Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
With backgrounds in therapy and coaching, James and Teri Craft help your marriage through issues with communication, intimacy, conflict, or if you're just fighting to fall back in love with your partner. Aside from their certifications, the reason why James and Teri are so passionate about helping your marriage through challenges is because they've walked through the hardest things in their marriage and they wouldn't have made it if it weren't for help.
If you are fighting for your marriage, don’t face this fight alone.
Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
Mastering Communication with the Peace Plan to Strengthen Your Relationship
Ever felt like you're having the same conversation over and over again with your partner, but nothing seems to change? This episode brings you the wisdom of James and Terry Craft, seasoned relationship experts, who introduce the peace plan to revolutionize the way you communicate with your significant other. We delve deep into the heart of relationship dynamics, uncovering the essential human need to feel understood and valued. By adopting the Crafts' strategic approach, you'll learn to cultivate a space where empathy and safety flourish, transforming your conversations into pathways for stronger connections.
Communication in relationships is an intricate dance of words and emotions, often revealing the unspoken truths that lie beneath the surface. In our discussion, we dissect how non-verbal cues and personal history play into our daily exchanges with those we love. Discover the power of the peace plan in slowing down heated interactions, allowing for more thoughtful and productive discourse. We emphasize the significance of individual growth and the development of communication skills, empowering you to create a peaceful haven within your relationship, irrespective of life's storms.
Finally, we underscore the importance of addressing the myriad relational needs that surface in marriage. Our conversation guides you through identifying and expressing these needs, from seeking validation to ensuring security, which are pivotal for emotional intimacy. Through the 'navigate' component of our PLAN framework, we invite couples to align their values and support each other in their journey together. Whether you're seeking to build upon your communication skills or venturing to understand your partner's perspective more deeply, this episode offers the insights and tools to foster a profoundly empathetic and intimate bond.
If you feel like you might need coaching our counseling, please visit https://www.livelifeunplugged.org/contact
In a poll on social media. We asked you what you need help with and one thing just kept coming up again and again, and again.
Speaker 2:What are some questions I could ask my spouse to get back on track.
Speaker 3:How do we talk about our problems without getting into bed fights? I feel like my husband never listens to me and like I'm talking to a brick wall. I feel like she wants me to read her mind.
Speaker 1:Communication. This is the same issue that most couples come with who sit down with James and Terry for coaching or counseling.
Speaker 2:People can be married for decades, years and years and still have breakdowns in their communication. What happens is is that one or both partners, for a period of time it maybe doesn't bother them, they just kind of deal with it. All of a sudden, there's kind of a wake-up call, or they just get weary and tired and it's like I can't handle this anymore. I can't do this one day longer. The truth is is that that communication pattern has likely been there all along.
Speaker 2:As human beings, we have two very, very primal needs, and that is to be seen and to be heard. So if I'm with a person who I feel repetitively isn't seeing or hearing me, that's gonna feel really traumatic. I'm in a relationship but I'm very alone. You cannot have effective connection without healthy communication, and when I'm talking about connection, I'm talking about we are connected together. You hear me, I hear you. You're looking at me. In my eyes this is intimate. We feel safe, we feel heard and seen. It's where we can feel vulnerable. That's the kind of connection I'm talking about. You may be feeling as if you're in a relationship where you are not seen and you're not heard. You're trying really hard and it's being met with neglect and it feels hopeless. But there is a pathway forward. We've developed a plan that's going to help you and your spouse knock it out of the park. It's called the peace plan and we believe the peace plan is going to be key for you, not only in your communication but in your connection.
Speaker 1:And that's because the couple that developed it is sort of in the business of transforming relationships. These are the crafts, james and Terry. They don't know how the internet works, anything about YouTube, tiktok or social media then that's okay, because they know a bit about something else Marriage. In fact, they've helped some of the most influential couples in the world and they've also helped couples going through the hardest situations imaginable. The reason why James and Terry are able to help couples go through really hard things is because they've been through it themselves and they came through the other side. The greatest marriage podcast ever, marriage Health, with James and Terry Craft. What's the most common communication breakdown that you see happen with couples?
Speaker 3:What's the most common communication breakdown that you see happen with couples? The number one breakdown in communication that we see with couples is the lack of ability to understand their spouse. When I come to my spouse and we're in a conflict and I looked at Terri and I'm like Terri, you know what? I'm just going to prove to you what I am feeling and I want you to understand what I'm feeling. All of a sudden it pushes her back into a defensive mode. If I come to her with an intentionality to understand her, she starts to press in closer to me, like oh, you actually care about me. Oh, I feel safe with you. Safety is critical in our communication.
