in being mad at other people and there's nothing fun about that, that's for sure.

But you alluded to this earlier, but let's talk about how this relational circuit impacts our spiritual life could be found about that. Yes, this is this is really exciting that what we now know about the brain and the rest, particularly the relational areas in the brain is our brain is more changed by who we love them simply by the information I know. So what this means is the people that I love or the God that I love can have the most impact on my character and my identity, so staying relational with God is a sense of what the Bible says to pray without ceasing.

So this is actually kind of a two-way street where I'm interacting with the living God in an ongoing basis, and now when my brain is off-line or an enemy boat. I'm more vulnerable to distortions or lies about myself about God. It just feels like God might be against me, rather than for me or am I just feel I got mad at me and so one of the common responses I see in people who are interacting with the living God in their in their relational sweet spot. 90% of the responses are the sense that Jesus is glad to be with me and it's shocking for people like wow why is Jesus glad to be with me. I just feel like he is delighting in me because they expect him to be mad or angry or disappointed, so staying relational in our spiritual life means that our relationship with the Lord is alive it's interactive and it's filled with peace and joy that he's the Prince of peace, and we turn to him whenever we lose that piece so what are some of the things that we might do on a regular basis to the contents of that relationship with God. Well, this is another exciting thing that you know it when we come to God in our prayer time. For example, one of the best things that we can do is start out thinking God for his gifts so the Bible says that we should enter his gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise so we can be thankful to him and we can bless his name and Psalm hundred verse four so very simply, we can just add this crucial element into our prayer times of being able to think God for his gifts and his presence in the good things in my life. Obviously, life is not always fun and joyful so when we start out thinking God for the good stuff. What it does is it actually helps keep our relational brain on that now I can share my sadness or share whatever it is that I'm going through with God and have a sense that he sees me he hears me. He understands it's kind of that sense that Jesus is with me in this, and I'm not alone and so I often encourage people to just create an appreciation list and share some of those things with God when you when you talk with him or when you read this, the Scriptures is a great time to just include some joy. What what are we thankful for what school what is been good in my life recently, and then for those things is robbing my joy.

I can now interact with him about that and find his peace in those areas where there's just not a whole lot of peace.

So hear you saying that one way may be struggling with life than in area and consequently a sense of being removed from God that consciously thanking God for various and sundry things that are realities that we have every day is a way of turning the relational switch back on with that's exactly right and and when we I encourage people to, you know, even within the last 24 hours as her as a regular habit before bed. What was good from your day what where did you see or experience some of God's gifts and when I'm in a lot of pain that might be the last thing I want to do in that moment right because my brain of my brain is an enemy mode I'm focused on, and I'm feeling a lot of the hard stuff and a lot of negative emotions. But what we find is one sharing that in expressing our gratitude with God helps us get in our relational sweet spot and when were in our relational sweet spot. That actually gives my brain the resources to better navigate whatever is going on and in those times where I'm interacting with the Lord in my prayer time when I'm in that relational sweet spot. I'm more likely to have a sense that he's with me. Just like the psalmist that even though I'm in this mess of the situation. I know that God is with me. I know it logically, but I also know it experientially that the living God is here with me. I'm not alone. Even though I'm going through this dark and scary Valley someone is with me and it's a great way to really begin and even end our prayer times. It's very practical.

What I hear you saying there is perhaps what the Scriptures and Paul meant when he said in everything give thanks, interesting.

It inside forever but is it in the midst of everything give thanks and that's that's essentially what you're saying right you look for things that you can be thankful for. Even though what we tend to say is all the negative things that are around your exactly right. And in a sense is creating some helpful habits in our prayer times and in our walk with the good Shepherd so that in everything, no matter what's going on. We can still give thanks for what I I think God enjoys no hearing from us on the on the waves that we enjoy his gifts, but it also blesses us. Ironically, because it helps us to be able to be in our relational sweet spot so that prayer times we feel connected with the living God, who is always with us.

