In this episode we welcome Marc and Courtney Donelson.
Marc and Courtney have been married for 21 years, have two children, and they are marriage mentors through The Basic Idea Ministry based in Georgia.
In this episode they join us to talk about marriage and parenting during the quarantine.
Tune in to see Marriage and Quarantine Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #87 Transcription
Craig Graves: [00:00:00] Hey, Chris. Good to see you, man.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:04] Good to see you too, man. I gotta be honest with you. This is awesome to be able to be back on the mikes. We, we we’re we’re, we’re kind of socially distanced.
Craig Graves: [00:00:11] Uh, probably not.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:12] Maybe not
Craig Graves: [00:00:13] within the guidelines.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:14] We’re not like Trump was a 12 foot away on the reporter or the other day, if you happen to see that they were like, it was weird.
He’s doing his interview and it’s like across the different sides of the room. Did you have to catch that? Yeah, we’re not quite that, but we are socially different distance. Welcome to episode 86, mr. Graves, what do you think about pushing up almost a 90?
Marc Donelson: [00:00:35] Yeah, I was thinking the other day, we’re getting close to a hundred,
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:38] right?
We got to do something special on a hundred or something of the throughatherapistseys. Uh, we invite you to see the world as always through the lens of the mental health and substance abuse therapist, goal still to create emotional growth through the medium of this podcast. Being aware it’s not the delivery of therapy services in any way.
And feedback and discussion is definitely looked for on throughatherapistseyes.com. They got to hit the podcast blog tab. We might be changing some of the internet, the website page stuff soon. Huh? I think we’ve got to put a book thing on their coaching thing on there and some different neat stuff.
Marc Donelson: [00:01:14] Yeah. Yeah. We got some interesting stuff happening soon.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:17] The human emotional experience, let’s figure this thing out together, man. We have done a lot of group interviews lately as well. Kind of like that. It’s kind of neat to have added voices on here. This one’s kind of cool for me. You know, why,
Marc Donelson: [00:01:33] why is that?
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:33] You remember I’m a published author.
Marc Donelson: [00:01:35] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I haven’t seen a book yet, so I don’t know if you are or not, you keep saying that, but I don’t,
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:40] it’s coming, man. You know about my grammar ability, right?
Marc Donelson: [00:01:42] Oh, I hope you have a proofreader.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:46] I got better than that, man. I got way better than that. I’m going to prove it because the person who made it actually sound all right, is actually with us.
Tonight, sir, ms. Courtney Donaldson and her husband, Mark.
Marc Donelson: [00:02:02] Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:03] We have some guests for the show this week, Courtney and Mark. Welcome to throughatherapiseyes. How are y’all tonight?
Cortney Donelson: [00:02:11] We’re doing great. Thanks. Thanks for that intro. And you know what your grammar, when you speak is spot on.
Craig Graves: [00:02:18] So, so much better than your writing, right?
I mean, spelling and I mean, it’s terrible.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:25] There are so many people on Facebook live that are seeing me be crushed right now by these people. Man, I tell ya,
Craig Graves: [00:02:33] I get froggy frustrated trying to edit Chris’s social media posts. So I can’t imagine being the first reader of his book
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:42] pretty well, man. She read ink that pretty well. We have Courtney and Mark Donaldson, uh, in way of introducing and, and guys listening. If I leave anything out. Craig, these guys have been married for over two decades. Can you believe that?
Craig Graves: [00:02:55] Congratulations
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:56] right. 21 years of marriage with two kiddos, age 15 and 11, both adopted internationally, I wish would do a show on that.
Guys. You got to have your back a few times. They are speakers and trained marriage mentors through the basic idea of ministry, a guest that is based in Georgia. Facilitating small groups and weekend intensive for couples at all stages of marriage, from a engaged relationships to in crisis relationships.
As I said, she is also the best editor ever at Vocem editing. Uh, I wrote that you see that mobile ran best. Editing ever. She does ghost writing and editing of documents, books. So there’s a lot of people that want to, you know, engage in, in book writing and she can actually make you help it come alive. I can attest to that.
Mr. Mark, what did we miss out with you, man? Is, uh, is there anything I miss Courtney? Who are you guys? And, and, and what do you do? What makes you guys, you guys.
Cortney Donelson: [00:03:57] Well, um, like, like you said, we’ve been married for over two decades. We were married, real, I guess, kind of early, right out of college, age 23. I’m barely able to toast at our wedding, but, um, and then Mark, do you want to, he, he’s more in training and HR
Marc Donelson: [00:04:15] corporate training and the more, uh, the more impressive courts, uh, court’s introduction gets, um, the closer I get to my ultimate job title, which is a trophy husband.
So that is what. That’s exactly where I want to land. Um, and so the more that she does and the more books that she edits, the closer I get to that. So, uh, I’m, I’m looking forward to those days.
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:35] That’s funny, man. I got a, I got a friend, uh, my wife’s best friend husband put a Facebook post out there recently.
Hey buddy. I saw that post. He’s like, man, it’s really hard to be a trophy husband.
It’s like, boom. That’s awesome. So, so you guys work with marriages and the topic today is, uh, your, your idea mrs. Donaldson, actually, you, you, you hooked us up and approach it. I’m so glad because it fit perfectly. Craig wanted to do some coronavirus, pandemic related topic shows and we’ve kind of strong a few together.
Um, for the audience, uh, you know, we did a, just a therapist take on coronavirus. What else did we do, Craig? We did the, um, uh, sex, uh, uh, pornography.
Craig Graves: [00:05:17] Yeah. And we’ve also got a work from home episode coming out.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:20] Yep. Okay. And, and to, and today later on, we’re going to re re release. A couple of days, sort of my sound off on my concern with kids, man, I’m really getting concerned about kids.
And also we’re going to have some fun, uh, with talking about sports and what it does for us and with us. But boy, one of the big things that’s happening in this quarantine environment, uh, Courtney, that was a great topic idea. You know, being able to, to, to talk about marriage in the quarantine environment, because I’ll tell you what, we’re not all sitting at home playing for cheesy, just having fun.
Cortney Donelson: [00:05:52] No, in fact, uh, it might, the idea came when Mark gave me a statistic about, uh, the, how busy divorce attorneys attorneys are right now. So,
Marc Donelson: [00:06:04] yeah. Um, yeah, it was really, um, you know, it was this single article and this was, um, you know, very early in the, in the state home orders. Uh, and. Yeah, they were talking about all the businesses that were going down or businesses that were decreasing and seeing lower turnout numbers, but some businesses were booming and in divorce lawyers were actually right near the top of that list.
Um, and just how busy they were. Um, and my first thought was like, It’s only been stay at home for like two weeks. Um, did things go that badly that quickly? Um, and if so, what are things gonna look like? You know, a month, two months, three months down the road is this continues. Um, so yeah, it was, it just, you know, it was eyeopening and I hadn’t really thought about it cause you know, you know, started for us, we thought, all right, like this is okay.