Speaker 2:Communication is felt and I don't think we think about that much. Yeah, explain it. We just kind of feel like communication is felt and I don't think we think about that much. We just kind of feel like communication is something that I just do so that I can get a result, but the bottom line is, especially within a marriage relationship, communication is felt Non-verbal communication, since I'm an Italian, oh my gosh, this is our world right here.
Speaker 2:Non-verbal communication is about 60% of what we are giving and receiving. I mean if 60% of our communication around there is non-verbal, then whatever's inside that isn't always being verbally communicated. That's what we call the under the water line. That's right. The stuff that's inside of you, that maybe you're not even conscious about that, you're communicating.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:If we don't take the time to understand how our upbringing, our dysfunctional family, our trauma, our trauma, our hurts, our past relationships, if we don't take the time to understand how that impacts both our verbal and nonverbal communication, we end up in one of those categories who say that their divorce is caused because of the lack of communication.
Speaker 3:We have been working on a tool that I believe is going to help you navigate your communication with your spouse and others not just in your spouse, but others as well. If you practice it and you implement it and you digest it and it becomes part of the dna of who you are as a person and a part of your marriage and your relationships, it will transform the way you communicate going forward. I promise you this if you follow through and you make it a part of your life, the peace plan which James and I developed really came out of two things.
Speaker 2:One, it came out of working with so many couples who communication was an issue or is an issue in their relationship. But honestly, it's also really it really came out of us wanting to also develop a tool that would help us as well. Personally and if you're like me, it's not easy If it was you coming into the room and I'm assuming that this is what you'd say about me I hate it when she sighs.
Speaker 3:Oh, do I say that? I do say that, yes, and that's my insecurities. Yes, and I'm like just rebooting my brain, but I hear I don't have time for you yeah or I, you know I know I might be mr sensitive here, but I'm working through it. I'm working through it right.
Speaker 2:What happens with us is we both.
Speaker 2:We both can get pretty hot-headed and we can both get moving really fast in our communication, meaning we are both talking a mile a minute and we don't care about understanding anybody else, it's about you understanding what I'm saying. So what we really wanted to do was what can we develop that helps us slow things down? And that's pretty much what the peace plan is all about. Like, hey, when we get going in a conversation and it starts to get heated because I'm not understanding him or he's not understanding me, I start to raise my voice, I start to repeat myself and he tends to get a little bit more short and curt and both of us meet each other there and it just starts to escalate. And so the peace plan was not only our own attempt but, when working with couples, a way to really hone in and slow the conversation down, and when we do that, great things can happen. If I'm dealing with a lot of stress or anxiety or fear or anger or whatever it is, and I'm not really paying attention to that, or I don't really care.
Speaker 2:I'm giving that to you and, if people can hear me, communication is happening all the time. It's the number one reason our relationships make it or not, statistically speaking, and it is almost 100% based upon whether I have chosen to do the individual work and getting the skills that's going to make that effective and vice versa. You know, there's some things that in life that happened to us and we have no control over. Like you've had some medical things and it's like you have to go with the situation with the doctor tells you to do and you go with it. You didn't plan for it. It wasn't like you're like, hey, let's have this happen, Okay. Well, that's not the case with communication.
Speaker 2:Like we actually have the ability to show up differently with one another when we choose to. I mean, that's got to feel hopeful for somebody. That's right, that's got to feel hopeful.
Speaker 3:Peace doesn't mean to be void of all conflict. Peace doesn't mean to be alone in the meadows of the Sierra Nevadas and you're just able to experience the bliss of life and just ah, just everything's beautiful. No experience the bliss of life and just ah, just everything's beautiful. No peace can be when you're in the midst of the storm of life and all of a sudden, you're secure in where you're at.
Speaker 1:Security. That's the foundation for healthy communication. To secure people coming together. There's nothing more attractive to your spouse than your security, and without security in your relationship, you begin to feel as though you're not seen, you're not heard, which is your greatest need. That's why the peace plan is not a script. It's not a set of prescribed questions to ask your spouse, although we'll give you some of those later in this video. The peace plan is not a list of do's and don'ts. It's a guide for two people to find themselves and connect.
Speaker 2:Listen. A lot of the people that we sit with, the first point of resistance is always well, this feels mechanical, this feels as if I'm having to go through specific steps, and my answer is yes, that's exactly what we're trying to do, because we're trying to not only seek to understand what we are experiencing, but we're trying to seek to understand what our partner's experiencing, and we're trying to get a hold of our body, because that's usually what goes crazy, because our adrenaline starts kicking off and that's when all our emotions, just you know, get all dysregulated. The other thing that I will say is is it works best when you can have it in front of you, so I'm going to encourage you. At the bottom, underneath the information, is it called information in the description?