Our program is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. You can find us online@ 5lovelanguages.com. There you can take an easy assessment of your love language and see our featured resource today. It's a book by our guest Chris Corsi and it's titled the joy switch how your brain's secret circuit affects your relationships and how you can activate it just got a five love languages.com Chris in your book go you talk about the piece test to better understand if we are relational. What is the piece test, one of the ways that we learn to recognize whether I'm in relational mode or whether I'm in this non-relational mode.

What we can call enemy mode is to start paying attention to MI feeling peaceful and so the lack of pieces is a clear sign that I'm usually relationally off-line. I don't feel peace and I'm focused on the negative stuff and my hearts racing and I'm worrying and basically the piece is gone, and so I use the piece test, which stands for the P stands for pay attention to my body so I just notice how is my body right now and just you know is there tension in my body because of my body is the canvas for my brain and so I can learn a lot about how I'm doing just by noticing for a moment. My body and then the E is for evaluate my breathing. So when I could take what I call deep belly breasts. What that does is that helps innocence. It resets your nervous system just taking deep breaths.

Some people like to lay on the floor for a book on the belly and watch the belly go up and down and so I just pause and notice will house my breathing is a tense and relax the a in peace is for attention and focus. So I noticed my thinking about right now.

What has my attention in my thinking about some of the good stuff, or is my brain locked on to something that's upsetting or something. This robbing my piece and then I would go to the CNP's for calm her busy thoughts or my thoughts: right now or are they busy like one of the worst things for me is laying in bed at night when I'm ready to go to sleep and my thoughts are just racing and focused on something that was harder upsetting for my day and I think we all can probably relate to that. Just tossing and turning.

So for me that's a good sign.

I don't have calm thoughts right now directly very busy and there there focused on something that's upsetting me and the E and peace is easing muscle tension. So what I can do as I take those deep breaths. Just try to relax your shoulders maybe rolled her neck a little bit. Straighten out your back just pausing to notice what's happening in my body and just that little pause right there can tell us a lot of wow I'm still I feel like I'm still relational. I'm holding onto piece I feel relaxed I feel anchored, so to speak, or if peace is absent.

That's a good sign that it's time to pause and get back into relational mode where peace is present. I think all of us can identify with what you are saying about those nights when you're trying to go to sleep in a thousand things on your mind, tossing and turning the word and is not always because were not in touch with God. Sometimes I'm hearing you say it's not in touch with our body that are in our brain. Your exactly right. I mean we, for the most part we don't really pay attention to our body. Unless we see something we don't like about her body or something is just not working properly so I have have a back injury so I've learned to pay attention to just how my back is doing and you know it went with those aches start to happen.

I grab the ice pack or the heating pack and I'll do some stretching exercises so just for learning to live in our body in a sense to hold onto God's peace and to be that reflection of Jesus to my family to my friends and within my communities.

They also talk about the action steps to use the word cars, see IRS return us back to relational mode talk about those steps yeah so cars stands for connecting, appreciating, resting in what I call shalom my body so connecting is just where if I'm relationally off-line and I realize, wow, I need to I need to get back into relational mode here is I don't I don't like being here for very long. Or maybe an interaction with my wife is just not going well and I see that I'm an enemy mode so connecting would just be you just pause and you might reach out to a friend you might actually in your prayer times just get on Journal to Jesus or talk to Jesus goal with connecting is just where I can feel seen, heard and understood and so when we connect with people we all we all probably have people that we can turn to in a crisis and we know they're going to help us find peace and find some joy in the midst of the strain or we might have some people if we turn to them in our crisis. We know they're going to make it worse and help us find more things that we should be afraid of so connecting is just being able to know what is connecting with Jesus or connecting with the with the family member or friend. Were we feel connected and seen and validated, and appreciation uses that package Joyce were remembering God's gifts. These are the moments which make us smile. So when would we remember appreciation what that is one of the best ways to get your relational brain back online. Just again it might be that sunset.

It might be a date night that I had with my wife.

