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Landmark in the News

Keeping the Peace (transcript)

BetterTV, February 02, 2011

A fun, inspiring real-life look at how one busy family uses Landmark's family communication tools to resolve upsets.

Rhiannon Ally: Welcome back, everyone. Boy, we’ve been having a lot of fun today. We already caught up with Steven Tyler about his new American Idol gig and a little flirtatious with Audra here. We also spoke with Bravo reality star, Tabatha Coffey, about her rise as a businesswoman, even despite the tough economy.
 
Audra Lowe: See, it’s a tough economy. Girl’s gotta have some fun. Put Steven Tyler in there. Also, talking about a tough economy, a lot of people are finding some new ways to deal with less money, and that means a lot of families are getting creative. They’re doubling up at home, but of course, when more people are added to the mix at the house, getting along can really become a problem. Well, Leslie met up with one family. You have to see this. They definitely worked hard to keep the peace.
 
Michael Saccio: I’m gonna go wrangle my son.
 
Narrator: Meet the Saccios, a family of five that’s extended a roof to others and has learned to not just survive, but thrive.
 
Josselyne Saccio: I live here, and my husband, Michael Saccio, and our children, Sophie Saccio, Sage Saccio, Shane Saccio, our live-in-o-pair, Yvette Kojic, and the godfather to our children, Eric Steven Jacobs. And then, we have our Yorkie, Izzie.
 
Narrator: All living in a New York City apartment.
 
Josselyne Saccio: And we also have an office – that’s my office – which is a separate entrance to the apartment, so I have four people that work in there all day long.
 
Yvette Kojic: Everybody’s really busy and doing a lot, and there’s constantly people coming and going.
 
Narrator: It’s a tight squeeze.
 
Sophie Saccio: Well, this is my room, but you can’t go in there.
 
Narrator: And not many places to go to be alone.
 
Eric Jacobs: This is my little sanctum.
 
Sophie Saccio: I’ve been in this house alone once my whole life.
 
Josselyne Saccio: They definitely fight, but it doesn’t last more than, you know, like ten minutes. The people that are surprised by it are people that fight a lot. They can’t imagine. Like, how could that be possible not to fight?
 
Eric Jacobs: I raise my voice sometimes.
 
Josselyne Saccio: When I was 11, I did transformative education, so I’ve been participating in transformative education for over 30 years, and I think in that kind of education you really start to learn technology for dealing with upsets or avoiding them before they even come up.
 
Michael Saccio: When I met Josselyne, I hadn’t done Landmark at that point. I was in AA for a little while, so I’d sort of found my own way with dealing with certain things. When I met Joss, I found that there was an amazing form of communication with her and her family, which I didn’t have.
 
Josselyne Saccio: But, in the 17 years my husband and I have been together, we’ve only fought 4 times, and 3 of those times I was pregnant, so I kind of blame it on the hormones.
 
Michael Saccio: We don’t really – we don’t fight. I don’t fight with my wife. Number one, there’s no need to. Now, I’m sure we have had a couple arguments here and there, and there have been disagreements. There’s no fights. There’s no, like, fights. I mean, no. That doesn’t happen.
 
Eric Jacobs: I was one of those cynical people that said, “I’m not doing any group stuff,” and I walked out of there a different person.
 
Josselyne Saccio: We get along amazingly well, I would say, and the primary reason why we get along so well is because we don’t not say anything. So, you know how when you don’t say something and you kinda don’t communicate, then that kinda builds up, builds up. We say everything.
 
Michael Saccio: I have a wonderful family here in my house. You know, I mean, I can’t imagine not being here, to be honest. See?
 
Audra Lowe: That was funny, like, the dad’s reaction. Well, not all families are as blissful. A large household can be a very stressful situation.
 
Rhiannon Ally: That’s why we have David Cunningham from Landmark Education. He joins us now, and he has tips on how to keep the peace while you’re all living under one roof. We know how stressful that can be.
 
Audra Lowe: That would be tough.
 
Rhiannon Ally: Welcome.
 
Audra Lowe: Yeah, good to have you here.
 
David Cunningham: Good morning. Hello.
 
Audra Lowe: We saw the piece. There’s a lot of people living under one roof there, but obviously, something’s gonna come up and people are gonna have an argument and get upset. So, what would you say just out the gate is the best way to make sure that you can communicate well and not get into an argument?
 
David Cunningham: Well, it’s all communication, isn’t it? You know, you can communicate what you’re disappointed about. You can communicate anything that you have a complaint about, or if there’s some failure, you can put it in the past by communication.
 
Rhiannon Ally: And, you know, we all get upset sometimes. That’s gonna happen, especially with multiple people living under one roof, so what is really the best way to resolve it?
 
David Cunningham: Well, there’s some real tools people can have to resolve upsets. The first thing to do is to really look at what’s behind your upset. There’s always one of three things behind your upset.

...

Three things behind every upset are either an undelivered communication – something you didn’t say – or some intention, accomplishment you had that didn’t get fulfilled, or an expectation you had that wasn’t fulfilled. We have certain expectations, and if people don’t come through for us, we get upset about that. To be able to identify what the expectation was gets that out of the space and lets you be there, ready to be productive again.

...
 
Rhiannon Ally: So, we need to think about it.
 
Audra Lowe: Yeah.
 
Rhiannon Ally: That’s the key.
 
Audra Lowe: Thank you very much, David. Good to have you here.
 
David Cunningham: Okay, thank you.
 
Audra Lowe: All right, and if you wanna get other tips and advice on this very situation, you can go to Bettertv.com and then click on the link. We’ll have more info there.