We like hanging out together. Um, all right, this is okay. We, we can, we can handle this.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:54] Yeah, I, you know, I, I can’t, we’re not really a statistics show, but I know for a fact, uh, in talking some, some people that do law and all, I mean, it’s, it’s very much, um, it’s busy for those guys. Uh, people are, I can tell you in my therapy office, people are really struggling with marital battles and fights and disagreements.
I mean, you just think of the picture, right? I mean, you’re used to. You know, having some space and some distance naturally provided for by work and, uh, you know, you’re, you’re now home all day long. Um, you absolutely got your kids. They’re up in your grill constantly. They constantly people, right? I mean, it, it you’re, you’re expected to be a teacher and manage the workflow that usually is done by an entire full time person.
We’re actually an entire staff of full time people. I mean, this is all going on in our homes. It’s, you know, for people that are out there struggling, I want to say as a therapist, like you’re not losing it alone. You’re you’re with the vast majority of the public. Right. I mean, if you guys been hearing any of that.
Cortney Donelson: [00:07:57] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, um, I mean, the, the point that we want to start with is that we are, if three dimensional beings, if you will, there’s this, you know, physical dimension where we’re constantly with each other. And then there’s, you know, for those who have a faith or spiritual component, there’s that spiritual connection that you have with your spouse, but then there’s this relational and friendship or soul based connection that you have, where all your feelings and thoughts and your choices kind of lay.
And that’s the connection that we’re really kind of worried about with a lot of these spouses.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:36] Yeah. What kind of connections are people having, you know, or struggling with? I mean, are you, do you guys kind of talk to, you know, married couples as part of your coaching and you know, part of the process and stuff for you guys, like, do you regularly engage or support.
Marc Donelson: [00:08:52] Yeah. So, um, we’ll run, um, we have a curriculum that we take people through, um, that we, that we were trained in. Um, and so that’s, uh, and we’ll either do that through, you know, weekly meetings for a couple of months, or we’ll do everything in a weekend, in an intensive. Um, but you know, we’re because of that training and that correctly, um, we’re always, our ears are always open for couples that are struggling and, um, you know, whether it’s, you know, people we meet at, in.
Church or through friends or, you know, friends of ours that we’ve had for years, they’re like, we’re really, you know, we’re struggling or are we just, we’ve been trained to listen for certain cues. Um, and, and that’s really where. Where a lot of those conversations start.
Cortney Donelson: [00:09:30] Yeah. We hear a lot either. You know, we’re either arguing a lot or we just feel like roommates, like we’re just ships passing in the night.
And that’s what we hear real often.
Craig Graves: [00:09:41] Right. Is that just in general or more so in the past month and a half
Cortney Donelson: [00:09:47] more so, so yeah. Uh, yeah, I’ve received. Um, I obviously was social distancing. We’re not hanging out with our friends or going to church right now, or, or workplaces, but, um, just the amount of texts or even social media posts or, um, you know, emails, things like that that are coming in.
Have increased. There’s a definitely a tick up
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:10] a ramp up a monster zoom of a rocket ship, maybe. Right. People, like I said, people are, people are struggling out there. So let’s, let’s give him some things to think about. Um, you know, with some of the things that you kind of go through, I was kind of intrigued by this idea that, um, you know, we’re three dimensional.
Uh, there’s something cool about the number three, isn’t it? I mean, it seems to come up a lot. Have you ever noticed that?
Cortney Donelson: [00:10:38] Yeah, so. We learned this through the training that we went. Yeah. Um, and basically when, when we get married, we connect on this physical level. Right. We have these physical beings, the bodies that you see, the five senses that we have.
Um, and then we have this, this relational component, which is really the friendship component. And if you’re missing on any three of these levels, and then you have the spiritual component as well, if you’re missing on any three levels, then you’re going to feel something amiss in your relationship. Um, but often.
You know, the physical component is tangible. It’s easy to kind of see it’s, you know, holding hands it’s the kissing, it’s the hugging like that. But the, the relationship component of that soul component friendship component is hard to see. It’s hard to put your hands around. And so that’s where a lot of people kind of, um, I think are missing.
Are there ships passing in the night is on that level.
Chris Gazdik: [00:11:38] Yeah, she she’s looking at you, Mark. What do you think about the three dimensional piece? That’s a nonverbal cue. You’re up bro
Marc Donelson: [00:11:49] mean? I don’t know much add there. I mean, that’s, that’s exactly the way we, you know, How we approach things, but even within that, that friendship or that relational piece, there there’s three pieces in there of, um, you know, it’s our thoughts, it’s our feelings and it’s our decisions. Um, and really how, how each of those feeds the other.
So, you know, if you’re, if you’re feeling stressed or, you know, you’re, you’re feeling overwhelmed emotionally. You know, that’s going to trigger some thoughts in your head of, you know, I, I need some space. I need to, you know, you get short temper, that’s gonna trigger some of your decision making. Should I go downstairs and help make dinner?
And, and how could the kids or not, I’m just going to lock myself in this room for quiet the next 30 minutes, realize, Oh, now your spouses downstairs with the kids for another 30 minutes.
Cortney Donelson: [00:12:41] not that this ever happens in our house.
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:44] I’m not picking up at all ever. Right?
Yeah. I, I think that, um, I want to kind of chime in, I hear you kind of saying, you know, making decisions on these basic dimensions, you know, the physical and the relational and the spiritual, I mean, I think that’s a, that’s a cool way of looking at it. What I feel like I want to bring into the, to the equation that I have found, uh, dramatically important in any marriage discussion.
Is these guys, Craig, do you remember talking about mr. John Gottesman? I do. Yeah. What’d you, what do you recall from that?
Craig Graves: [00:13:18] He’s the, a EFT guy, right?
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:19] Right, right. There’s a guy and episode 11 is a matter of fact, dude, we’ve totally need to redo the episode 11. We were new into doing this. It was one of the most important ones.
I wanted to jump on it, but a listening audience, we’re going to, we’re going to redo that one in, in my mind’s eye soon because he identified Courtney and Mark in an amazing way. Uh, that transformed the way I do. Marital counseling. And I’m going to give the five second or the cliff note version because he actually wired people up and he took a, your heart rates and blood pressure.
And I mean, you know, sweat glands, and all he did is he laid out, you know, uh, conversations. In a, in a, in what he called the love, the love lab. Have you ever heard of this guy, Courtney? No. Okay. Yeah. And so he just measured there, all these vitals and whatnot while people were talking and, and, and saw the patterns, looked for the foundational patterns that he could have, he could observably see, and what he came down to are basically the cycles that we get into that are, are, are, I mean, they’re just, they nail.
The foundational patterns that you’re looking at when you’re trying to connect physically, or when you’re trying to connect to relationally or spiritually on these three dimensions that you guys are talking about. And he identified two specific insecurities, one abandonment, and the other engulfement, right?
The abandonment has behaviors to feel safe in the attachment that are pursuing behaviors. Right. The engulfment insecurity folks have behaviors associated to attachment in close relationships that are withdrawing patterns of behavior. So you’ve got the abandonment people that pursued and you got the w the engulfment people that withdraw.