Speaker 2:in the description. Is there a reason why it has to be called description? Why can't we just call information at the bottom in the description? In the description? Is there a reason why it has to be called description? Why can't we just call information at the bottom in the description? We have a free download for you to take the peace plan with you. Yeah, you might think that going to the length of having something printed out in front of you when you're trying to have a conversation with your spouse might be weird, but it's hard for me to remember my phone number when I'm completely limbic and starting to freak out because someone's not hearing me. So is it weird? No, and I will say that what really works is when both of you can commit to doing this. But either way, if you are the only one who's really showing up and trying to learn, still learn the peace plan, because it's going to help you in your communication with your spouse and everybody else in your life. If you can get it down, all right, here we go, we are ready.
Speaker 1:Peace Plan is actually an acronym. It's why we recommend to print this bad boy out using the link in the description. What are we doing?
Speaker 3:We're making acronyms. Okay, what does the first B stand for?
Speaker 2:If you can make it to letter A in plan, this will change your communication forever.
Speaker 1:Terry is not exaggerating. That step will seriously transform your relationship. There's a reason why the peace plan is not just three steps. Communication isn't meant to be viewed as something to get over with quickly. It's meant to be a journey that two people take together. Until communication is seen this way, both people will never truly feel seen or heard.
Speaker 2:All right, the first thing in the PEACE plan is this is an acronym, so we tried to make it easy for you. So P? What does P stand for? P stands for pause. Really, at the beginning, pause. Yes, the first thing that we do in a communication strategy is we take a deep breath.
Speaker 3:Allow your heart rate to come down. Realize wait a second, I can do this. I don't have to make this a catastrophe. I can look at this head on, eye to eye, this person in front of me and I can address the issue here. Pause. We want to learn how to respond to our spouse rather than react. If you don't pause, you're going to react.
Speaker 2:What does breathing do for communication strategy, everything. A deep breath. It resets our brain, it communicates to our body that we're okay and it starts to counter the release of all the other adrenaline and chemicals that are telling us that we need to puff up. When I start to get stressed out, I start to feel as if I'm already going on the defense right, because I've come here before and that means like I got to puff up. Or I'm feeling I have to think really hard about what I'm going to say because maybe it's not going to be received well, so I'm already feeling anxious.
Speaker 2:Regardless of the strategy that I go to, a deep breath is going to help me reboot the part of my brain right here, the prefrontal cortex, that's going to help me get present. We want to be right here right now, so that we're not kind of stuck in our trauma from the past or fear of the future. So a deep breath oftentimes can be just as simple as four counts in holding for four counts and then exhaling for four counts. Simple, there, that's it. It will literally change your life if you can use a deep breath in all of the situations where your brain just starts to go really fast, if we can start a deep breath in all of the situations where your brain just starts to go really fast, we can start to breathe. Things can change, so, james.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, why don't you just say my middle name while you're at it?
Speaker 2:It was really crazy about that All I said was your name and obviously I communicated something.
Speaker 3:It was it was the way you said it. What was it? It was the tone.
Speaker 2:You know what it is. It's all the years I've gone. Okay, james, so I'm here to tell you that saying your partner's name, oh, is a hundred percent of the communication.
Speaker 1:So, honey, yes, okay, so yeah when we can breathe and take back control of our bodies, our emotions. It allows us to show up as our genuine selves. The only way you can really be seen and heard is if you allow the real you to show up.
Speaker 2:We really need to understand that authenticity, our genuine selves. That is the foundation for communication. Research shows that couples are the most high level genuine meters that we have in our lives. So, like, if my meter is on to you and you show up in a way that's not genuine or not authentic, my meters are just going to go. I mean, it's just going to go off. It's such a beautiful thing If we just back up from it, we let go of some of our control. It means that you are my best accountability, you're my best friend, you're the person who's going to be like I got you, you're the love of my life.
Speaker 2:My meter, like, is going off because that that doesn't feel genuine, that doesn't feel authentic. What's going on there? Right, and then you're open to hopefully being able to dialogue there. But see if I have something in my life that's not feeling genuine. I haven't done the work and my spouse, their genuine meter goes off because I'm not showing up genuine or authentic and I instead put up a wall or I defend, or I hide and lie. Communication is over, yeah, okay. So you've done the breathing, you've done P for pause. Now we're going to move into E, which is examine, examine the environment that you're in. Look around you.
