What does it look like when someone who only knew two emotions — anger and joy — finally faces the full spectrum of what they feel?

That's the story Han and Alicia Lau bring to the table this week. Married 31 years, parents to six kids, grandparents to six more — and coaches who almost skipped the Core Emotion Wheel entirely.

Alicia grew up in a world that told her to stifle her emotions, be a "good Christian girl," and never be "too much." The result? A life where anger and joy were the only acceptable exits — until a poolside audiobook moment changed everything.

In this episode, Glenn, Phyllis, Han, and Alicia unpack what it actually takes to go from emotional resistance to emotional fluency — including the 45-minute wheel session that helped Alicia finally process her father's suicide, more than a decade after his death.

In This Episode:

• Why Alicia threw the Core Emotion Wheel across the room (metaphorically) — and why she came back to it
• How blended family dynamics (and two very different cultures) shaped emotional patterns for both Han and Alicia
• The moment on their 30th anniversary that changed their marriage — doing the entire Foundations course in one weekend
• Han's breakthrough: how advising a client led him to take his own advice about shame and guilt
• Alicia's 45-minute grief wheel — and why she no longer feels her dad's death the same way in her body
• What it means to practice the wheel "like bad first sex" and why that's the most honest description of growth we've heard
• Glenn and Phyllis share their own middle-of-the-night wheel moments — and what lonely really feels like when you go deep

Resources Mentioned:

Get the Core Emotion Wheel: www.connectioncodes.co/podcast

Work with a Connection Codes Coach: connectioncodes.co/coaches

Foundations Masterclass: connectioncodes.co/foundations

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What does it actually look like when one spouse starts doing the emotional work before the other is ready? Ben and Hannah have been married 19 years, raised four kids (including three teenagers), and spent nearly a decade unknowingly drifting apart — until one ordinary walk changed everything.

In this episode, Glenn and Phyllis sit down with Ben and Hannah for an honest, unscripted conversation about what it really takes to turn a marriage around. Ben resisted Connection Codes for over a year — and then one moment of Hannah staying present when she could have pulled away shifted everything for him. They talk about the emotional dam, why anger is usually lonely in disguise, how they're raising a 10-year-old with OCD using the Core Emotion Wheel, and what happens when coding becomes the language of your whole household.

This one is for the spouse who started the work alone. For the partner who's been resistant. For the parent trying to get emotional tools into a home with teenagers. You're going to want to hear this.

In This Episode:

• Why the first 10 years of marriage can mask deep emotional disconnection
• What it looks like when one spouse starts coding before the other is ready
• The walk that changed Ben's mind — and why Hannah's staying present made all the difference
• How anger almost always has lonely underneath it
• The emotional dam: why it forms in hours, not years
• Using the Core Emotion Wheel with a child who has OCD and self-harm patterns
• Why teenagers resist coding — and the long game that actually works
• What men lose when culture tells them vulnerability is weakness
• Glenn's challenge: say the emotion out loud in the moment, even when no one's there to hear it

Get the Core Emotion Wheel: www.connectioncodes.co/podcast

Book a Connection Codes Coach: https://connectioncodes.co/coaches

Keywords: emotional intelligence in marriage | marriage communication tools | how to reconnect with your spouse | men emotional vulnerability | emotional health relationships | OCD and emotional tools for kids | marriage disconnection | Core Emotion Wheel | how to stop emotional shutdown | marriage transformation stories | emotional dam | ooh technique | Connection Codes podcast

What do you do when the person you built your life around is suddenly gone?

In this deeply moving episode, Glenn and Phyllis sit down with Eric — husband, father of 10, and Connection Codes community member — to talk about what happens when grief, identity loss, and emotional isolation collide. Eric's wife Nicole passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack just after the New Year, leaving him a single father navigating the unimaginable.

But this isn't just a story about loss. It's a story about what tools, community, and the courage to be emotionally vulnerable can do — even in the darkest seasons.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why grief cannot heal in isolation — and what it actually needs to move through
• How Eric tracked his emotional connection with his wife through selfies (the data will surprise you)
• What losing a spouse does to your sense of identity — and why that part often goes unspoken
• The difference between grief that gets witnessed and grief that stays buried
• How men are conditioned to suppress emotion — and what it costs them and their kids
• What Eric's kids said to him that changed how he showed up as a dad
• Why Eric drove to Tennessee to be with a community of people he'd never met in person

Resources mentioned:

• Get your free Core Emotion Wheel → www.connectioncodes.co/podcast
• Work with a Connection Codes certified coach → connectioncodes.co/coaches
• Learn more about the School of Connection → connectioncodes.co

Keywords: grief and emotional health, healing from loss, marriage and identity, emotional intelligence tools, how to grieve in community, men and vulnerability, mental health after loss, relationship emotional wellness, grief and parenting, connection and healing, emotional resilience, marriage and loss