And you have three types of relationships. You can have obviously two people that are in the engulfment, which is very rare. It does. It’s dead that, you know, I actually, yeah, nothing’s going on at all. And then you got the crazy thing when to abandonment people, people are clapping at each other. I mean, Holy cow it is a lovefest when it’s going on, but when it is not going on, it’s bad, an overwhelming majority of the time you get somebody that’s completely opposite.
One person’s grabbing to be close desperately. You feel emotionally safe. And the other’s like totally withdrawing and shutting down, putting up walls so they can feel emotionally safe. I’m telling you Gottman nailed it when he identified those things. And so I’m curious as you look at the relational of physical and the relational friendship, and then the connection spiritually, as you were listening to that, how, how does that connect on the three dimensions?
Marc Donelson: [00:15:58] Yeah, it connects really well, um, in, um, through what we do. There’s, um, we basically know of 30 relational needs, so, um, and really, I’m pretty confident that if you mapped all 30 of these relational needs, they’re gonna fall into one of those two camps that you just talked about. Um, and really they are there needs that, that we all have, um, that, um, and, and.
We all have them in different values. We prioritize them differently, but we all have them in the, you know, examples would be, you know, affection, approval, attention, uh, support, uh, you know, and, and, and, you know, for court, you know, her, her big, her big needs are, um, Know support is one of her biggest needs for me, one of my biggest needs is respect.
Um, and I, and we have definitely seen in, um, you know, in these times, uh, you know, in the Covid times that, um, Yeah, some of those needs have shifted. Um, so for example, you know, uh, appreciation security support, we have seen those start to rise to the top because we both need to support each other because we’re two jobs working at home, two kids, and we.
It’s been clear that we care more about their school work than they do. Um,
Chris Gazdik: [00:17:09] there’s a lot going on on that level brother. I know. Right.
Marc Donelson: [00:17:13] Um, yeah. And so, and kind of what you said, it’s alright, we’ve suddenly have four people under this house and we’re all trying to do more than what we used to, so we really need to support each other.
And so even going back to that example, alright. Well, I want to stay upstairs and kind of have 30 minutes of quiet, not supporting court. Um, and that’s not helping her and showing her that, you know, look, I’m here for you, we’re in this together. Um, and, and, and so, yeah, I mean, I, I don’t know what you want to add to that, but for me, I mean, we, um, we break it down a little further than, than those two camps, but I’m sure that the, the 30 would map back up really clearly.
If we spent five.
Cortney Donelson: [00:17:52] Yeah. And, and my thought is, um, when, so one of those relational needs is security. So as you were saying, Chris, um, when we’re not feeling secure or at peace, or that there’s harmony with, you know, under this rule, then, then each of us respond in both of those camps that you mentioned. I’m the, okay, let’s go at it.
And he’s the, let me run away and hide so
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:19] funny that people struggle sometimes in knowing themselves. I’ll get a lot of times the idea that I do both. That’s what I thought you were saying, but you’re kind of like saying no, we’re, it’s clear. Sometimes the listening audience understands it’s really, really clear and you can easily pick this stuff out other times. It’s kind of like, I don’t know,
man. I do both well. You do too. And I don’t know, you know, you really have to kind of walk through and figure it out because the key here is when things are hot, when we feel wired, when we’re really. Stressed we’re needing that attachment. Right. We’re needing that connection and that’s when our insecurities start popping.
Right. And so, yeah, go ahead.
Marc Donelson: [00:19:01] And along with that, what we’ve realized is a lot of the, a lot of the times that one of us get, gets frustrated or gets angry or something doesn’t, you know, sets us off. It’s usually back. It’s usually pretty easy to track it back to someone. One of these relational needs isn’t being met.
Um, so if court’s not feeling supported, if she feels like I’m kind of, you know, out on my own and not helping with the house stuff or with the kids’ school stuff, um, it usually comes out as anger. Um, and while she, no,
Cortney Donelson: [00:19:31] I don’t know what he is talking about
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:31] I am going to kill him, Craig
Marc Donelson: [00:19:40] If I feel that, you know, she’s not respecting kind of what or not appreciating that’s another one of my big needs is feeling appreciated. Um, and so if I feel unappreciated and unrespected, I mean, I’ll, I don’t yell, but I will I’ll act like a four year old. That’s really, I mean, I’ll just kind of be a jerk.
Um, But it’s usually because one of those relational needs are not being met. And so that’s what we try to work with couples on is to recognize, Hey, when someone’s, when your spouse is angry or your spouses is upset, it’s, you know, try to see past the anger and the frustration and the emotion and look to are what’s driving that.
So
Cortney Donelson: [00:20:27] we, yeah, we have a phrase for that. It’s um, You know, minister to the pain rather than react to the behavior that you’re seeing. And so when I’m getting angry, as he says, right, can you see that Chris? Can you see me being angry?
Chris Gazdik: [00:20:43] I do not. I a be honest with you Mark, or dude she’s no, she, she is nothing but supportive, bro.
Did I do okay, Courtney? Is that okay.
Marc Donelson: [00:20:56] There’s usually a pretty good reason either way at the chorus.
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:02] Got it. Got you. Got you.
Well, you got to, you got to put your mommy hat on. Absolutely. The daddy stare and the mommy look, you know, we, we got our, we got our skills kids. Uh, let me get back on track. I went, I want to talk about how the COVID specific situation is affecting those relational dimensions, but yeah. But you, you seem to kind of, um, I’m curious if it’s true and why it’s so of the three dimensions there, the spiritual, the physical and the relational, you seem to focus on the relational.
Is that true? First off and if so, why?
Cortney Donelson: [00:21:38] Yeah, I think it’s true because that’s where all of our, um, like Mark said that, that relational component. Our dimension that we have has three sections. It’s are our thoughts. What goes in our mind, it’s our feelings or emotions. And then it’s our choices. And it’s those feelings and emotions right now that are just being hit constantly on social media.
Then if you watch the news or the fear factor, you go out and you see the mask on everyone. And you wonder if things are going to go back to normal and you’re, you’ve lost your job. So your feelings right now are just on like a thousand percent.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:12] Right
Cortney Donelson: [00:22:12] and effect everything else and that relational component, which is how we typically connect first to our spouses.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:21] Right. Yeah. You know, I think I get that, you know, first of all, it is, it’s being destroyed right now by all of the stress. I mean, I think I shared on the show, you know, it’s funny, I do therapy all day long and um, you know, people wonder like how, how do you handle talking about people’s problems all day?
You know, I get that question all the time. Like. I don’t know. I mean, you just learn how to kind of compartmentalize that and, and it doesn’t bother you, but boy, man, when this, when this COVID remember, I was talking about it, Craig, I think. No the first couple of weeks, man, when this, when this all hit, I’m licking the floor when I’m leaving my office, because I’m just like, all of my own emotions are sitting there.
Like, you know, what do you mean? I I’m sitting there making decisions about how many chairs to have in my lobby and shake people’s hands. I mean, you know, Oh my God, everybody had a run lysol. Well, I need it for my business. Are we going to get this? Should I wipe down every day? What protocols should I put in?
For my staff, but, you know, am I going to get sick? I’m gonna want to get my mom’s sick and there’s all this stuff going on. Right. And, and we’re supposed to do all the normal stuff as well that we’ve struggled with before this.
