Conversations with Cinthia

A Kinder, Gentler Relationship, Part 2

Sometimes we develop habits in relationships, like snapping at each other, that undermine everything we really want the relationship to be.  Today, Cinthia offers practical steps you can take to change the way you interact in your most intimate human relationship.  Be sure you listen to yesterday's episode to look at your foundation, and then join Cinthia for today's look at practical steps.  You can learn to be the best version of yourself with the ones you love most instead of reserving your best behavior for strangers and acquaintances.  Listen to find out how!

A Kinder, Gentler Relationship, Part 1

Is your most intimate human relationship a place of safety, warmth, kindness, and healing?  So often, the reality is far from kind and gentle.  Today, Cinthia explains that we have to start with our own thinking patterns, including our self-treatment.  A pattern of being harsh and unkind internally, whether toward ourselves or about our partners, will tend to express itself in our closest relationships and eat away at their foundations.  Cinthia offers several ways to work on this and encourages us to start working on our relationships by working on ourselves.  If you want your home to be happier, don't miss this episode.

The Overlooked and Insidious Issues That Undermine Couples, Part 2

Yesterday, Cinthia started looking at the nine biggest issues that sneak into adult relationships and make them even messier than they already are.  Today, she reviews the concept of ego strength (a good thing when used correctly!) and continues looking at the nine biggest issues that can sneakily harm our marriages and dating relationships.  Today's look includes issues like empathy, struggle, sustaining attention, and what it does to relationships (and to children!) when we make kids more important than the person who helped us get them.  These aren't easy, black-and-white issues, but they are crucial for healthy relationships and families.  Make sure you listen to yesterday's episode, too!

The Overlooked and Insidious Issues That Undermine Couples, Part 1

Contrary to what you may have heard, communication is NOT the primary problem for most couples.  In fact, she says, communication tends to get blamed for lots of underlying problems that really cause all the drama.  So what are the real problems that tend to come out in couples' communication?  Today, Cinthia begins an exploration of nine problems that mess up marriages and pulverize pairs.  In the process, she discusses the difference between trustworthiness and perfection, the reality that couples get to share their loneliness but not obliterate it for each other, and the need to address shame instead of hoping that a partner's love will simply make you forget to experience it.  This episode will give you powerful tools for moving toward healthier relationships; don't miss it!

The Need to Be Seen

Hagar called God "the God Who sees me."  She encountered Him in the desert while fleeing a terrible situation, and the experience of being seen, understood, heard, validated, and loved was enough to enable her to go back and face the situation.  We need to be seen -- not just viewed, but seen for who we are and fully loved and accepted at the same time.  We need this from God and from each other.  Today Cinthia discusses concepts from attachment research and looks at what Hagar's encounter with God meant to her.  She also looks at what it meant to Jesus to have the Father turn away from Him during the crucifixion and how, once this was finished, the power of sin to separate us from God was destroyed.  If you've ever felt less than affectionately seen, less than desperately loved, less than fully known and accepted at the same time, join Cinthia to explore what it means to be seen by God, as well as to see the world (including our loved ones, enemies, and strangers) through His eyes.  

Living Peacefully in a World Without Peace: A World that Demands Our Immediate Attention

Do you ever think that you just don't have enough time to deal with the drama of interacting with other people?  The pace of our world is rapid these days, and this hugely impacts our relationships at so many levels.  When we are constantly trying to move on to the next thing, we can respond to everything that happens as if it's an emergency, and this includes our responses to people with whom we have relationships.  This isn't always best for the conversation, the relationship, the long-term love between human beings.  But how do we learn to calmly respond to our loved ones when we approach our whole lives in a survival or productivity mindset?  Join Cinthia to learn how to relax a little in relationship so that things don't quickly escalate to become so much bigger than they have to be.

Relationships 101: Understanding Personality Differences

Sometimes people aren't being as ridiculous as we think they are; they're just being themselves in ways that make perfect sense from inside their own frameworks. The better we understand one another, the better we can relate.  Yesterday, Cinthia talked about differences in gender and in temperament; today she's tackling personality.  (Personality is more structural than temperament; make sure you listen to yesterday's podcast to gain a fuller understanding of the two.)  Learn more about yourself and the people around you so you can stop judging or fighting traits in yourself or others that may not need to change.

Relationships 101: Respecting Gender Differences and Understanding Temperament Differences

Difference is not the same as dysfunction.  Does that sound obvious in theory?  The fact is that, in our day-to-day lives, we often think another person is wrong when, in fact, that person is just different than we are.  Today Cinthia looks at gender, including the deepest needs felt by men and by women, and at temperament, for which she uses Meyers-Briggs concepts.  Join Cinthia for an exploration of two major pieces of what makes each of us the unique beings we are, and come back tomorrow to look at personality.

Relationships 101: Realistic Expectations

The way Jesus did relationships changed the world forever.  So shouldn't we as Christians have healthy relational styles that are part of our witness?  Unfortunately, our relationships, which are inherently complex, can very quickly become complicated.  Today, Cinthia discusses the importance of having expectations in relationships despite lots of relationship advice out there that would encourage you to eliminate them.  The truth is that we all have expectations; we wouldn't engage in relationships without them and can't have intimacy without their protection.  The key is to make those expectations healthy, realistic, gracious, and helpful.  The good news is that people don't have to be perfect to be safe for emotional closeness.  Join Cinthia to look at specific expectations that serve healthy relationships between actual human beings.

Relationship Problems- Successful Solutions, Part 3

"Our relationships," says Cinthia in this episode, "are intended to either tighten us up or lighten us up, and that's how we become very balanced people."  Cinthia has been coaching us in how to discuss issues effectively instead of in ways that make them worse.  Yesterday, she left off talking about couples and housework.  Today, Cinthia picks up with strategies for addressing this issue in ways that communicate efforts toward fairness.  (This isn't because fairness is really the focal point in a healthy marriage but because making those efforts communicates respect for each other).  Next, she discusses how to talk about different needs regarding time, communication, and practically prioritizing the relationship, as well as how to manage our thoughts about these issues.  After that, she addresses how to talk about our conflicts, especially when we've gotten into "toxic routines" in which the same painful fights recur like nightmares.  This episode is extra-practical and intensely useful for anyone trying to make a relationship work but frustrated with where the conversations sometimes seem to go.