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One Choice Away: Justin and Trisha Davis on Marriage, Forgiveness, and the Enneagram (Types 8 & 3)

Typology

Release Date: 09/25/2025

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Typology

This Christmas, we’re delighted to bring back one of our most beloved conversations with Enneagram Three, pastor, and author AJ Sherrill. In this replay, AJ joins me to revisit the Nativity story—not as the sentimental tale we often breeze past each year, but as a rich, multilayered narrative pulsing with mystery, courage, vulnerability, and divine surprise. AJ shares his own journey into spiritual direction, what it’s teaching him about listening, presence, and compassion, and how the Enneagram continues to shape his inner world. We explore why the season invites us to slow down, pay...

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With the holidays just around the corner, we’re bringing back a conversation that continues to deliver relational gold. Whether you heard it the first time or you’re discovering it now, this replay with author and Enneagram teacher Christina Wilcox offers a beautifully practical and deeply compassionate look at how the Enneagram can transform the way we show up for one another during the most emotionally charged season of the year. In this episode, Christina shares her journey of discovering herself as an Enneagram Six—along with the courage, clarity, and self-understanding that...

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What happens when the life you built—carefully, faithfully, and publicly—splits down the middle in a single night? On this episode of Typology, I sit down with bestselling author and beloved cultural commentator Jen Hatmaker to talk about her stunning new memoir, Awake. Jen, an Enneagram Three with a courageous streak that can look a whole lot like an Eight, opens up about the “before-and-after date” that changed everything—July 11, 2020—when her 26-year marriage ended, and her whole world cracked open. Together, we explore what it means to wake up in midlife: to grief and...

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Typology

This week on Typology, we welcomed the incomparable Lynn Smith—former national news anchor turned communications strategist, executive coach, and proud (and newly discovered) Enneagram Three with a Two wing. And friends… buckle up. This conversation is a masterclass in emotional intelligence, presence, and what it means to pursue success without losing yourself in the chase. Fresh off taking the Typology Assessment, Lynn joined us in that familiar Three-ish blend of humor, candor, and high-octane energy, joking that the results made her want to immediately call her therapist. What...

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Typology

What happens when an Enneagram Two (or…maybe a Four?) takes a deep dive into the ache beneath our desire to be good, loved, and whole? This week, I sit down with Heath Hardesty, pastor and author of . What begins as a conversation about the Enneagram Two’s longing to help soon unfurls into an exploration of the soul — the ache for beauty, the mystery of shame, and what it means to live authentically before God. Together we explore: The difference between helping and hiding Why our “ache” might actually be a form of divine homesickness How beauty, poetry, and the transcendent...

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Typology

In this heartfelt, humorous, and deeply human conversation, Ian sits down with longtime friend — artist, filmmaker, professor, and Enneagram Seven — Steve Taylor. You may know him as the legendary provocateur who “invented irony for Christians,” but in this episode, we explore the terrain beneath the creativity, the energy, and the relentless forward motion that has defined so much of his life. Together we wade into the deeper waters of the second half of life — aging, character, grief, spiritual maturity, limitations, and the sacred invitation to move from doing to being. Steve...

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Typology

), a popular Substack celebrating literary culture. He is the author of several books, including (forthcoming, November 2025). His writing has appeared in Reason, the Washington Post, American Spectator, and National Review. He lives outside Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, kids, dogs, and more books than space. Available now for pre-order:     Follow on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player to learn more about the Enneagram and personal growth.   

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On this week’s episode of Typology, I’m joined by two remarkable guests who sit right at the intersection of faith and psychology: Dr. Les Parrott, a clinical psychologist and author, and pastor Judah Smith, who brings a preacher’s honesty and a comedian’s timing to our conversation. Together, they’ve written a new book called . It’s a lively and deeply honest dialogue between theology and therapy—between the pulpit and the couch. We dive into what Les calls the five “toxic thought patterns” that keep us stuck—guilt, shame, insecurity, entitlement, and...

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More Episodes

Today, we’re joined by Justin (8w7) and Trisha Davis (3w2), a couple whose story holds both heartbreak and a hard-won hope. We talk honestly about the Eight–Three dance in marriage—intensity, drive, image, and protection—and how those same strengths can be magic when we’re healthy and toxic when we’re not.

We also dive into their new book, One Choice Away from Change: Break the Cycles that Hurt Your Relationships and Hold You Back. They remind us that real transformation isn’t about muscling through—it’s about naming the wound, choosing presence over performance, and practicing honest vulnerability.

Justin shares how confusing help with weakness fueled secrecy and performance—and how grief became a doorway to healing. Trisha reflects on the Three’s chameleon move, learning to show up without over-achieving, and a wise reframing of the Enneagram as “not a weapon and not an excuse.” Together, they walk us through surviving an affair, pastoring through COVID, late-in-life family revelations, and the truth that forgiveness is not a one-and-done event. Their North Star: when they’re healthy, they’re magic; when they’re not, they’re toxic—and daily choices make the difference.

If you’ve tried to achieve your way out of pain or sprinted past grief because it felt inefficient, this conversation will meet you in the messy middle. We explore relief vs. recovery, acting our way into new feelings, and why you can’t heal a wound you won’t name. It’s tender, practical, and full of hope.  I hope you'll tune in. 

 

 

About our guests

Justin and Trisha Davis are pastors, authors, speakers, and the founders of RefineUs Ministries. They’re not perfect. They’re not interested in pretending. They are passionate about helping others experience real healing and deeper connection.

Together, they co-authored Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn’t Good Enough, and Justin’s book Being Real > Being Perfect: How Transparency Leads to Transformation is a USA Today bestseller. Justin and Trisha have been married for 30 years, have five kids and live in Indianapolis.

One Choice Away from Change — available wherever books are sold

Justin & Trisha’s Website: http://justinandtrisha.com