Rituals That Matter: How Small Actions Foster Big Relationship Wins

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In this episode, Chris and Alisa Grace explore rituals for connection—consistent, intentional actions that can help strengthen relationships over time. They discuss how recognizing and responding to bids for attention can prevent couples from drifting apart and highlight simple rituals such as saying goodbye, greeting each other, and spending intentional time together. The Grace's provide practical insights and tips to help you reconnect with your loved ones, making your relationships more fulfilling and connected. Whether you're dealing with significant others, friends, children, or roommates, this episode offers valuable advice to improve your relationships.

Resources Mentioned:

• 32 Questions to Spiritual Intimacy – A guide to fostering deeper spiritual connections with your partner through meaningful conversations.
• Date Night Activity: 32 Questions to Intimacy – An engaging activity for couples to build emotional and spiritual intimacy during date nights.
• 31 Questions to Intimacy for Families – A resource to help families connect on a deeper level.
• 30 Questions to Intimacy with Friends – A guide to deepening your friendships through intentional, meaningful conversations.
• Ronald Blue Trust – A biblically-centered wealth planning service that supports couples in financial unity. Visit ronblue.com for more or contact Colby Gilmore at colby.gilmore@ronblue.com.

Connect with Us:

• Website: cmr.biola.edu
• Facebook: facebook.com/biolacmr
• Instagram: instagram.com/biolacmr
• Twitter: twitter.com/biolacmr

Join the Conversation:

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About the Hosts: Chris Grace, Ph.D., and Alisa Grace are passionate about helping people build and sustain healthy relationships. As leaders of the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships, they combine the wisdom of Scripture with scholarly research to offer practical advice and insights. Learn more about their work at cmr.biola.edu.

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Mandy [00:00:01] Welcome to the Art of Relationships. This podcast is produced by the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Let's get right into it.

 

Chris [00:00:11] Welcome to another Art Adventures podcast. I'm Chris and with my beautiful, lovely wife over here.

 

Alisa [00:00:18] Alisa Hello. How are you, Chris?

 

Chris [00:00:19] I'm pretty good, yeah. And one of the cool things is to be able to do this podcast together. Lis I think we were talking last time, I think on the podcast about one of the ways that we can help with loneliness in the world. One of the ways we can help with feeling isolated was feeling like we have just simply began to, you know, fade, fall, find ourselves drifting so far apart. And we gave some ideas on that last podcast about one of the ways, and that is to pay attention to the bids another person is making when they make you get that word from, you know, like when you play cards or cards, somebody makes a bid. A bid is like, I, I want you to look at I'm going to put down this bid. And then the other person, their partner goes, I pick up your bid, I see your bid. Right. It's that kind of it's like in tennis. It's called a serve, right? I'm going to serve you the ball. It's a serve a bid. You know, it's a pitch, whatever it is. And it's that idea is like couples bid for each other's attention. Roommates, friends, people, toddlers, kids.

 

Alisa [00:01:27] Yeah, yeah. Kids are great at that. When they're like, Mommy, will you play with me?

 

Chris [00:01:31] Look at me, Dad.

 

Alisa [00:01:32] Look at me. Look at me. Yes. They're bidding for your attention.

 

Chris [00:01:35] Bidding for your attention. And then one of the things we talked about was we tend to ignore, maybe neglect, you know. Yes. Or miss those bids. So this time, I think Lis another thing that happens in many relationships and in some relationships are bound and destined, you know, not marriages, but let's say friendships, they're bound to drift apart. That's okay. You know, you just have different interests. You move to different states. It's not like you got to go back and keep, you know, this friendship that I had in high school and college, I wanted to last the rest of my life. Well, they don't, you know, And it's okay. Some of those relationships were meant for that season. Right. But those that are closest to us, family members, if you're in a dating relationship or engaged or married, those are the kinds of things that you're going to want to invest in, because the outcome of some marriages isn't just this joyful union of two people forever and ever. It's oftentimes a union of two different people with busy schedules in life and things that happen. And all of a sudden there's a drifting apart, right? There's this loss of intimacy and that slowly starts to erode that foundation and you start to find lonely people out there. A lot of  married people are lonely.

 

Alisa [00:02:54] Yeah, sad it's extremely sad.

