What if your relationship didn’t need one more insight — just a better dance? On this episode of The Sacred We, Mike and Courtney sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Dayna Mullen, who has spent 18 years studying under Stan Tatkin and building a marriage of her own around the same principle she teaches every couple who walks through her door: secure functioning.

Dayna unpacks what Stan Tatkin calls the "couple bubble" — the shared ecosystem a couple creates when they agree the relationship comes first, not one partner’s needs over the other’s. She walks through what secure functioning actually looks like in daily life: the rituals that hold a marriage together, the practice of sitting on the floor to co-regulate instead of trying to talk through a fight, and the golden rule she and her husband Dennis live by — moving at the pace of connection, not the pace of being right.

The conversation goes deep on what secure functioning asks of each attachment style. Dayna names the specific sacrifice for the avoidant, the anxious, and the disorganized — and why none of it is really a sacrifice once you feel what’s on the other side of it. She and Courtney also draw a clear line between secure functioning and codependence, two things that get confused constantly, and talk candidly about why couples build endless structures for their kids and almost none for their marriage.

This one is for anyone ready to stop doing relationships alone — even inside a relationship.

About Dayna Mullen:

Dayna Mullen is a Registered Psychologist, couples therapist, and international relationship coach with more than 25 years studying what makes relationships work, professionally and personally. She helps high-functioning couples go beyond communication tips to the attachment patterns and nervous system dynamics that create real safety and connection. Married 23 years and a mother of three, her mission is to change the culture of relationships.

Learn more about Dayna:

Website: https://www.alignmentpsychology.ca/dayna-mullen

Email: daynavmullen@gmail.com

Connect with us:

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

transform@itsmikeelliott.com

relating@courtneywren.com

Instagram: @mikeelliott.relating | @courtneywren.relating

You already know something needs to change. The Initiated Man Program is where it starts. Join The Initiated Man Program today →https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

Do you have a partner who avoids hard conversations, avoids taking responsibility, and seems to get farther away the more you reach for connection? In this episode, Mike Elliott breaks down what avoidance really is, why it shows up in relationships, and how it quietly ends up running the show when it goes unaddressed.

Mike shares how avoidance affected his own first marriage, and what changed once he stopped fighting it and started meeting it with compassion. You'll hear the exact language that helped him and Courtney turn avoidance into vulnerability, why criticism makes it worse, and what to say instead when your partner feels far away.

Whether you're the one who pulls away or the one doing the reaching, this episode offers a real, practical path back to connection.

Connect with us:

• 🔥 The Initiated Man — Mike's men's community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• 💚 The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• ✉️ Join Our Couples List: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• 🌹 Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• 🌀 Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• 🤝 Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

transform@itsmikeelliott.com

relating@courtneywren.com

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating

@courtneywren.relating

To the mamas holding it all together while still longing to feel like you — Courtney's Holy Mama community is opening its doors soon. Join the waitlist to be the first to know:https://www.courtneywren.com/holy-mama-waitlist

Before she was ten, Courtney had been diagnosed with panic disorder, generalized anxiety, and ADHD — and put on the first of what would be over a decade of psychiatric medication. In this solo episode, she tells the real story behind those diagnoses: the night terrors that started in infancy, the panic attacks that felt like dying, the label of "problem child" that followed her through school, and the slow unraveling of her trust in her own body.

At 20, sitting at what she calls her rock bottom, Courtney chose to stop looking outside herself for a fix. What followed was years of somatic therapy and nervous system work that did what medication, energy healing, and a dozen specialists couldn’t: it healed her. By 29, her anxiety, panic attacks, ADHD symptoms, and PCOS were gone.

This isn’t a story about blame — Courtney is clear that everyone around her, from her parents to her doctors, was doing their best with what they knew. It’s an invitation to get curious about what a child’s nervous system is actually communicating, and to imagine what becomes possible when we stop treating a diagnosis as a life sentence. She also shares a first look at her upcoming course, Parenting the Nervous System, launching this fall.

If you or someone you love has ever been told a diagnosis is just "who they are," this episode offers a different way to see it.

Connect With Us

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

transform@itsmikeelliott.com

relating@courtneywren.com

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating

@courtneywren.relating