Marc Donelson: [00:23:29] Yeah. And I think that, you know, one of the things that, um, that kinda all those relational needs tied back to you and kind of where you’re.
Yeah, where I think you’re going is, you know, we try to simplify it as much as we can. Um, and instead of like, now I have to do all this stuff on top of all this other stuff that I’ve always done. Um, we try to break it down from a, from a relational standpoint of, you know, my role is the husband is to help court feel a little less alone every day.
Um, and, and court’s role is as a wife is to make me feel a little less alone each day, and that could look completely different. Um, you know, sometimes it’s, it’s the laundry list sometimes, you know, it’s. But I’m going to do the dishes. Sometimes it’s not I’m going to pick up her tea uh, you know, her Thai tea and her favorite, um, and her favorite coffee place, um, where, you know, we’re not being in this situation.
It may be, look, we’re going to go, we’re going for date night or we’re doing, you know, all these different things. Sometimes in these more stressful situations and stressful times, it’s, it’s the little things that, um, you know, you can, you can really boil it down to much smaller support and in much smaller ways to just let her know that look.
Yeah, I’m here. You’re not in this by yourself. Um, you know, I’m gonna figure this out. I don’t know how we’re going to figure this out. Um, and, and, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll be okay. One of my, you know, kind of go to things cause it’s pretty easy and yeah. Um, I’m all about easy. Most of the time is right.
Dry erase marker message on her and her bathroom mirror in the morning. I’m just saying, Hey, you know, thinking of you, I love you just so that, you know, she gets up. The first thing she sees is okay, like somebody is thinking about me, you know, he’s, it’s a little thing. It takes me, it takes me longer to think of it.
What I’m going to write. You can actually treat, write it on the mirror, but, but I know that I know that she now knows. Well, I’m with you today, regardless of what, however, I’m going to screw up today, intentionally unintentionally. However, I’m going to mess up, you know, later on in the day, I’m still, I’m still there with him.
Cortney Donelson: [00:25:41] Yeah, I think that’s the key because I think everyone’s security is kind of low right now. I think harmony is low. I think peace is low. And so just knowing that there’s someone who is on your side. Um, especially knowing that that person, huh? Supposedly it’s the closest one to you, right? Um, I think knowing that you’re, you’re a little less alone because of them is just sometimes all it takes to get through the day of all the bad news or all the stress that we’re feeling from what’s happening in the world.
Marc Donelson: [00:26:11] Yeah. Cause cause when we got married, I mean, my thought was, look, there’s this huge laundry list that you’ve got to do. Um, you know, I’ve got to be provider, I’ve got to be a husband. I’ve gotta be, you know, protect her, all this stuff. And then, you know, to throw all the, you know, the COVID support top of that.
Um, I mean, for me, I found it really overwhelming. Like how in the world am I going to do all this?
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:31] Right.
Marc Donelson: [00:26:33] Just make her feel less alone. Okay. I can figure out how to do that every day.
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:38] You know, it’s funny that you say that Mark, because that’s a, that was kinda what I saw and this idea of the relational dimension and how it’s impacted with the stay at home realities that we have now, you know, Just like you were saying.
I mean, you know, there’s a, it was an important part of a marriage. I feel like. And when, when, when you’re dealing with marriage counseling, you know, being able to see ourselves as a couple. Is is really important. Like, you know, we, we do a lot in the, in, in the mental health world visualization and how you see things, what your perception is.
And that gets attacked by so many ways. Right. By Mark what you were just saying, like there’s so much that I’ve got to do anyway. Right. Get go when you’re, when you get married. And I think women just like us men, Mark. I mean, they. They have been taught since they were little girls was supposed to be this and that and the next and this, and you got your fingers going all.
Well, dudes get the same thing too. I’m supposed to like, you know, protect and provide and you know, and it’s like, Oh, how do I do this? So, you know, in the eyes of thus, of, of us that are ourselves that are married and then in the eyes of the people, people that are around us, do we have that visualization?
Do we have those roles clear because we’re also a mom. And dad or a dad or his sister and an employer and these different roles that we have, we have to, um, visualize that reality of being an us too, by the way. Right. Yeah,
Marc Donelson: [00:28:05] no, absolutely. Um, yeah, there’s, it really goes back to, you know, for me it was again, just how can I make this simple, um, because that, you know,
Cortney Donelson: [00:28:17] I think expectations get out of hand.
And I think that adds stress to the marriage. If you have all these expectations, not only of your partner, but of yourself and of what marriage should even look like in the first place. Um, and then it’s just impossible to meet all those expectations. And so to break it down down to, um, you know what, yeah, can I do to help him feel less alone today?
And then what are his top three relational needs that I can hit? You know, easily. Um, and then it’s the point of, um, you know, when to become one, having some type of, of purpose together, right? So that you have, so you’re a team so that you can accomplish things and you can dream together and you can look past the present and look towards.
You know, something better.
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:02] And I think I, you know, we did an episode. Craig, do you remember episode 20, the lost decade? Do you remember what that, what that was? Can you give a synopsis? Do you remember?
Craig Graves: [00:29:11] Yeah. So the last decade was the episode where you talked about how we’d lose ourselves and parenting for 10 years or so until the kids are out of that stage.
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:21] Yeah. I actually got to thinking about that. I mean, you know, Age. I actually look at Mark and Courtney. The idea of when your oldest kid is age four to 14, just that, that cycle timeframe, you just lose yourself, that role, man, you know, and, and you, and you lose. Yourself and all of those tasks. I mean, it’s interesting, you know, we’re going by just my silly little theory there with the last decade and specific ages, your, your kids are age 15 and 11.
You’re just now kind of coming out of that space where it’s like, Whoa. Yeah. Like they’re really, he is an us. But think about that from the aspect of COVID. Right. It just, I mean, this is a real thought as I’m talking about it right now, this is just exploded for people that have those ages of those kids.
How do you get to be a couple when you’ve got a 12 year old, a nine year old and a six year old, literally running in the house while you’re in what I call the last decade and episode 20. Can we, can you imagine
Cortney Donelson: [00:30:23] that. Yeah, it’s really hard to be intentional. Um, when you have kids that age to set time aside for you, um, and it’s, it’s probably not news or any new information that, you know, if really your marriage should be the most important relationship and then parenting relationship, but yeah.
But the reality is that that hardly ever happens. And during those ages,
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:46] absolutely. Yeah.
Marc Donelson: [00:30:48] I mean, for us, when our kids were that age, you know, we had to be so intentional.
Cortney Donelson: [00:30:53] We even named a night, we named a night conversation night.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:58] Right. That’s a great tip. Yeah.
Cortney Donelson: [00:31:01] We turned off the TV. We put our phones away.
We put the kids to bed at like 6:00 PM.
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:07] Here’s a test, buddy. I’m going to, I’m going to set you up. I’m sorry, man. He’s gonna crucify me. I don’t even know this guy. So what day of the week was conversation? Oh, you nailed it. He already got it. And what was it? Wednesday nights. Good, man.