 

Chris [00:02:56] So one of the ways is you go listen to the podcast paying attention to each other's bids. Another Lis is, I think, let's give another strategy. You find yourself in a relationship or marriage and you want to keep it going. You notice something's off you're looking at, okay, I need to listen to my spouse. I need to pay attention more. But there's also some specific things you can do, right? You can begin to reconnect with another person that you want to, but it's going to take intentionality. And I think Lis one of the things is you described one time on this podcast how we found ourselves disconnected, not aware of each other's going ons, and we just didn't have an answer for it. We were too busy, too many kids, too many diapers, too many bills. Right. Too many other interests.

 

Alisa [00:03:50] Responsibility.

 

Chris [00:03:50] Responsibilities. And we began another ritual at that point when we started to learn a little bit about, what can we do to fix this? And I think it's the first time we intentionally said and heard the concept of dating your spouse. Yeah, and I think we heard that it meant, well, wait a minute. You continued to date like after marriage, you continued to date. I thought you already won their heart. But really, it's an idea that is profound in its simplicity and yet deep in what it can do to revitalize, let's say, a broken relationship. And those are these ideas of rituals. That is things we do, right? Ways that we specifically reconnect with someon.

 

Alisa [00:04:42] Yeah. And that we do day after day, week after week, month after month. There things that we do like, for instance, it might be that we always have dinner together, maybe as a family. We have a ritual that we have dinner together three out of five nights a week. And we just protect that at all costs for you and and and I, Chris, it was we had a date night every week. We were really consistent about having our date night.

 

Chris [00:05:10] Yeah. I remember when someone asked, you know, or told us to do this, you know, have a date night every week is like we have no money. Well, and we didn't. Yeah, because it's also your concept of date. I mean, people, you know, when you're engaged and you're, you know, or you're dating somebody, you know, you think of, the perfect date would be a hot air balloon, you know, followed by a candlelit dinner on the beach, you know, and then a drive to the mountains, whatever, And then a Dodger game, of course. And then once that happened, you know, you thought, well, wait a minute, we can't afford any of that. We don't have time. How do you date every week? But it's really it's your concept of date, because a date, Lisa, for us was as simple as making our own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a bag of chips, grabbing a blanket and going and sitting there and watching Disneyland fireworks for free in.

 

Alisa [00:05:59] The parking lot.

 

Chris [00:06:00] Parking lot of of a hotel right next to Disneyland. We would sit there and it'd be like, this is so awesome. We could sit here and watch free fireworks at Disneyland every night at 930. Well, there was about 15 minutes to drive there, you know, 20 minutes of watching free fireworks. And then and then going back that it was a great date. You know, another great date that my favorite is you go into Costco, you walk around and you get free samples of food, just like the perfect date. I told my kids, you know, here's our date, and we'll also we'll talk about dating your kids. That is, you take your kid out on a weekly thing. I used to take each of my kids one by one to Costco. We would eat the free samples. They just thought that was the greatest thing in the world. Somebody just hands you food. And then we'd go to the 99 cent store and they let them buy one toy. And if they're really good too, that cost me two bucks the whole time. Two bucks on a great date night. And you're full, you know, of great food from Costco and you have two toys at the end. It doesn't have to be.

 

Alisa [00:07:03] Really happy connected kids at the children.

 

Chris [00:07:07] Who one of them just literally a week ago, I said to one of them, hey, we had we had 35 minutes, 40 minutes together. And and I said, what should we go do? I go, Yeah, there's always Costco. She goes, let's go to Costco. Well, we got there. Instead of the free samples, we decided just to get the dollar 99 hotdog. But it was a wonderful date. It wasn't the cost. So, Lisa, when we say intentional, you know, these rituals, the daily ones, the weekly ones, which ones to you think make the biggest difference? Let's start talking about some of these rituals.

 

Alisa [00:07:40] Well, I would say I would say there's probably three that 3 to 4 that are really key, that if you pay attention to these and you you consciously and intentionally build these into your relationship, you're going to start seeing a measurable difference really quickly. And so the first one is and the ritual, the way you say that, you actually say good bye to each other. So we're getting ready in the morning. Everybody's getting ready for school. You're getting ready for work. And you could easily just say, okay, I'm running out the door and you go out the Or you just don't say anything. You just pick up your your bag, you get your cup of coffee and you run out the door, start the car. You're on your day. But instead to to the way you would connect would be to go and make eye contact. Hey, I'm leaving. Let me give you a quick hug. Quick kiss. I hope you have a good day. Or as we're leaving. Hey, what's on your docket today, Chris? What do you have going on and where you and we're count what's coming up for the day. But it's taking that intentional time to say, hey, I notice you, you're important to me and I'm going to miss you today. I hope you have a great day. So it's that ritual of hugging, kissing, acknowledging the other person when you say goodbye.

