What is the best way to show your spouse appreciation?

* www.everflect.com – Your free couple’s council app

* The Love Languages of Appreciation

TRANSCRIPT

[Brent]

Welcome to the Intentional Family Moment. Take a moment with us as we discuss our thoughts on your family questions, then join us in our weekly challenge as we work together to be more intentional in our families.

This is episode 6 hosted by married Coriaria founders Brent and Michelle. This episode is brought to you by Everflect – your free couple’s council app. Learn more at www.everflect.com.

[Michelle]

Today’s question is: What is the best way to show your spouse appreciation?

I really like this question because it means that the person asking this question appreciates their spouse. They recognize that they appreciate their spouse. They want to learn how to better communicate it to their spouse. It’s a great foundation to start with in the first place.

[Brent]

Absolutely. One of the best things that we can do is to catch our spouse doing good things. That’s a skill that works well with parenting. Frequently as parents, and for many people with spouses, they might be inclined to see the negative things that their child or spouse are doing. With children, we are attuned to saying “Don’t touch that, don’t do that, get off that chair,” and those types of things. When we focus on catching our spouse or children doing good things, that’s a really great way to have the right attitude towards them as people and as human beings.

[Michelle]

So, expressing appreciation right away, in the moment?

[Brent]

Yes. When we catch our spouse or children doing good things, and we recognize that during the moment, that’s a great way to start showing appreciation. Expressing that verbally would be a great way to start.

[Michelle]

This question is kind of general, but it needs to be specific to your spouse. What’s their love language? How do they understand appreciation? We all come from different family cultures and different personality preferences. Making sure that your spouse feels appreciated and loved in the way that they receive that communication is important.

[Brent]

What are some of the best ways to learn about love languages?

[Michelle]

There’s a lot from Gary Chapman. He coined that phrase. Getting to know your spouse in the first place. You can’t express appreciation without getting to know that about them. A good place to start is to express appreciation to them in all the different varieties. Whether that’s verbally or in a written note, or doing service to show appreciation. For example, when someone makes dinner you can show appreciation by cleaning up after. That’s a way you can show appreciation that is not verbal or a formal “thank you” for doing something.

[Brent]

Right. You can round that out with the other love languages that Gary Chapman talks about. You talked about words of affirmation and acts of service. Giving a gift is another option. A variety of physical touch, like giving them a hug as you say “thank you”. Or quality time with that person. A lot of those are going to depend on the circumstance. I don’t know exactly how one would work quality time in with saying “thank you” for dinner. I’m sure there are ways to do it. There are a lot of ways to approach trying out differ...

Why do family traditions matter?

* www.coriaria.com – Choose family

TRANSCRIPT

[Brent]

Welcome to the Intentional Family Moment. Take a moment with us as we discuss our thoughts on your family questions, then join us in our weekly challenge as we work together to be more intentional in our families.

This is episode 4, hosted by married Coriaria founders Brent and Michelle. This episode is brought to you by Coriara – Choose family. Learn more at Coriaria.com.

[Michelle]

Today’s question is: Why do family traditions matter?

I think traditions are something you can count on where you will spend time with, interact with, and bond with your family. It’s important to know why you are doing a family tradition so that you are intentional about it. Otherwise you can fall into a rut of doing a family tradition because society tells you to, there are items to buy, things to set out, or decorations to use. If you are doing a family tradition for a reason and you know why – your family loves to sing, or bake, or do different things – that’s when it matters. You are doing it together for a reason.

[Brent]

Many times, the reason is because it’s fun and you enjoy it. Doing a tradition because you choose to do it and how it is important to you are important. It helps traditions carry intentionality. When couples get started when they are first married, establishing those traditions and that culture is a lot of fun: Getting to explain and learn about the traditions and experiences that each partner in a marriage has and brings to the table. Those are some of the fun parts of getting to know someone and getting to build a new family are the family traditions you get to create together.

[Michelle]

Building on those traditions that you bring together in ways that you feel really matter to your new family, the personalities that come together, and to mold those traditions into ways that are going to benefit this new family.

[Brent]

Something that I like that you’ve brought to our family is celebrating a Scandinavian holiday called Saint Lucia’s day. There are elaborate pieces of that tradition that you’ve shared that we have been able to incorporate into our family traditions around Christmas time.

As far as why family traditions matter – they are one of the subtle but significant things that glue together family cultures and the way that you feel about your family. They incorporate not only things like holidays and how you observe them – maybe religious observances are part of that – but also things like inside jokes, or what you do when you try to decide what movies you are going to watch, what things you’re going to reach for. There’s a whole variety of things that weave together to create what you consider family traditions. They matter because they are the things that define the identity of your family. They define what sets you apart from other families in very positive and good ways. Being intentional with how we create those family traditions so that they have other effects in our family go a long way to making them matter even more than they would otherwise. Most people are going to establish family traditions out of habit. It’s something that we just do as people. But, when we take a step back to think about and to intentiona...