Marc Donelson: [00:31:22] I mean, that was one of the tactics that we used, but we did other small things.
That. I mean, we still do to this day that, I mean, our 15 year old stays up to as late as we do, but, you know, once our, you know, once the younger, the younger one goes to bed, you know, it’s not uncommon for me to run out and grab ice cream somewhere, you know, run out to dairy queen and come back and. We’ll just eat ice cream by ourselves out.
Um, and, and when, when both could re younger, you know, we just did it without, I mean, we were fine, you know, now we do it in front of our 15 year old is like, do I get any?
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:01] Absolutely not, buddy.
Marc Donelson: [00:32:03] Yeah. When you get to be our age, you can do it. Um, but, but even just little things like that, that, that it’s things that we do together, um, that helps
Cortney Donelson: [00:32:12] that. Friendship.
Marc Donelson: [00:32:14] Yeah. That helps that friendship that keeps us, it keeps us laughing that even just, it just gives us an escape from, you know, what is what’s taken place since, you know, seven o’clock that morning when the kids woke up.
And when school started, when work started.
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:29] Did really put the kids to bed at six o’clock Courtney.
Cortney Donelson: [00:32:33] I was kidding. It was seven,
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:35] seven, seven 15. I swear. You know, uh, let’s, let’s hit these, these relational needs and emotional needs that you guys talk about. I’ve heard, you mentioned them several times. Um, you know, the, the way that I think of this, and I’m curious, I mean, you, you, you’ve got like 30 laid out there and it’s kinda like the, uh, the five love languages.
You know, if you’ve heard of some of that material in a relationship and emotional needs and kind of understanding the needs age of your partner. I want to go there next. So tickle your brain to think of like, what are some of these things before we do? There’s a couple things I want to point out though.
I mean, One, those love languages and those emotional needs and these things that that therapist will fall on a lot because that’s a big focus of ours too. I really see them a lot of times as falling into the perspectives of, are you an engulfment based person? Well, that’s going to affect how you experience, what those needs are.
Are you an abandonment based person? Because if you’re really gaining safety, by being close, that’s going to be very different needs than if you’re gaining safety by being distant. Like if I’m an engulfment person, dude, I need that time alone, baby. Right? Not in my face. So how do you manage that on these relational and emotional needs is, is what I’m curious about?
What, what are these 30, how am I supposed to remember 30 Craig?
Cortney Donelson: [00:33:59] We’re not going to go through all of them. We don’t have them all memorized.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:03] Ah, what are they, what are some of the highlights? What do you, what do you kind of help people guide through figuring out what is this with, with my spouse or myself for that matter?
Cortney Donelson: [00:34:14] Yeah. So basically your top three can change in any given season, depending on what’s going on in your life, how old you are, what you’re going through, things like that. But typically your top three are going to be the ones that either you missed. In your formative years that were not provided for you, or are there going to be ones that you received by one, two parents, your grandparents, everything.
And so, you know, love through those needs. You feel love, you feel cared for. And so, for example,
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:42] so pause right there. That’s that’s cool. So, so what I hear you say is generally speaking, you’ll see one or the other popping out with people. One, the things that you really didn’t get, you really kind of wanted you pined for.
Or things that you really did get, and that tells you, well, I expect this from my spouse because I mean, my mommy gave it to me. My, my daddy gave it to me. Right. So why aren’t you, so it could go either way.
Cortney Donelson: [00:35:10] Exactly. Yeah. And a good example is for me, Um, my, my, usually my taught me not during COVID, but usually my top need is attention, which means enter my world really know me and that stems from having a dad who entered my world, played board games with me, went to my tennis matches and really knew who I was.
Um, and so that to me, I felt love. And so when I grew up, I S I was seeking that kind of attention, um, need meaning. Someone please enter my world and really know me. Um, and then I knew that I was loved. And so Mark knows that if I’m feeling a little out of whack, he pulls out, you know, the Scrabble game or he pulls out a card game and he knows that if I enter her world and play these games, she’ll feel better
Marc Donelson: [00:35:58] for the record.
Never play Scrabble with an author editor. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:05] Craig, that, that right there, brother is a challenge. Levy. Can anyone say words with friends? I’m a glutton for pain. That wouldn’t be fun. Wouldn’t it? We should do that. Yeah. Do you ever win a Mark?
Marc Donelson: [00:36:21] She is the word person. I’m the numbers person. So depending on what game we play, um, one of us definitely has the advantage and usually it’s word games.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:29] Oh, so you got to pull out the Sudoku puzzle, man.
Marc Donelson: [00:36:32] I’d be all over that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:33] Yeah. Soduku, that rocks. All right, let me get right here. We’re we’re about three quarters of the way through, and I want to point out to the audience, right? We’re talking about these different things that are really cool and the, they sound nice.
No. And, and boy, I tell you, Craig, you know, Mark and, and, and Courtney just seemed like they’ve got it together. They got this down, right? I mean, this is easy stuff. Can you hear Craig, my sarcasm,
Cortney Donelson: [00:36:57] can you hear us laughing.
Craig Graves: [00:36:59] You’re right. But yeah, I can definitely see some sarcasm there
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:02] has this always been that way.
And, and how, you know, in, in the reality of all of this, can, can you speak to, like, how did you get here with some of these things the clearly implement a and B? Is it really that easy from day to day? And sometimes, honestly from moment to moment.
Marc Donelson: [00:37:24] Yeah,
Cortney Donelson: [00:37:25] well, it took, it took practice, um, of understanding that when we get into conflict to take us, it took practice to take a, hit the pause button, take a step back and say, okay, What need of his is being missed, that it’s coming out.
Like basically we have emotional cups, right? And each throughout the day is three hint, disappointments, or missed expectations, or have these scary feelings. Our cup starts filling up. And when it gets to the top, it’s going to spill out. And so when he, you know, if, if one of us starts filling out, we we’ve learned.
Through practice, how to take a step back and say what need is being missed and how can we minister to that rather than react to their behavior, that’s spilling out. Um, but we were trained.
Marc Donelson: [00:38:11] Yeah. And we’re trying, and you know, we’ll be the first, well, I’ll be the first to admit, um, like I, I did marriage really bad for the first 13 and a half years of our, of our marriage.
Um, so I mean, so a lot of what we. We’ve learned it’s because I needed, we needed to learn it. Um, we’ve joked around that, you know, you know, driver’s ed or to get a driver’s license, you need to take a class. Um, but like to get married, like there’s no relational class
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:39] oh, here, here absolutely
Marc Donelson: [00:38:41] how to do this. Well, we’ll only take that class when. we were at each others throats and like nothing is working, um, which, you know, you probably know better than anyone.
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:54] Well, it’s funny because people will come to marriage, marital counseling when it’s bottom of the ninth and he’s down by seven runs, the count is three one, and you’re looking at me.
Marc Donelson: [00:39:02] Exactly. Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:39:06] So Mark was there like a point where you said you did the first 13 years bad.