Speaker 3:What's going on in front of you? The baby's crying over here, there's dishes in the sink, the car's broken down, the kids are coming home from school. It's chaos. Maybe not the best time to have a deep conversation with your spouse, let's call a time out and let's come back to this in about 15 or 20 minutes, when we can kind of resolve some things.
Speaker 2:So the examination is going to give us the ability to decide should we pause this a little bit longer and come back to it later, or is this really a good time? Feels peaceful, it feels like both of us are ready. There's no screaming kids. I have some privacy. We can have this conversation now. So we've taken a deep breath. For P, we've examined our environment, which is E, and now we're into A, which is attune.
Speaker 3:Attunement is like this Growing up I drove a Volkswagen 69 Volkswagen bug and it had the original stereo inside. It was a knob. It would go up and down FM and static and eventually you would lock into a station that would provide, you know, play music. Well, in doing that I was able to tune in to what that station was and hear it clearly. Well, exact same thing in a relationship. Attunement means I'm going to tune in to what you're really saying. You might be intense and angry and upset, but as you attune to them, you're able to say they feel completely out of control. I can see that the baby's crying right now. The dishes are in the sink, the kids are coming home from school. There's no dinner. I can see that they had a long day at work as well and it's overwhelming and they feel out of control.
Speaker 2:I overwhelming and they feel out of control. I can attune to that. So when I'm able to tune in to my spouse, then I know that I'm engaged in a way that's going to be healthy. If I'm unable to attune, if I cannot connect at all in empathy, or my partner can't attune at all in empathy with me, then sometimes that's going to signal a deeper problem or a deeper issue that we need to kind of do a little bit more work in A peace plan is going to be a little harder to really solve the communication problem.
Speaker 2:Because if I can't even attempt to tune in to my partner because I'm so angry with them to the level that I can't even sit with them, I'm so afraid or scared and feel unsafe, it may be too early for a communication tool, which is okay. I don't want anyone to feel freaked out or scared. It just means that we might need to come back to the peace plan after we've done some deep work individually so that we can understand why we can't even sit and try to attune. But if we're in a good, semi-healthy place and we're like, okay, we're human, may not be perfect, but we really want to try to connect with one another, then I'm going to be able to tune in and I'm going to go okay, I'm connecting what's going on, I'm listening, I'm tuning in. So we've just attuned, we're giving some empathy, meaning we're sitting with their pain, we're sitting with our pain and now we're feeling a little bit more, maybe hopefully a little more neutral. So then we're going to move into C, and C is curiosity.
Speaker 2:Curiosity is one of my absolute favorite words in healthy marriage. Curiosity is going to be where I'm going to just be open. I'm open and I'm a little more neutral and I come out in a way that's like hey, I'm hearing that they're saying that they have a specific feeling about this. Huh, I wonder why. Or I'm sitting here feeling fill in the blank. I just noticed that I'm feeling and fill in the blank, and so I'm curious. Curiosity is a little bit more neutral and it's open.
Speaker 3:Then you're able to go into the E in peace, explore, as you're able to explore some ideas and thoughts. Maybe you're off, maybe you're being triggered, and you're able to explore and say I'm starting to feel triggered. Right now I'm feeling like I need to get a grip on me and this is a really key component here.
Speaker 2:This is where the flashlight was pointing outward. Now I'm going to take that flashlight and I'm pointing it inward and I'm going to explore. I really want to start thinking about, as I'm communicating what am I feeling, what am I experiencing, how am I showing up? What is my body language looking like? Okay, I'm exploring these feelings and, yeah, there might be some anger that's coming up and I need to maybe have a piece of paper next to me and just start taking a few notes. What am I experiencing? What am I feeling? Why? I might write down I haven't slept well in the last three nights. That could have a bearing on how I'm communicating with my spouse right now. I might explore and realize, hey, it's that time of month for me. I might explore and realize, hey, it's that time of month for me. I might explore and realize you know, this is the seventh time that we've had this conversation in a week and I'm feeling exhausted because of it, and so I'm starting to explore what's inside of me in the conversation.
Speaker 1:And the peace plan. Peace is all about helping you feel safe to be your authentic self, for your spouse to also show up as their authentic self. This next part is all about helping you feel safe to be your authentic self. For your spouse to also show up as their authentic self. This next part is all about two people actually making a plan, moving forward together.
Speaker 2:Plan really helps us to sort of organize our thoughts, organize our experience, to lay the groundwork in order for us to move forward with what it is that we are actually trying to communicate. So the first part of the plan part is you guessed it P, which means pause. We're going to ask you to take another deep breath to pause for a second. This is a place where we will stop couples in a session and we'll say, okay, we're going to pause for a second. Do is a place where we will stop couples in a session and we'll say, okay, we're gonna pause for a second. Do we need to go back up to the peace part and kind of do that again, because it's still pretty volatile, or can we just take this deep breath and move forward? So it's kind of a fork in the road.