 

Chris [00:08:58] You know, and you can leave some of that out, you know.

 

Alisa [00:09:02] No, you can't. every day, every one of those.

 

Chris [00:09:04] And yeah, that's true, though. Now I'm talking about college roommates. You can leave some of that out, lay out a roommate name fathead. Right. And another one named Stoner Mark Stoner. If you're out there, miss your buddy Fathead, I miss you, too. But, buddy, you go to him. You know, I try, you know, to do that. I reached in for a kiss and I got smacked. So I was.

 

Alisa [00:09:24] Rightly so.

 

Chris [00:09:25] And rightly so. I mean, Stoner was not pleased. He was. I went. I'm sorry. I was just trying to do this ritual. Saying goodbye and making eye contact and kissing. And he said, Chris, I'm engaged, first of all. And, you know, unfortunately, I kind of enjoyed that, you know. So try it again tomorrow and we'll see how that goes. No, not really. But here's the thing that ends up happening. You can do this, Lisa, not just with your spouse, but with anybody. You know, just, hey, I'm going out for the day. You know, I look forward to seeing you again, you know, Glad to have you as my roommate or your parents.

 

Alisa [00:09:56] Say goodbye to your baby. That's really. Yeah, You're. Right.

 

Chris [00:10:00] And then even when you come home, you can take the next one. Yeah, It's like I come home. One of the things I think we've mentioned in this on the podcast before is Lisa. We intentionally, after about eight years, nine years of marriage, we have two kids. We were told, hey, make it intentional. Whoever gets home is waiting at home and the other person comes home. Be the first one to greet them at the door. Don't let the kids greet mom or dad first.

 

Alisa [00:10:30] Or the dog.

 

Chris [00:10:31] Or the dog. Yeah. The dog runs up, wags his tail. Well, when we did this one, Lis I walked in. I remember one time when you were trying to wag your tail to try and get my attention. Instead of the dog. And I'm like, okay, that's cute. I think I'll talk to you first. So, right instead of the dog, some people walk in, they got their puppy and they laugh and they, I love your puppy. And then their spouses sit in there like, hey, how's it going?

 

Alisa [00:10:54] They treat their dog better than they do their spouse.

 

Chris [00:10:56]  or their kids. So I love that saying goodbye. Right. Saying hello, greeting them when they come back home.

 

Alisa [00:11:03] Yeah. And I think one thing that's so important about the way you say goodbye really sets the tone for the rest of the day. And then when you greet each other at the end of the day, it sets the tone for the rest of the evening. Like you're important to me. I see you. I want to reconnect with you. And you do that right off the bat as you come in the door. Whether you're the one walking in the door or whether you're the one that's already at home, because it could be super easy to walk in the door and you're back in the bedroom. I know you're back there and I can come in and set the mail down, start dinner and do that, and maybe 30 minutes later go back there and say hi. Instead, I want to sit things down, sit the purse down and beeline back there to you, give you a quick hug and kiss. And how are you doing?

 