Was there some kind of awakening moment or a rock bottom kind of moment, or what happened there to make you realize, Hey, I’ve been doing this wrong for 13 years? Uh,
Marc Donelson: [00:39:17] yeah. I mean, there was a, there was a wake up moment that, um, that, you know, I just, I realized that look I’m, I need some help here. Cause I don’t know.
I don’t know what’s going on in a lot of it was. Um, through the first 13, what was, was pride on my part of not wanting to either one ask for help? Well, one admit that I didn’t know what I was doing. Um, cause clearly everyone, when you get married, you know exactly what you’re getting into. Um, there’s no learning through marriage at all,
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:45] sarcasm again.
Marc Donelson: [00:39:47] Um, and so one, it was. You know, realizing and admitting I don’t have this all together and then to on say, okay, I need some help because this is not turning out the way I thought it was. Um, I mean, coming into marriage, you know, not mentors, you know, they’re like, Oh no, marriage is great. You know, it’s, it’s great.
Being married. And I got 10 years out. I’m like, alright, it’s good. But like, if it’s supposed to be great, I’m doing something wrong.
Chris Gazdik: [00:40:15] They were wrong. Don’t do it. Yeah. You get all these jokes. Right. And movies are made from that.
Cortney Donelson: [00:40:22] We definitely had a lot of seasons of ships passing in the night or feeling like roommates.
And then we actually had a marriage crisis at that 13 year Mark that helped us. Move over the hump of, okay, we need to learn some of this stuff. And once we learned it, it made so much sense and it helped, helped us so much that we couldn’t help, but want to help others.
Chris Gazdik: [00:40:44] And I’m, and I’m in a foreshadow a little bit, uh, if it’s OK.
Uh, cause we’ve already talked about it. I think Courtney right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we just had our first repeat guest. Uh, well, definitely listening audience. These guys are going to be a repeat guest at some point down the road. So we’ll, we’re going to actually probably be able to go into that, uh, cause you can check it out in, um, by the way, I didn’t highlight it.
Did I say that she’s an editor, Craig?
Craig Graves: [00:41:06] Yeah, you did it a couple of times.
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:07] Did I say also that she’s an author? You did? Oh, I did get it. I don’t think I did.
Pretty sure you did Clay Jar cracked
is cracked is the book that we’re talking about. So, so we’re definitely going to have you guys on, you know, again, to talk about that, because my point here in this little section here is like, you know, listen, people put me on a pedestal as a therapist and let me tell you, I can blow it out of the water for the airwaves across the world right now.
Like. From day to day today, I don’t care how well you think, you know this stuff and what training you went through. Like, guys, I suck at this stuff and you know why at times it’s because you’re in the intensity of your amygdala. Let me think about this, Mark, your amygdala is your fear center of your, of your body and it, and it gets triggered off used word, but it’s really true.
You literally have cortisone and adrenaline and hormones of all sorts coursing through your body when you get worked up and to the point that you could pick up a car when somebody’s trapped underneath of it. Right? That’s the kind of intensity that we’re talking about when we’re talking about managing our emotion, you think anybody’s going to be really perfect at that.
Try to think about what my partner’s emotional needs are and how to kind of communicate and talk and, you know, be loving. Yeah. I’m, I’m willing to pick up a car, right. Let’s just hard.
Cortney Donelson: [00:42:32] Yeah. Great thing is no, we’re not perfect. And no, we often start getting the conflict and voices start raising, but. We’re now faster at recognizing it’s happening and hitting that pause button and saying, okay, um, you know, this isn’t about what we think this is about.
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:51] And that’s the key right there. I try in, in therapy with people and with myself to, to really get that internal recognition because we’re responsible and to, and for ourselves. And if you’re not good at that, Then you’re going to have a hard time with any of these types of dimensions that we’re talking about in a marriage.
Marc Donelson: [00:43:12] Yeah. And I think a perfect example of that is, you know, you know, pre COVID. If I walk in the house after work in, you know, I’m short tempered and you know, court just says, hi, and I snap at her. I mean, she she’s learned that, you know, okay, it’s not good to snap back. I’m like,
Cortney Donelson: [00:43:30] it doesn’t work
Marc Donelson: [00:43:32] Lets pause and say, all right.
Clearly, he’s not mad at me. He’s taking it out on me because I’m the closest person around, but something happened at work I’m in and out. She’s looking at, okay. Something happened to my spouse at work that has upset him this much. I want to enter. I want to help him through that or, you know, help be a sounding board, let him vent.
Um, and so immediately in, in completely changes that dynamic of, you know, instead of her snapping back and then it just escalates and escalates. Um, It’s it turns into a partnership and how can I, how can I serve you and really look back to, how can I help you feel less alone? Cause clearly you feel alone right now and you’re angry and you’re snapping.
So how can I enter that? Enter your world and in support you as a spouse.
Chris Gazdik: [00:44:19] Yeah. And I think, you know, you correct me if I’m Ron Mark, but you know, from, from looking at it from an abandonment and an engulfment standpoint, because those are primary insecurities, you really have to kind of learn, which means by the way, very purposeful connection and talking about these things, when you’re calm, you have to learn what that person might be looking for.
Of course, that person can actually say what they’re looking for, because sometimes that’s going to be, you know, Hey, I come home. I’m I just bit your head off and you know, what’s best for me right now is I need to be alone. Right. Does that not go contrary to what you would think? You know, you you’re feeling alone.
Let me get close to you. Well, no, wait a minute. Right? What do you think?
Cortney Donelson: [00:45:01] Yeah, yeah, we’ve learned a great question to ask is, um, I can see that you are filling the blank, you know, Is there, you know, what can I do or what do you need or what, you know, to ask questions rather than. You know, react to that behavior
Marc Donelson: [00:45:19] and yeah, for me, I, you know, my normally reaction is like, if I want to be alone, just like, don’t talk to me.
Let me go in the bedroom. Let me change clothes. Give me five, 10 minutes more to cool down. Cause clearly the 30 minute drive home, didn’t do enough. Um, so, you know, give me a few more minutes, but you know,
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:37] no, no, let me be clear Mark. For, for me personally, Chris, Gazdak, don’t leave me alone. Right. I want to connect and talk and like, I’m like, you know, I’m on Courtney side in that regard.
Let’s go play for cheesy, man.
Craig Graves: [00:45:50] Let me ask you guys something along those same lines. So as you’re teaching couples, I mean, I guess there’s also some level of individual development there, because if you come in and snap at your spouse, they have to have some emotional control. Um, to be able not to lash back out and to realize that, Hey, it’s nice.
He’s not mad at me. He’s mad at something else. Let me figure out what it is. You know, my, my initial reaction is to say, well, Hey, you know, screw you too pal, whatever. So I guess there’s some level of individual growth that has to occur too. Right?
Cortney Donelson: [00:46:21] Absolutely.
Marc Donelson: [00:46:22] Yeah. Um, and, and when we start working with couples, you know, we start with identifying what court talked about this emotional cup, and just that an idea that, you know, this cup gets filled up throughout the day, and eventually it’s going to overflow and it’s going to overflow through, um, you know, For me it’s yeah, it’s snapping it.