Speaker 3:So I hear us say this all the time let's just pause here, let's take a deep breath, bring your heart rate down, because if your heart rate's up, you're going to start to react again rather than respond. And so this pause mechanism it takes us into a place where, if I started to explore and I started to get overwhelmed again, I'm able to pause and bring my heart rate back down, and so I can have some clarity.
Speaker 2:So the next part is L. L is learn. If you've been married or you've been in a relationship with somebody for any amount of time, you're thinking that you know everything about them, and I'm here to tell you you don't. If you're open, you will always learn something new, even if it is guess what. 5.30 PM is the worst time to try to have a deep conversation with each other. Because we just learned it. Why? Because we opened ourselves up and we examined and we explored and we attuned and we realized that 5.30 PM isn't going to work. We learned something. You might learn that your spouse really feels some deep feelings about something and they've never told you. Okay, well, now we know.
Speaker 3:We start to learn okay, what do we need here? Well, your spouse might need a bath, or your spouse might need a timeout on their own where they're able to go, get in the car. And I remember when our kids were young and my wife worked from home and I worked outside the house and I would come home and she would look at me and say, james, I just need to go to the store. And I thought, didn't we already go to the store? But her joy was to go to Target and go up and down the aisles without a baby and so that she can just decompress. And so I learned that that was really important for her. We want to make sure that we learn how do we navigate forward in this so that we can actually help each other achieve the goal that we are both seeking to have connection in our communication.
Speaker 2:So what can you learn about yourself? What can you learn about your spouse through working, through the peace plan?
Speaker 1:And then we are able to then ask Do you remember when I said step A and plan would change your marriage? This is that step. We really hope that's the case.
Speaker 2:This is the most key part of the plan and that is ask what do I need from my partner? I also have to ask what does my partner need from me? Listen, we all have emotional and relational needs. Every person walking on this planet has relational needs and we don't always have the language for it. So I'm gonna give you some language here that I think will help you. I'm gonna pick up my phone, I'm going to give you some specific words that might help you kind of just start that. Then we can kind of fill them into some specific questions that we can ask back and forth.
Speaker 2:Some of our most common relational needs include acceptance, validation, comfort, affirmation, encouragement, respect, forgiveness, clarification, identification, affection, companionship, structure. That's me. I love structure, I love a plan, belonging, honesty, compassion, support, security, empathy, empathy, attunement, safety, security and authenticity. So these are just a few. Literally there are hundreds and hundreds, but these are so important and maybe I might have to ask the question are you feeling, maybe sad because you need and from my conversation I might have attuned, I might have heard and learning that my spouse might be feeling sad because they need acceptance.
Speaker 2:Are you feeling sad because you need some acceptance? Are you feeling sad because you need some compassion and it's not like are you sad because you need compassion? That's a different way of communicating. No, this is like you're learning something about them. It's like I never even thought about that, that you, because of the stress that you're under and you're in work environment or your school environment or whatever it might be, that you are just feeling really sad and weary because you feel like no one sees you. I might also say I feel sad and I request that you would see me. When I ask for those things to be done around the house, it's not because I'm trying to bark orders at you. It's because I'm utterly exhausted by the end of the day, and so we're starting to just ask one another and toss back and forth these relational needs.
Speaker 3:Which leads us to our last one navigate.
Speaker 2:Our last letter is N. So on plan P-L-A-N, n is navigate. This is where we're going to realize that we're a team Like. We love each other. Remember that and we're going to navigate forward. This is where we start to understand we have shared values. We are holding down the fort together. We got this. It's us against the world. We're going to grab each other's hand and we're going to realize what's really important here and, as I've now been seen and heard and I've been able to request and ask what those relational needs that I might have are and hear what my spouse's relational needs are, then I can navigate forward.
Speaker 2:This is like we got this. We're navigating forward and we're realizing I see you and you see me because we just navigated something really hard but we made it through. See me, because we just navigated something really hard but we made it through. If you try this and you're consistent and you make it a goal, you will see a difference In the link, in the description. You can download and print this and have it on your phone or have it in front of you and you can start today If you dive into the peace plan and you realize that there are some deeper issues that need to be worked out. Just know that you're not alone. Reach out to us. If you need an alongsider, you'll find us in a link in the description.
Speaker 1:Marriage Health with James and Terry Craft. If you feel like you need someone to come alongside you, a coach or a counselor, reach out to us. The link is in the description.