Chris [00:11:53] Here's the psychological, detailed explanation of what just occurred in that situation, Lis. And it's known simply in our field as the text and the subtext. It's the text that we communicate, right? You send somebody a text, you read it. But the subtext is every one of us gets a text and we kind of know the subtext to it. We know the hidden, deeper emotion. Not always some text, Hey, what are you doing tonight? You know, and. Hey, yeah, let's go to dinner. But a lot of texts have meaning behind them that we don't even write down. Like you use an exclamation point or all caps, or you wait, you know, 30 minutes before you respond to the text. Another person's going, What's going on? Well, it's the subtext is what's hidden underneath. You walk in the door, you greet the dog first, you greet the kids. You go back into the room and then you greet your wife. What are you saying? You're not as important to me. It's the subtext that matters. So when we go in, it's not the very act of saying, goodbye, I'm leaving now. It's the thing that it communicates to me at that deeper level, that emotional level that says, I'm saying goodbye to you. That's the text. But the subtext is I like you. You're important to me. I recognize you, you're important. And you don't even say those words. Yeah, right. Text and subtext, I think, would be if we had to call this anything, it would be. What does. What do these rituals do? They're providing you a text of things to do. Say goodbye, say hello, greet each other. But the the more important part of that is it is actually this emotional meaning of subtext that goes without saying, that says, I like you, but you pay attention to someone, you look at them, you're not saying anything, you know, verbally to them. But that's the way we communicate like is by the subtext of I'm going to pay attention to you. And the other person goes, I feel that I get that. And that is really what we're talking about here. You can do all the texting you want, but it's that connection between your actions and what it implicitly says to the other person is, You're worthy of my time, you're worthy of my attention. This isn't more important if I'm sitting there, you walk in the door and I don't and we don't greet each other. And I'm sitting there watching a game or I'm reading a book and I don't really get up. Well, the text is one thing, okay? He's engaged in his passion. I'm going to leave him alone. But the subtext is that is more important than me. But the moment you set it down, get up for greet the other person. You say I'd give up anything just to hang out with you. The subtext is I like you. So these rituals on the outside mean. Yeah, they might seem forced. Now we have to have a date night where we can talk about. It's just the fact that you went. It's just the fact that. You asked me at least to go to Sonic the other night. I didn't want to go to Sonic. I'm like, whatever. But I knew at that moment, like, yeah, she we haven't done that a long time. Let's go do it. Jump in the car. And I know what it meant to you. It wasn't that you really wanted the lemon cherry limeade which you do love. And the pretzel which you do love. It was the fact that I went with you. And it communicated to you. I like you. I want to hang out with you. I want to be with you. You're most important to me. Not Sonic. It was just the text.

 

Alisa [00:15:32] It's powerful. Something so simple can be so powerful in drawing you together and keeping you together.

 

Chris [00:15:46] You know, Lis when it comes to money, I think all of us want unity with our spouse. You know, in the topic of money. We want, you know, to have confidence approaching a topic and clarity, because money is a big issue with couples.

 

Alisa [00:15:59] Yeah, it's a it's one of the top six that couples have conflict over. Right. So we're really thankful for the support of Colby Gilmore of Blue Trust and Colby, along with other Blue Trusts certified wealth strategists. He offers a personalized and biblically centered wealth planning experience, as well as investment management services. And what I really love about him is it is for people of all income levels.

 

Chris [00:16:26] Yeah, we appreciate that they offer this advice. They put their clients interests first and they don't sell financial products. And, you know, we have experienced Lis the firsthand ,the benefit of Colby and Blue Trust's comprehensive, this whole wealth planning experience.

 

Alisa [00:16:41] We really have.

 

Chris [00:16:42] We want to encourage you guys take advantage of this. They're great sponsors of the Art of Relationships and Biola University. And so take advantage of this transformational opportunity to find out and to find unity with your spouse.

 

Alisa [00:16:55] So you can learn more about Ronald Blue trust at Ronblue.com or just contact Colby Gilmore at Colby.Gilmore@ronblue.com.

 

Chris [00:17:06] Yeah you'll be glad you did.

 

Alisa [00:17:12] I loved that, what you were talking about, Chris and John Gottman, the leading marital expert in the. If in the country if not the world, he he says this he recommends that when we say goodbye, when we greet each other, that we actually engage in like a six second hug or kiss. And it's interesting because somebody asked him one time, why six seconds? Why not three seconds? Why not ten? And he said this. He said, I'll tell you why. Because we've done studies on this. And like when, you know, when our bodies produce this hormone called oxytocin and when a mother nurses her baby, her body produces that oxytocin, the baby receives it, and it's the bonding hormone. And that's what bonds a mother with the baby. And when dads, they figured out when dads play with their kids, that for the dads, that's what produces the oxytocin for dads and with the kids and bonds them together. Isn't that Interesting? Well, what his research also showed was that when we engage in that hug or kiss, it takes right hitting that six second mark for our bodies to start to respond by producing oxytocin. And so what he calls it is the hug with potential or the kiss with potential, because that actively is one of the ways that we we chemically. Bond together and and are drawn together and communicate what you just said. I like you. You're important to me. And I'm not just doing it mechanically, but my I'm biologically responding to you this way because that's the way God designed us. That's fascinating to me.