It’s escape. It’s just avoiding it as much as I can. So, so Courtney knows when she sees that. All right. Again, there’s something more going on here. And so when we work with couples, the first thing is, well, let’s, let’s get each of you individually to recognize these are, these are kind of your tells. Um, and, and when these happen, For you yourself, realize, you know, realize it for what it’s worth.
Cortney Donelson: [00:47:09] Yeah. And actually that we take couples through this curriculum that also shows that when you get married, you’re bringing your own cups, you know, half full into the relationship. So you’re not marrying someone with an empty cup, emotional cup, they’re bringing stuff from childhood into the marriage.
They’re bringing stuff from adolescents from before they met you. And so you’re both imperfect people coming together. And once they recognize that. Your own, you take responsibility for your own emotional cup. Then it’s easy to use that language when you’re communicating during conversation night on Wednesdays.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:44] And that’s a cool the way you ended that Courtney, the cause the reality of it is there are some little things in tips and tricks and purposeful, intentional things that you can do and talk to your therapist is a great way to go or, you know, there’s information out there, but you know, just being creative with each other.
In discussing and talking, you can create some of that. Um, you know, someone recently told me that they have a, uh, a fun little texting game that they play, where they, they have, uh, every day is a different rule. Like you can’t capitalize anything. And if you say the, uh, anything with a w you have to capitalize w guess what day that would be on.
It’s just fun, little things that you can do. Um, and, and, and, and being purposeful about that, that sort of thing. So I I’m, I think I’m aware of the time ticking off Craig, if you can help me with the timer, I’m curious how much time we’ve been going. Cause I didn’t start my. My stop clock this time. Um, I want to kind of hit the faith thing really quick and, and, and maybe just like a couple, literally like two, two and a half minutes on that.
And then I want us want to end up on, on the dreaming part. Cause those were two really important parts or the last one was really important part. So you, you, you talk about, uh, can you tell me that? Can you tell Craig that they coached me along this, this particular episode of I’ve been prepared and prepped, you know, The Holy Trinity.
Okay. I don’t know if we’re going to figure that thing out tonight. You know, you got the father, you got the son, you got the Holy spirit, you got like this one entity three parts thing. Like, what is that in much the same mind. Right? You’ve got this, we’re married now. We’re not individuals. We’ve wait a minute.
I’m independent. I’m an individual. No, you’re not. You’re a part of me. What do you mean? A part of me? This is a crazy way that people think like it’s scary to them. I think in a, in the faith based way. Right? The two are becoming one in a Holy Sacramonious of marriage, or if not a religion component in a legal entity.
How does that like? Wow. Right?
Cortney Donelson: [00:49:43] Yeah, like you said, it’s a big mystery and that’s pretty much all there is to say about that. Um, no, our feeling is. When two become one. So you each have individual purposes, right? We believe that we’re put here for a purpose and we each have our individual purposes or individual personalities or individual giftings and talents and, um, yeah.
Things like that. But then we also have, once, once you get married and to become one, you have a purpose for your marriage. And when you discover that purpose, that’s when intimacy really. Grows because you’re on the same page, you’re working towards something that we feel is a divine reason why you two are together.
And so that really fuels, um, you know, comradery and goal setting and, and being on the same page. For sure.
Craig Graves: [00:50:35] That’s an interesting thing to think about. I’ve I’ve heard people talk about finding your purpose and all that stuff for years, but I’ve never heard anybody think about it or talk about it in terms of.
What is the purpose of us as a, as a married couple.
Cortney Donelson: [00:50:48] Yeah, because once, I mean when to when, so when we envision it, when two become one that, so you do, you now have both of your strengths, both of your giftings, both of your personalities to do something, um, you know, amazing. And so it might be related to parenting.
It might be related to a ministry. It might be related to volunteer work. It might be related to opening a business or adoption or fostering, whatever. It could be a million different things. And for us, we would not have picked it. But for us, it’s helping other married couples.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:21] What do you mean you wouldn’t have picked it?
What do you mean by that?
Cortney Donelson: [00:51:25] It’s hard.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:28] Yeah, it is. I could attest to that. Sometimes you took me back to a moment where I’m sitting in a therapy session. This has been years ago now, so I’m not breaking confidence. I mean, it’s been many years now, but. Yeah. I was actually pretty, pretty green and new at doing this. And I mean, Courtney, you took me to this moment where, uh, this couples in my office and they’re talking and they kind of get, heated.
And he says something, she says something and he says something back and she just explodes saying a lot of somethings. Runs out of the room, slams the door. He looks at me. He’s like, well, then that was, that was cool, man. I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad we’re doing some stuff. Um, do you think you could keep her in the room next time?
I was just like, wow. I mean, it just steamrolled over me. I, you know, it’s, it’s tough.
Cortney Donelson: [00:52:17] I say we wouldn’t have picked up because the catalyst of what we’re doing, um, was started in pain. Like it started after a crisis in our own marriage. So that was my point. I mean, we have, we have both of our children, again, like you mentioned, we’re adopted, we thought our, you know, marriage purpose was going to be something around that.
But when our marriage fell apart 13 years ago and it was rebuilt and it was now strides now stronger than it was before we realized that that’s something that other couples can experience as well.
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:45] Wow. That’s cool. Yeah. That’s pretty neat.
It is. Yeah, it is definitely on a docket. So, so they listen to the audience. Oh, Mark and Courtney Donaldson. That sounds like drama. I can’t wait man. Okay. Let’s, let’s, let’s close in and begin taxing. And for landing here, I want to, I want to think about, you know, as we’re, as we’re ending, you know, we have, you know, minutes left and stuff, for sure as a note, no total rush, but just to train our brains to dial in here, the dream.
You know, I mean, my take on, on this idea that you guys seem to present as a part of your workshops and stuff, you know, dreaming together, you had, you had said, and, you know, I feel like, you know, that’s a primary goal, you know, in a lot of marriage counseling sessions as well in, in so far as developing, you know, like if you pull it all together, right?
Like understanding yourself, realizing what dimension and emotion focused therapy you are. On what your emotional needs are, what your spouse’s needs are in that perspective, especially figuring out how to be seen and see yourself as a couple. And then you were just talking about, you know, the idea of, um, um, uh, well, the last thing, and then all that in together in the vision of what you said, the purpose together in, in the two becoming one, pulling all that together in it.
So far as where are we going? Right. Like, what are we doing? What are we dreaming big for the anticipation of the future really very much, um, creates an experience together in the here and now, so that the here and now isn’t so big. Right. Like if you’re hoping and dreaming and the here and, now the stress, the fear that I’m feeling right now, we’re going there and it’s okay.
We’ll get there. Right? Like that’s the way I see, you know, this idea of dreams and planning and, and, and whatnot, uh, in, in therapy. Anyway. How do you guys see all that with dreaming?
Cortney Donelson: [00:54:50] When we, when we came out of our crisis, We had, we had read a book that recommended, um, writing out all of your big ones, huge.
They call them God-sized dreams that you want to accomplish. Together. And in this book, there were, you know, I don’t know, 250 dreams that this author and his wife had put together and we thought, well, that’s a lot.
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:14] Let me just get the one. Right.
