OM14: Jean Kadkhodaian | Couples Synergy - Spiritual Development Through Relationships

anything that's alive is either growing or dying, in an array of relationship with alive. Meet Today’s Guest: Jean Kadkhodaian Jean Kadkhodaian and her husband, Dr. Ray Kadkhodaian, have been counseling thousands of couples since 2002. They work with couples as a couple. Their experience inspired them to create the Couples Synergy Method, a proven system to develop strong, resilient and empowered relationships. Join their online community called, Connections, and listen to live weekly webinars. Learn how to work on your relationship through their #1 podcast for couples called, "Couples Synergy - Real Couples, Real Stories". Treat you and your partner to a fun-filled relationship boosting Weekend Intensive, or work with Dr. Ray & Jean personally through their premiere Couple 2 Couple coaching program. Dr. Ray & Jean were married on February 14, 1998, and have 2 adult sons, a daughter-in-law and 2 pet stingrays. They enjoy riding motorcycles, scuba diving, hiking and traveling.  Tell the audience a little bit about your story. I have eight siblings. And I grew up in a home that had a lot of a lot of chaos. I coped with that by working full time when I was in high school, so I would work and go to school, and I was pretty lonely. Early on, I got into a relationship with someone that ended up being a fairly toxic relationship. I was a mess. About a year after that, he decided to go away to college, and I didn't have a plan. I decided to join the army. When I got on the plane to go to basic training, I thought, you know, I'm going to reinvent myself. The whole town where we lived knew who we were because were such a big family. There was always like a label that I couldn't get out from under. I was the youngest girl, and I was really shy, and I got on the plane, I'm like, I'm not going to be that anymore. I remember getting off the plane and shaking people's hands and introducing myself and having this false confidence which basic training really reinforced. I learned a lot about self-care and self-esteem and self-worth and discipline. And that really changed my life. I came back home and got lost again and got pregnant at 20 years old. That was such a life changing event of mine. I joined a single mom support group, and I decided that was the work that I want to do. At the time I found out I was dyslexic, and it was the beginning of the word processor. I don't think I could have gone to school unless I had that to correct my spelling. I muscled my way through school with my son. I think I started when he was three and finished my bachelor's when he was eight. I continued to work really hard on myself during that entire time and I was in another toxic relationship. Relationships became something that was a really strong passion of mine to figure out. And at some point, once I finished my bachelor's, I bought my own condo, which was a huge accomplishment for me. I was actually going to plan on being single the rest of my life because I was so bad at being in relationships and they were so painful. I spent three years and what I would say is you have to become the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with, in order to be in a relationship where you have something to offer another person. And of course, once I got into that three-year mark where I really knew myself, I had all these wonderful ways of getting my needs met through family, friends, work kids, and pets. That's when I met my husband. At the time, we were both working on our master's degree in clinical psychology. We started working in community mental health where there's very little training. We decided we could do it better. We started working together as a couple with couples. The incredible part of that journey is that when I was 30 years old, and my son was nine years old, I fell in love with a guy who was 24. Ray and I had this big age gap. We didn’t...