 

Chris [00:19:03] Me. It's so fascinating. Check this out. There's a blind guy. He's known as Mr. I don't know. I can't remember the name. Mr. X. Let's call him. He's blind. He can't see anything. He had he had sight before, but a stroke wiped out the connection between his eyeballs and the back of his brain. Right. His eyes are perfectly fine. The visual cortex. Perfectly fine. The stroke wiped it out. This nerve that runs between them. So he's blind. He needs a guide dog. He has a cane. He can't see anything. With one weird exception. If you place a picture in front of patient X with him, with a person smiling in front of him, or you put a person alive, person in front of him, frowning or making an angry face and you say to his name is patient X, You say patient X what do you see in front of you. He says, I don't see anything. All right. We have a person or a picture in front of you and they're making an emotion on their face. Can you tell me what emotion they're making? And he says, I don't see anything, but I'm feeling kind of angry. I think they're angry. Like, wait a minute. Hold on. Do it again. I think they have is right there. Said he's right. He's blind. So what these researchers found with patient X and amazing story is, well, his eyes are fine. There's actually and the back of his brain is fine. That one connection that went there is called the text the high road. It's gone but left intact by the stroke was the low road. The subtext. All of our eyes take in information. They send it through this nerve. At the top we go, that's a tennis racket in front of me. That's a computer. That's a person making a face. The low road was still connected in patient X. It goes to directly a nerve from the eyes to the amygdala, the emotional part of the brain that detects and takes emotional meaning and assembles that emotional meaning from the thing in front of him. He could still see emotions on faces of People because it went through his amygdala. Okay, there's a subtext when we go out. The subtext is what is being communicated to you through the use of oxytocin, through the use of some pleasure signals that are going on in the brain that say to the other person without using words, oh, you hear me. Oh, you like me. And we we can honestly say one of two things to another person. Every single conversation we ever have, every conversation we ever have with another person communicates at that lower level. The subtext, I either like you or I don't like you or every conversation you go through a drive through or you're a cashier and you could kind of feel, have you ever done that Lis where you're like talking to somebody and you're like, I'm just give me my money? It's like they don't like you or they don't connect with you or you don't like them right away. It's that subtext. Or you're talking to somebody and they don't look at you, they don't pay attention. They're like, Whatever you like, okay, this person doesn't like me. That's the subtext versus that person that pays attention to you. Smiles, greets you, says hi, hugs you. The subtext, Don't even have to say it is I like you. It's almost as if every conversation is I can give you nonverbal signs that I like you or I don't like you. And that is something we're powerfully able to read based upon these experiments. So guess what patient X had two roads. So do we. We have the high road, but we also have that subtext or that oxytocin, where all these neural transmitters that are involved in reading nonverbal language from other people are firing, saying, I'm engaged with you, you go on a date. And I it says simply, I'm important to you, right? You can ruin your date night by simply not paying attention to the other person, even though you went to dinner because suddenly you're saying, I really don't like you. I like this. You know, I'm looking at the scores. I'm looking at these reels, I'm texting. Have you seen this cool Instagram? Really? And you're sitting there texting back and forth and it's telling the other person, I don't like you. This is what I like. So these rituals, all these, Lis like you said, saying goodbye, saying hello, 10s six second kiss, and hug.

 

Alisa [00:23:30] And probably, a last one might be the way we say goodnight, the way we say goodnight in bed. We have a friend that with their boys. They had two boys that they were raising and every night they went in and they sat with the boys individually in their rooms and prayed with them every night before they went to bed. And I love that. I mean, from the day those kids were born, until they were grown men and getting married and moved out of the house, that was their specific, unique ritual for connection. And like for us, one of the things and it can be as simple as just a touch or a word or something praying together before you go to bed. That's great. Recounting your day debriefing together before you go to bed. For us, I just every night I don't know why I have to do this, but as we're falling asleep, I have to just reach over and I put my hand right up Chris' sleeve, the top of the sleeve, and put my hand on his shoulder. And it's so comforting to me to know, okay, he's there. he's warm. He's with me. He's.

 

Chris [00:24:39] He's smart, he's smart.

 

Alisa [00:24:42] He's handsome, good looking. Rich. Rich.

 

Chris [00:24:46] Well, two out of three ain't bad.

 

Alisa [00:24:49] I don't know what, but it's just so comforting to me. And I don't know what that is. It may be annoying to you for me to, you know, there's my hands slinking up your. Your sleeve.

 

Chris [00:24:59] That kind of sexy. I'll be honest with you.

 

Alisa [00:25:02] I would hope that it would communicate to you that, she loves me. She just wants to touch. It's be like your feet touching or you know that you cuddle up before night or with your kids. You. You have your bedtime bath time and you read stories every night. That's a ritual for connection that is so important for a relationship.

 

Chris [00:25:24] I love that what I do at least once a month is maybe, maybe twice a month as we go to bed. Instead of saying goodnight, I usually say, I just say goodbye. I'll say, okay, goodbye. And you'll look at me like.