It might be a fun outing with my sons and I just reflect back on that moment that helps my relational brain wake up and then rest is just that relational pause. It's a chance to unwind and catch our breath. So joy, high-energy joy should always lead to low-energy rest and so just as that infant will look away for a moment from mommy's face when she's had enough joy. That's the queue it's time to take a breather. So we all need rest and quieting so it's a chance to take those deep breaths. We grasp so that we can build more joy.

So it's a relational timeout, we might say in that little bit of quieting can help us reset and kind of feel that like were back in the relational space and then S is a specific set of exercises, my colleagues, I call shalom my body where the shalom my body exercises are very simple exercises that are designed to quiet my brain quite my body and one of them. For example, is yawning. We tend to think of yachting as a rude thing to do in public but yawning. We now know as a lot of benefits. Yawning is good for your nervous system Olympic athletes will will often yawn before a big race.

So just taking a few moments, yawning. What what that does is that allows your relational brain to have a little reset and then you can feel more relationally anchored just you might want to help the people around you interpret like I'm yawning.

Not because I'm bored with what were doing here just jotting to quiet myself and those are just very practical way. Some people might want to go out for a walk in nature or sit on the back deck and just read for a while. Just whatever it is that helps you be able to get back in your relational sweet spot it when you talked about wrist causing thought about walking because for me to the idea of taking a little mini vacation which which are in the midst of counseling and bring in all the pain of talking to people and so forth. The site of us are somewhat like a mini vacation which means something to walk to the other end of the building and I want to walk back to good just to get away from from the pressure that if the pain of all that I've been part of that helps. It really helps because only way walking to the other in the building I might see other people and may not see other people just append that distant little vacation away from the task of the moment is really helpful. I like that example as a great example of just yeah just having a chance to come up for air and and how you can feel more refreshed after that short walk. That's a great suggestion. Never thought about the owning your own but never done it intentionally, but I do feel better when I go through a movement that you informed. Yes it is it it it's it's surprisingly how much better we can feel normally, we feel a little more focused and clear in our head, but it but you do have to let people around you know because we've all been trained to somebody jotting I'm probably boring you order some other those shalom body things you can do. Yeah so what the other things we do it exit has to do with this. It's called stimulating your vagal nerve. We now know that this is important nerve from the at the base of your brain which connects many of your organs and it actually controls how fast your heart is beating so one of the things that also helps people is to be able to just gently knock right beneath your collarbone. If you just gently kind of knock on your that little space just beneath your collarbone this alternate knocks about the pace of your heart beating and take some deep breaths. That's a very good quieting exercise I have. I demonstrate these exercises on my YouTube page, which is just Chris Corsi at Thrive today.

There's a there's a number of exercises that you could do but just even just kinda tapping beneath your collarbone that multiple muscle on each side.

If you just alternate taps while you take some deep breaths. We know that that is part of stimulating that vagal nerve which can have a very quieting peaceful response, especially when we're maybe were losing it or were on the verge of losing it at the time to just even if you have to take a few moments and to step aside and some privacy. Do a little yawning. Take those deep breaths and even just a little bit of knocking beneath your collarbone were that vagal nerve basically reaches to the surface of your skin. That right there can be a surprising call me effect just to help us get relational. I can hear some of our listeners thinking.

What was it was that the YouTube site.

Again, yes. If so, is Chris Corsi just seal you RSC why Chris Corsi at Thrive today just Thrive today and you'll see a video that shalom my body and is a series of exercises you can do them all with me and the key is to notice how do you feel after you do these shalom is just Hebrew for Pete's peaceful. So how do you feel after doing some peaceful exercises and I like what you said earlier about walking even even walking can be a very peaceful exercise just to get up, move around a little bit, take some deep breaths and you should feel a shift where I'm not so angry.

I feel like I have a little more peace than I did before. I feel a little more anchored in the storm. It's very practical but a little bit goes a long way when were trying to quiet ourselves.

