David & Sherie talk about some very basic principles every couple should use, and can solve 95% of your relationship issues. From John Gottman, these skills include:

1. Express feelings using “I” statements

2. Use a softened start up

3. Stay Calm and Regulate Emotions

4. Turn Towards and Make and Keep Bids for Connection

5. Practice Repair Attempts

6. Accept Influence

David & Sherie finish talking about desires and our role in changing desires to better match the life we want to live. We want to move from knowing a thing to wanting a thing to loving a thing, and we talk about the final steps to do this. Here are all the steps in the process and the bold ones are covered in this episode:

1. Understand what virtue really is
2. Strengthen Your Why & Define your Purpose
3. Genuinely pursue loving virtue with energy, vigor, and effort!
4. Create experiences of loving virtue in triggering situations through visualizing
5. See Others as Souls, Not Objects
6. Shift from Suppression or avoidance to Acceptance and Substitution
7. Expect Struggles, But Keep Going
8. Spiritual Practices

David & Sherie continue talking about desires and our role in changing desires to better match the life we want to live. We want to move from knowing a thing to wanting a thing to loving a thing, and we talk about additional steps to do this. Here are the steps in the process and the bold ones are covered in this episode:

1. Understand what virtue really is
2. Strengthen Your Why & Define your Purpose
3. Genuinely pursue loving virtue with energy, vigor, and effort!
4. Create experiences of loving virtue in triggering situations through visualizing
5. See Others as Souls, Not Objects
6. Shift from Suppression or avoidance to Acceptance and Substitution
7. Expect Struggles, But Keep Going
8. Spiritual Practices

David & Sherie continue talking about how our desires impact our sobriety and recovery and go into more detail about how this works and why it happens.

David & Sherie begin exploring the concept of desires and how our desires impact, possibly more than anything else, our recovery journey. Our motivation, or truest or deepest desires, significantly impact our behavior and why we might be "stuck" and continue to act our when we also don't want to have this addiction or these issues anymore.

David & Sherie continue talking about our intrusive, unwanted thoughts and start with a really helpful exposure therapy exercise or visualization. We then finish talking about additional steps you can take to manage those intrusive thoughts even more.

Don't Believe Everything You Think, by Joseph Nguyen: https://a.co/d/0hISYNn

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally M. Winston PsyD, Martin N. Seif PhD: https://a.co/d/c7A6puk

David & Sherie continue talking about our intrusive, unwanted thoughts and talk about different methods of helping overcome these thoughts, focusing on exposure therapy and what that means.

Don't Believe Everything You Think, by Joseph Nguyen: https://a.co/d/0hISYNn

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally M. Winston PsyD, Martin N. Seif PhD: https://a.co/d/c7A6puk

David & Sherie continue talking about our intrusive, unwanted thoughts and talk about the 3 kinds of intrusive thoughts, common thought myths, and more about what we do about them. We referenced two books in the first episode:

Don't Believe Everything You Think, by Joseph Nguyen: https://a.co/d/0hISYNn

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally M. Winston PsyD, Martin N. Seif PhD: https://a.co/d/c7A6puk