 

Alisa [00:25:38] What? Freaks me out.

 

Chris [00:25:40] Goodbye. I'm going to sleep. See you in the morning. So that's fine. Okay, let's try another one Lis. I love those saying goodbye. Connecting, you know.

 

Alisa [00:25:50] Saying hello.

 

Chris [00:25:53]  Here's some that you can also do. We have put together here at our Center for Marriage and Relationships, Biola University. We've put together a great set of questions that you can ask on a date night. 20 questions to go out on a date with somebody, a friend. It could be a girlfriend, boyfriend. And we have these cool 20 questions write us, ask us. Could you send me that 20 questions? Or better yet, you just go on to our website cmr.biola.edu.

 

Alisa [00:26:23] We could put a link to it in the notes.

 

Chris [00:26:26] But we also have 30 questions toward spiritual intimacy that you can do with your kids. You could do with friends. We did it in a dorm situation and we had all these people simply pick number 15 and we'd read it off and say, What are you doing when you feel closest to God? That's number 15. And they go, wow, okay. I feel closest to God when I'm walking in nature in the ocean. Other kids that I feel closest to God. You know, when I'm serving other the homeless, whatever.

 

Alisa [00:26:57] Yeah.

 

Chris [00:26:57] So we have these great questions. You can do that. Learning what The art of asking question. Doing that 1 or 2 times is a great ritual. And we did it with our kids.

 

Alisa [00:27:07] Yeah. Yeah. And you know something that you drew an analogy to in the last episode when we were talking about bids and connection you brought up how God bids for our attention and to connect with us and how prayer can be our bid for connection with the Lord. Well, one of those rituals of connection in fostering and in growing our own cultivating our own relationship with God is establishing rituals of connection with him that daily time and prayer in the Word with him at the beginning of the day, just turning our thoughts towards him, engaging in prayer. Lord, what do you have for me today, Lord? These are the things that are on my heart. What is it you have for me to do? What is it you want me to learn? As I study your word and I just want to sit with this? What do you want to say to me about this certain situation that's kind of been bothering me? These are rituals of connection. Going to church, engaging in worship, you know, on Sunday morning is a is a ritual of connection with our church body, with our family and with the Lord. But again, these are simple things that we do day after day, week after week, month after month. They can be as unique to your own relationship, your own family. You know, the things that you specifically do that maybe, you know, we don't do in our family. But they work for your family. They work for your relationship with God.

 

Chris [00:28:41] I love that. Those are just ways and little things that we can start doing little, little ways to connect, being intentional. Here's another one, Lis, I think you can do. What was something that you used to do when you were first dating and that was go redo it like like let's say you haven't gone like, for example, Lis I think when we were first dating or not dating when we were first married, we did get to see the fireworks all the time. But one of the things we redid was we went back to the hotel, which was right near Disneyland and we snuck into the swimming pool area. And because we stayed at that hotel, actually, but we went back like a day later and kind of, I guess snuck in because we had already checked out. But we sat there laying in these lounge chairs, watching these fireworks, and it was like something we redid that was fun, right? So, I mean, maybe redo something you used to do.

 

Alisa [00:29:35] That's a great idea.

 

Chris [00:29:36] A fun thing. Maybe schedule something that was fun that you did that was silly and fun together and then go do it, you know? And those are these little things you can do on a regular daily basis. We talked about date nights. What about Lisa. Not just weekly date nights. by the way, we can share how we did it. Three, two little kids. How are you going to afford to pay the babysitter and go all that? Well We did it man. Well we actually did, we we funded a lot of bills, students going through getting their university college education by paying them to watch our.

 

Alisa [00:30:08] Babysitting.

 

Chris [00:30:09] Beautiful children. But another way we did this was we had a young another couple who had two kids.

 

Alisa [00:30:17] Dan and Laurie-ann.

 

Chris [00:30:18] And those two kids were awesome. They're better than our kids. I don't sorry, kids. I'm just going to tell you. So we would switch, right? They would bring their kids, drop them off at our house and on Friday night and we'd watch them, they'd come back ten, 11 or 8, nine now I guess it was. And go. And then the next week we dropped our kids off. There's free babysitting. Another way to do this is just, you know, if you have in-laws or people there. And then finally, I think, Lisa, the greatest discovery was we found 1 or 2 restaurants besides Burger King that had a place besides Costco. We just let you guys go. We just let our kids go in to this one. Playland. I remember it was like, oh my goodness, they're happy. They're gone. I don't see them. I can have a conversation with my wife.