Chris throw things away been emphasizing throughout the whole program with this is this whole matter of being relational, that when we are relating to people in a positive way. We do have a sense of joy essential. Please order some of the roadblocks that prevent us from staying relational yes in my book I talk about five common roadblocks and roadblocks. The first roadblock is anything that feels like a threat to media: threats to self so these are just the things that activate your brain survival circuit. So that's when that bad driver pulled out in front of you and it takes your breath away. It startles you or somebody jumps out at you, and it scares you. Anything that makes you feel threatened in any way shape or form can quickly put your brain into this nonrelational enemy mode because basically enemy mode is just there to solve a problem is not wrist not relational enemy mode is just I'm trying to make something stop and so the survival circuit in 1/10 of a second kicks into gear. So eat anything that makes you feel threatened. You want to pause and takes a deep breath and calm down, but the other thing that makes you go relational half-light would be unprocessed paint so this is just rude unresolved pain from my past some time that unresolved pain is just go away.

It actually sneaks into the present and so some of my reactions in the moment are bigger than they might be otherwise. So this is where it's really good to just stay focused. If there's anything that comes up that's something unresolved. Kind of. I call the landmine from your past.

This is a good opportunity to get some help to did to disarm those landmine so that they don't keep robbing you and the third roadblock is lost feeling alone is the worst conditions for my brain to process pain so anything that makes me feel alone creates is really tough conditions for me to stay relational so that might be. I feel rejected. I feel abandoned that anything that just makes me feel isolated. So the goal is God created us for relationship so want to really work on those relationships and the next roadblock is my physical needs solicitous with anything that involves attending to my body and my personal needs.

So, for example, my wife, she can easily lose her relational circuit when her blood sugar crashes, and so we've learned on road trips. I can even tell by the tone of her voice when her blood sugar crashing is a honey do you need a snack fruit let me love you grandma but all of our phoria sober, very just kind of in tune with with those kinds of things for me it's back pain so justify if my wife sees me she could tell by the look on my face when my back pain is increasing. Just a honey can I get you an ice pack so anything that has to do with with our our bodies can really things go wrong can put us into enemy mode and the last is missing relational skills. So there's important skills that we learned, especially those first three years of life. These relational skills are what help us to recover when things go wrong and it helps us to navigate the hills and the valleys of life. So what relational skill might be quieting is that's an important skill. My brain has to learn enough if I don't quiet then over time it's going to be very easy for me to lose my relational circuit because I my brains not getting that rest that I need or another skill will be returning to joy from my anger, and so when I get mad if I don't know how to recover from my anger that I can be stuck in my anger. There's nothing fun about that. So we want, we can actually purposely learn relational skills that help us to be able to be our relational selves in the good times as well as the bad times they are more Christlike. You mentioned your wife a moment ago. The let's talk a little bit about how this relates in a marriage.

You know what, if you are in a relational state but your spouse is not the current off-line what might we do to help them get back online.

Yes, a few things are as difficult to navigate at times in our relationships where we might be relational in our spouse is relationally off-line and encourage couples that the first thing you want to do is what they tell you in an airplane. If there's going to be turbulence you put on your oxygen mask. So if I'm in relational space. My wife is not my goal is before trying to do anything.

My goal is to stay relational. It's very easy if somebody else's and enemy motorists can be easy to go and enemy mode with them so just put on your oxygen mask. Keep your relational circuit on and what I find is helpful is being able to validate and comfort, so if my spouse, my wife is just not doing well. Validation is saying what you see. So I might say, well, honey, it sounds like you had a really bad day. I'm sorry to hear that. So I validate her and then comfort. After we validate we say what we see as a honey I'm really sorry to know that this is been so difficult for you. Comfort is then okay. What helps when you feel this way now. Often times we try to comfort without validating it just feels like were trying to fix it or were minimizing them so the validation is crucial. Say what you see and then okay honey, what helps when you feel this way right now.