Why does family history matter?

Join the founders of Coriaria as they discuss “Why does family history matter?” on our podcast “The intentional family moment.”

* Sponsored by Quilted Memoir

*

The Anatomy of Peace

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Intentional Family Moment. Take a moment with us as we discuss our thoughts on your family-related questions, then join us as we work together to become more intentional in our families.

This is episode 4, hosted by married Coriaria founders Brent and Michelle. This episode is brought to you by Quilted Memoir – Stitching together memories of your loved ones. Learn more at QuiltedMemoir.com

[Michelle]

Today’s question is: Why does family history matter?

[Brent]

Family history is something that is important to every family because if you don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t know where you’re going. Understanding the stories and heritage behind your family enriches how you view yourself and the relationships that you have with other family members. These are some of the primary reasons that family history matters to many people, certainly for me.

[Michelle]

You can gain a lot of insight and inspiration from your ancestors’ stories, whether that’s because they inspire you to do better than they did or inspire you to do great things like they did.

[Brent]

Being able to reflect on the fact that people in your background have experienced certain things. We both have ancestors that made a lot of sacrifices to travel across the United States from overseas, and their stories are inspirational to me. Being able to understand the sacrifices that they made and how important it was to get here. When there are big challenges in my life, I know that I can meet those challenges. It’s something that I know has been done before.

[Michelle]

Some of the stories from either of our ancestors have inspired me to be more intentional with my family. They sacrificed a lot for their families. Whether in parenting, or marriage, to make their families work and to hold them together. That is a good reminder that they sacrificed a lot for our family to exist, and not to take that for granted.

[Brent]

Right. I think that sometimes different aspects of our family histories may be something that we’re proud of. There may be moments that we find things out about our ancestors that we may be less proud of. We still owe a lot to those that have gone before, regardless of where their contributions may have fallen. Certainly there may have been things that have caused problems for certain parts of families, but there are also great contributions to be found in every part of someone’s history. You can find good things in every part of one’s family history.

[Michelle]

I think that applies in our own immediate family history. We have a personal history as well. It’s important to record, to write, and to share our stories. I know a lot of people think that it’s crazy, but you’ve read all of my journals.

[Brent]

And you’ve read all of mine!

[Michelle]

So we’ve shared those vulnerable parts of our lives together. We’re not proud of every little detail of our history. It’s brought us closer and has helped us understand each other. Because of that, I’m very grateful that we took the time throughout our lives to record those moments of our history b...

How can we help our children be present

in a world that pulls them in every direction?

Join the founders of Coriaria as they discuss “How can we help our children be present in a world that pulls them in every direction?” on our podcast “The intentional family moment.”

* Sponsored by My Mindful Mat

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Intentional Family Moment. Take a moment with us as we discuss our thoughts on your family-related questions, then join us as we work together to become more intentional in our families.

This is Episode 3, hosted by married Coriaria founders Brent and Michelle. This episode is brought to you by My Mindful Mat – your intentional parenting tool. Learn more at MyMindfulMat.com.

[Michelle]

Today’s question is: How can we help our children be present in a world that pulls them in every direction?

[Brent]

Being present is all about focusing with 100% of your attention on the things that are going on in front of you right now. It matters for a number of reasons. The research says that people are actually really bad at multitasking. Splitting your attention means that you’re not doing anything particularly well. More importantly, though, when you’re splitting your attention from someone, they can tell. People are really good at picking up on those gaps, those lapses in attention. It impacts the relationship. When we are very intentional with our attention that it helps us be present, strengthen the relationship, and give our best effort towards whatever we are putting our attention to.

[Michelle]

It helps you have a good relationship with yourself too, because you are able to be intentional. If you are reacting to everything that could be happening soon or if you have distractions that are technology-related, you are not able to be as intentional as you would be otherwise. You are not able to be present. You are not able to take where you are at and move forward. We’re not saying that planning isn’t good either, but you have to know where you are at.

[Brent]

We all are trying to develop stronger willpower. That’s something that children haven’t had as much practice with. Being able to help children develop that is almost a super power for them to help a child have that capability to focus and to place their attention on what is going on right now.

[Michelle]

It has to start with us, because there are growing amounts of anxiety. A lot of that comes from social media and different news outlets. We have a lot acting on us. We have to be intentional about being present. It used to be pretty easy to be present and in the moment, but now we have to choose to be here right now with us.

[Brent]

It’s almost an extension of a mindfulness practice in some respects. Mindfulness is all about focusing on the moment right now. It’s all about letting the experience of what’s going on around you be something that you embrace. You don’t label things but you experience things as they are without any judgement or prejudice. That practice is related to helping children be present because it’s all about being centered on this moment right now. If you are playing with a friend, you’re playing with a friend. If you’re working on a chore, that’s what you’re doing. Starting with ourselves is definitely where it starts, because then you can help identify and support your child in practices that will help them to be intentional.