 

Alisa [00:31:08] We saw them. We kept eyes on.

 

Chris [00:31:10] No, I didn't. I could care less. No, not really. But that was another way you can do these things. And that is you. You just simply make this a ritual. Finally, a monthly ritual. Yeah, right. What would you say?

 

Alisa [00:31:23] I would say maybe at least once a year you get away for a weekend, an extended time together, where whether it's a weekend or even a week, you know, it depends on the age of your kids or, you know, if you don't have kids, that's great. You can you know, you just work out your schedule. But at least an extended time for a weekend away, and especially if it's like to a marriage conference or something that is actively building in and investing in your relationship. And a couple that we know of that we highly recommend is Chris and I do our own conference called Heart and Soul. If you'd like us to come to your church and do a heart and soul conference about becoming emotionally and spiritually reconnected, we'd love to come to your church. I also Focus on the Family has Resist the drift, journey to us. Both of those are two really good conferences. And then FamilyLife has Weekend to Remember, and that's a whole weekend away, Friday night through Sunday. Those are so fun all the all of those are super fun but weekend to remember those are all over the country. Resist the drift all over the country. And in fact Chris and I speak for both of those organizations. We're on their speaking team and we might be coming to an area near you.

 

Chris [00:32:49] Yeah. This year, I think, gosh, let's see. We've been in Albuquerque. We're going to be in Estes Park, we're going to be in Fort.

 

Alisa [00:32:54] Collins, Colorado, and to be in Russellville, Arkansas.

 

Chris [00:32:59] Omaha, Nebraska, we're all over the place.

 

Alisa [00:33:01] But check our website because we have our upcoming speaking engagements listed on our website at cmr.biola.edu.

 

Chris [00:33:10] Yeah, I think I think, Lis, those yearly things, if you went to a marriage conference every year, someone challenged us to do this. And I remember when we were first married, we got away from it. So we, I remember we did the first one. We went to like the Glen Arie in Colorado Springs, you know, at the Navigator's place. And we went to a family life. We kept our notes. You know, I was 30 well, it was 75 years ago now. We, you know, and then we stopped and then we got away from that. And I think that was the beginning. We talked about loneliness, that we both started to feel and drifting. And it was really intentional when we decided we need to put in a weekly date night and every year we need to go to a conference. Yeah, press conference. Now, if you're single, you could still do this. You could go to there's relationship retreats that talk about how to emotionally connect with your roommates, your friends, your people. You can come to any one of our conferences. Single people come all the time and learn, Yeah, let's just go there and learn how to do some of these things that I can, you know, do better in my everyday, fun relationships and not just a marriage.

 

Alisa [00:34:15] You have your girls weekend away, guys weekend away. Girls night out, guys night out. Even still married. We have I do a girls night out and Chris does a night out with the guys or a weekend away. You know, it's not all the time, but at least once a year, because then that just keeps us fresh, keeps our other relationships outside of our marriage, strong and connected and vibrant.

 

Chris [00:34:40] I was just walking over here and I won't say who I saw, nor were they employed. But one of the things we talked about was, Hey, we should have a poker night again. There's always six guys that got together for poker night. It's been like five years. I do let's have a poker night. He may or may not no longer be employed at a Christian setting.

 

Alisa [00:35:04] You may or may not be employed in a Christian setting.

 

Chris [00:35:07] We played poker, but it was for free. You know what I mean? It wasn't like you had to you. It was gambling. It was just fun, right? But those are the kinds of thing, whatever it is and those are ways that we can continue to build rituals to connect.

 

Alisa [00:35:22] So what we want to encourage you to do maybe right now, just take some time and with your spouse, talk about what are some rituals of connection that maybe we're doing and we didn't even realize what we were doing. But now that we know what it is, let's take note what are some wins and chop those up and let's break those down in our win column. Where are we connecting regularly? And and then maybe what are a couple that we would like to do? Maybe we're not doing as regularly as we should and we need to build some in. So let's identify maybe 1 or 2 that we could start doing on a regular basis. What's something we're committed to building into our relationship with each other, maybe with our kids?