Do you need some space, can I get you a glass of water. Do you need help if I listen and so we don't try to fix it because inadvertently we will minimize our spouse and then our spouse will not feel seen and understood. It just doesn't go well. So we stay relational and we join others by validating and comforting and being a really good listener, so that they don't feel so alone in their distress. It's one of the best gifts we can give our spouse is to be relationally present and sit with them and listen while they share their hearts, and that creates this connection in the midst of the hard stuff like that and I think every married couple will have experience what you're talking about, you know where your relational they're not relational and and by nature, we tend to either clamber up or walk away or lash out and we make things worse. Yes we do. There's nothing fun about that. What about parents does all this relate to parents in and in their response to their children related to the children, correcting and guiding your children, how does all of this work there. Yes, so this is really exciting for me because I have two young sons. And so what what I hope to happen with this book is basically to provide a language for people that we as parents can learn MI and relational mode RMI and enemy mode because I can predict any time I'm an enemy mode with my children. I'm probably not going to handle the situation very well and probably going to come across as impatient, rigid, and even just become very snappy with my children. So in our household. We have this language and we actually have kind of codenames whenever it appears that somebody might be a relationally off-line my sons came up with the creative will idea to come up with everybody's favorite fruit. So for example my my codeword was Apple. So if they see that I'm shifting or slipping into enemy mode.

They might say daddy Apple or daddy. How about a piece of apple pie and that that's the code word for beta okay I need to pause and get relational or my sons or strawberry blueberry. So if we see my one son is getting very hyper and horribly when he gets superduper hyper. It gets himself in some kind of trouble.

So when I say hey buddy, how about a strawberry shortcake or would you say strawberry and that's his cue is amazing is kinda like Pavlov's dogs.

It is something that is when we save the fruit they will automatically reflexively just take a deep breath and quiet themselves so I know as as a parent, I'm going to be a better version of myself with less regrets. When I parent relationally with my relational circuit online anytime I slip and enemy mode enemy mode makes problems bigger than relationships. And so when it comes to correcting a very helpful thing is first we get relational so just as we don't let the sunset on our anger.

We don't want to try to correct our children when were an enemy mode were just not going to handle it well. It's going to make problems worse and it's gonna feel leave our children feeling like roadkill. So before I correct. I'll actually take pause and just get make sure I'm in a good relational place and then make sure they're in a relational place so that we can talk about consequences to whatever it was, it needs to be corrected.

So having the language and really practicing it will go a long way that if you are your children enemy mode. Let's get relational.

However, you hello. However, it works best for each person.

Let's get relational and then let's correct and for me. I even demonstrate when I am off-line. I will walk them through my process.

It will daddy is really off-line. Right now I better take some deep breaths here and I want to quiet myself, and I'm glad I'm here with you guys. I can already feel that my relations with come back on because I'm not alone here so I sometimes just walk them through my process so that I can model it for them and we just we pay attention, are we in relational mode. Are we in enemy mode and we will have more satisfaction in our parenting when were when were operating from a relational place and were helping our children return to relational space. It's it's a win-win combination and therefore more likely to respond positively to our discipline right yes they are. I found it's been a night and day, night and day situation. If I if I am interacting with them when I'm in relational space. They yeah I'm going to be better having their attention and being able to really mirror back what it is I'm trying to convey its it is just a win-win. When we're relational.

And when we help our children get back into their relational's sweet spot that's similar to what I often suggest that the parents wrap the discipline and the child's love language. Yeah, that is just words of affirmation is there language before you administer the discipline to give them a positive statement about then you the discipline and then you give them another positive. So when they feel loved by you, therefore more likely to receive the discipline his bidding. Yes, this is right deserve this. This should happen or Chris let me thank you for being with us to value has been fascinating. This is a little different type of discussion that we sometimes have on this program but I think that our listeners can identify with a lot of what you're saying.

I think they heard in the it's going to motivate them to want to read this book because I think of the going to find a lot of practical help. Thanks for being with us today thinking absolute joy. I really appreciate the time. Once again, the toddler featured resource joy switch your brain. Secret circuit affection, relationships, and how you can activated by Chris Corsi and you can find out more. Five love languages.then next week we take your calls for our March dear Gary unasked question: 186 614 for Gary. I thanks to Janice Todd and Steve went for their work today.

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