Cortney Donelson: [00:55:16] We can get the one, but we sat down and we kind of categorized them.
You know, we have these financial dreams, we have these travel dreams. We have these parenting dreams. We have these, um, you know, ministry dreams. And so when we started listing them specifically, well, what do you want to do in your life? And what do you. What I would love to do this with you in life. When we listed them out, we had how many,
Marc Donelson: [00:55:37] okay.
It’s over. It was well over a hundred,
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:42] really?
Cortney Donelson: [00:55:43] That was several years ago. And I can say when we keep that in the forefront, we’ve accomplished a half dozen of them. Um, and when you
and we
Marc Donelson: [00:55:52] only have 94 to go,
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:54] I thought she misspoke there for a second, to be honest with you to be straight and full of truthful and transparency. I thought she misspoke.
Cortney Donelson: [00:56:02] I’m talking big things.
Marc Donelson: [00:56:07] One thing that we realized is, you know, When, when you first get married and, or you’re, you’re leading up to your wedding, or when you first get married, you know, full of hopes, you’re full of dreams that, Hey, what’s this marriage going to be like? And then, you know, You hit that, that 10 year or that decade, that last decade.
Um, okay. We don’t have any, I just want to get through tomorrow like that. My dream today is just to get to bed tonight. Um, and
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:34] wait a minute. I got to stop on that quote. That is awesome. My dream today after the last decade is to get to bed tonight life feels that way though. Doesn’t it sometimes.
Marc Donelson: [00:56:45] Absolutely. Um, and, and so for us that really helped us with, okay, like there is hope, but what are some of those fun things that we want to be able to do?
And it allowed us to just, you know, contextualize significant differently and look at things differently and look at opportunities differently. And to be able to say, Oh, like, that’s, that’s cool. We can go do that. And if these are the things we want to do, Let’s work towards, um, and if it takes, it lifts you out of that, okay.
Who’s making dinner tonight. What good are you putting to bed? And, you know, it gives you kind of that, that hopes and dreams, and that that’s fun that back in your marriage a little bit.
Chris Gazdik: [00:57:25] Yeah. Bringing it back. Cause like you say, I mean, you know, people kind of talk about that idea of, you know, I think people get really scared Mark to, to, you know, we’re where you took my brain is where.
You know, and I can, I can lead you to feel that way myself. A lot of times, you know, you get, you get into that lost decade, you get into all these multiple roles you have in life, all these pressure points, and then you throw a major drama thing in for good, you know, good measure, you know, and that can represent, you know, the death of a parent or, you know, a cancer diagnosis or any number of life.
Related challenges. We, we, we all, we all have so many different ones of them that, that you just get downtrodden and beaten down and then you can’t. And I feel like, yeah, I’m not in love. I’m not able to function. I don’t, you know, sometimes you don’t love and care about yourself. It’s like, you know, you get so, so beaten down.
I feel like I see people when they’re looking at me in my therapy office that they don’t believe it’s possible to restart that to, to, to get that going again. And sometimes you have to do it again and again and again and again and again, and again, and many times over again. Right? Yeah. And
Cortney Donelson: [00:58:31] the reality is, is when you accomplish something like that, like a big dream, like for example, we have always had the dream of building a modern house.
It’s just, we like the style. It was, it’s nothing you see around here. We’re in North Carolina. Um, but we just had that dream. And so we looked at each other one day and we’re like, why not now?
Like let’s do this. And so two years ago we finished and we we’ve been living in our ultra modern house in the middle of Charlotte, North Carolina for two years, but it’s something that we accomplished together.
And when you have those accomplishments that you’ve done together, you know, it brings you closer. It builds that intimacy.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:10] Yeah, that’s cool. It’s a
Marc Donelson: [00:59:11] teammate. Yeah, absolutely
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:13] absolute teammate. Craig, why don’t you, you got any questions or thoughts? Some us up a little bit. What do you, what have you been here?
And I’d like to do that guys in his brain, you know, as far as what you’re hearing us talk about and, and how this is playing out in your mind, and then we need to taxi in,
Craig Graves: [00:59:27] I think it’s been a Greg, this has been a great conversation. You know, it’s a, marriage is a tough thing and I commend you guys for staying together and then helping other people.
I think it’s a great thing. I think it’s great.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:39] So guys, one of the things I, and I started a tradition of, and I, I gotta be careful. I kind of screw this up with mr. Martin. Hope you’re still listening, Tom. It was great to talk to him. But when I started to do this, this thing that I like doing, when people are sharing personally, I like to do a high five.
Right. Because you know, it’s really hard, you know, I don’t care if you’re a presenter. If you’re a therapist, if you’re, you know, a superstar consultant, when you’re talking about these things, it’s kind of like, Whoa, yo like. You know, let’s have a meeting before this ma’am, you know, Bonnie, before you say that, or don’t, don’t go there, you know, or like, Oh yeah.
You know, it’s scary. Right. It’s it’s it’s every single time you get it energy about it. So I’m here instead of doing a high five. I want to do a clap here in second when I count to three, because that’s that, to me, that signifies like high five. Good job. Um, yeah, I just, I appreciate you guys for what you’re willing to do.
The, the, the work that you’re doing, uh, your, your transparency today. And, um, we’re definitely going to have you on the show. So you ready for this on three, one, two, three. Awesome. Uh, Craig, why don’t you, uh, you guys want to sum this up. Did, did we get, did we get it out there where these people can find you, how can they get the, to your, your summary, your seminars, your, um, your weekends and that sort of thing.
Well,
Cortney Donelson: [01:00:51] we, um, we just finished up, we do that annually, a small group in our house annually, and we just finished that up for the, this year. Um, but if they go out to my website, um, they can certainly email us through that, which is, um, your Vocem.Com. And that’s yourvocem.com
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:11] M as in my Mary. Yes, correct. I was trying to think of something really funny right there.
Alright. Any, anything that we missed guys that you want to highlight or focus on?
Cortney Donelson: [01:01:22] I don’t think so. We just really appreciate you having us on and also just appreciate the podcast that you all do for everyone.
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:29] Awesome. This was great.
Marc Donelson: [01:01:30] I really appreciate it.
Craig Graves: [01:01:32] Glad to have you guys pleasure to meet you. We
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:35] want you to take us out of here and we’ll, uh, we’ll get to the next show idea.
Marc Donelson: [01:01:38] Okay. Yeah. Through a therapist as is where you can find out about more, uh, find out about more, find out more about me and Chris and the show we’ve got each show online. They’re on the website. You can also find us on every podcast platform we’ve been kind of playing around with YouTube some, so there might be some video out there.
And you can also find links to our social media on the website,
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:00] a YouTube live a little bit too. I kind of cut it off way earlier because it couldn’t hear the, you know, the guests and stuff we’re playing around with that too. So some neat things. Cool. We’re going to sound off next time, a little bit. Next week.
We’re going to have show we’re going to sound off on it. It’ll be a short one, but it’ll be about the concern with kids in the covert environment and also sports man.
We’ll talk about sports and mental health in the coven environment. That sound interesting. Does. Cool. All right, guys, we’ll see you all next week.