 

Chris [00:36:07] Go ahead. And maybe if you here's a here's just a quick idea. Ready? You just like, what do we do? I don't know. Well, we'll try. Try a dance class together. I remember one time that Lisa came to say, Chris, I'm talking to so-and-so and she was talking to so-and-so. And how about if the three couples we take this cool little dance class, that dance? And the last thing I wanted to do was dance? First of all, I would miss the Bronco games because it was Sunday. Second, I can't dance. I just I mean, I could throw me a football. I'll catch it, you know, let me hit a baseball. I'll hit it. But make me do the tango. I'm like this. You might as well be tangled up in cords and fall down. But I agreed. You did. And we did this for six weeks. We did a dance class. Maybe it's a cooking class. Try something new together that you could have golf lessons, pickleball.

 

Alisa [00:37:03] Yep.

 

Chris [00:37:04] I remember that day, Lis, you took golf lessons. I never saw you so sexy. First of all, you're out there like I'm going to because I love golf. And you're like, Hey, I should go with you. It's like four hours one weekend. And so sure enough, you took golf lessons for a couple of weeks. We got out there, swung clubs, and from that point on, you always drove the cart and I golf, but it was still just fun, right? It's just do something new and try it and then, you know, do it. Maybe even this is the same thing is how about creating a bucket list? What are some things like and then start saving toward that together and say, my bucket list is I remember you, you kind of had it was a small little bucket item, but you're like, I want to go for a ride in a hot air balloon. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to die. And so we had this conflict of I didn't want to go up in the air with nothing but hot air above me. And so what do we do? We saved up. We went on a hot air balloon ride. It was awesome.

 

Alisa [00:38:00] Our anniversary.

 

Chris [00:38:02] It was fun. Create a bucket list. It could be small things, like maybe I just want to learn how to surf. Well, go learn, take lessons together, or scuba dive, you know, or I want to go learn fly fishing or Lord knows what it is. I don't know. Right.

 

Alisa [00:38:16] We want to read together. Let's read a book together and then we can talk about it. I'm constantly coming to you with, I'm reading this really good book. I wish you would read it so that we could talk about it.

 

Chris [00:38:28] And so I remember having to pick up that series and I got through like the first two. I'm like, my goodness, this is going to be a long series. But finally, I understood half of the things you were saying to me like, Chris, how about when you know the Dragon lord, you know, Blue Fire all over Enron? And I went, Wow, Yeah, that was bad. Elrod or Elron. I don't know who it was. Somebody. Maybe it's just that, right? And that's called Ways of Connecting.

 

Alisa [00:38:57] Bids for connection and rituals for connection. So you really go we want to really encourage you go back, listen to the previous episode if you missed it, because it's really going to build in to what we talked about today with how you can just cultivate those repeated times of intentionally connecting. Keeping your love fresh. Keeping your your relationship more like soulmates and not drifting towards isolation and being disconnected.

 

Chris [00:39:28] Yeah. So before we leave you, if you want one more, here's one last one. Ready? Use the word thank you liberally. Maybe even write your spouse a thank you note posted up there. You know, thank you for being so fun. Post up there. At the end of the day when we listen to each other's bids, when we start to do connections, we can follow up with that. Lisa. I think there are five times you just said to me, Chris, thanks for going to Sonic. It had nothing to do with Cherry Lime diet-ade things. It had everything to do with just going. You would say thank you. And I think at the end of the day, when we start doing this and we add in gratitude, which is probably one of the most surprising, powerful, deepest emotions we have, we begin to say thank you. We take advantage. Gratitude allows us to take advantage, but to also notice the things that we miss. When we tell God thank you for the sunset it’s as if we are paying attention. Thank you, God, for your Word which today just ministered to me. Thank you for this friend who just heard me today. And when we express back in gratitude it’s as if we’re giving words back to the fact that I noticed you and you noticed me and I saw you and you heard me and you are important to me.

 

Alisa [00:40:50] Wonderful. Well we are so glad you joined us today for this episode of the Art of Relationships. Whatever platform you’re listening to us on, go on and rate us 5 stars — that would really help us out a lot. And we would love to invite you to check out our website at cmr.biola.edu for the Center for Marriage and Relationships. So Chris thanks for another one in the can today. 

 

Chris [00:41:16] Yeah, I actually put 10 stars on there because I figured people would give us a 5 so now we’ll have a 6 star average on a 5 star scale. It moves us up. Wow, we’re like 5+. Yeah, it’s been a fun podcast — thanks. Okay, bye.

 

Mandy [00:41:32] We’re very glad you joined us for today’s podcast. For more resources on marriage and healthy relationships, please visit our website at cmr.biola.edu. We’ll see you next time on the Art of Relationships.