Join us in a special 3-day group couples retreat. It will offer you a uniquely powerful experience — a fast track to positive change — an intensive, supportive place to achieve profound results. In a concentrated program you’ll transform your relationship and take home the key tools and communication skills to stay on track.
Get Your Relationship on Track
What’s the main difference between couples that stay happy and those who don’t? Why do some couples fall into negative, emotionally reactive patterns that gradually consume their love lives, while others keep their love vibrant and strong?
It’s all about the communication skills and tools they use. Couples who stay happy in love know how to repair upsets — both small and large — and stay emotionally connected. They know how to resolve differences and collaborate to make decisions that benefit both of them. They know how to keep each other feeling first in importance. They easily boost each other’s self-esteem.
The rest of us need to learn these vital skills. Otherwise, distress keeps mounting over years of unhealed rifts and poor communication, so eventually we lose our sense of connection and shared pleasure. We end up walking on eggshells, blowing up, or shutting down. Eventually someone can’t take it anymore.
The tools and skills you will acquire in our retreat will help you create a more secure functioning relationship with your partner, in which you will better be able to:
- Increase positive feelings and connection
- Communicate your emotional needs and get them met
- Quickly repair differences, upsets and triggering
- Break negative patterns and reactive cycles
- Collaborate as team mates in resolving differences
- Prioritize your relationship and each other
- Build security, trust and a strong foundation
- Make effective requests and agreements
- Release and heal old emotional wounds
- Renew appreciation, love and affection
You will learn the vital tools and skills of healthy, effective communication in our intensive three day program, and you will be coached to use these tools to address your issues and resolve any emotional stuck places that stand between you.
The Special Power of a Group
This group retreat is special in creating deep, personally meaningful change. After three days of intensive learning, couples report that they return home with renewed spirits — and with vital new tools to keep building on the positive changes they achieve. Trust is rebuilt and connection is renewed.
Many couples say they get more from this retreat than from months or even years of regular counseling! What makes this program so unique and powerful? It offers you scientifically valid, practical tools to resolve issues and heal upsets, and transform patterns of poor communication that lead to suffering and separation.
Participants also report that the big advantage of being in a group — rather than a private retreat — was to be able to learn these new tools along with other couples. This helps you see that all couples have similar struggles and that we all have the need to acquire new skills and understandings.
Seeing how other couples have similar challenges removes the sense that something is uniquely wrong with you. And you will find how the group supports each other in facing issues and making big changes. There is a special power of a group!
What Happens in a Group Retreat?
A group retreat consists of a balanced mix of presenting information to the group and individual work as a couple in break-out sessions.
In the group presentations, John will share what current research in neuroscience and attachment reveals as real keys to relationship satisfaction and lasting happiness. Using a mix of slides, short videos and demonstrations, he will also teach you effective tools and practical strategies that bring this powerful information to life.
Then in the break-out sessions, you and your partner will have a chance to put those tools into use to resolve your issues, reconnect, heal old wounds, or whatever your particular goals are. During this time, you can get the individual coaching you need.
Additionally, there will be group sharing and at times John may briefly work with a couple in front of the group. We respect any needs for privacy, hence both sharing and group process work is entirely voluntary, not required.
Throughout the retreat, your individual comfort is our highest priority. We understand that some people are comfortable sharing in a group, and others aren’t. We will do everything we can to assure your needs are met.
Our group retreats have a small enrollment, generally 3 to 5 couples. This ensures that you get the personal attention you want.
Next Steps to Join a Group Retreat
- Get the Details — Costs, dates, accommodations
- Contact Us — Ask us questions about a retreat
- Join a Group Retreat Now — Go here to sign up →
Feedback from Past Group Participants
“It’s been many weeks since our retreat with you. Our love for each other continues to become even more respectful, caring, and loving. I’m astounded by how much that weekend changed our dynamics, our triggers, our issues. My husband has become the partner I always wanted to be with and I think I have become the partner he has always wanted to share his life with.”
“Thanks for showing us how to reset our relationship and create an open dialog. The retreat was very well organized. I like that we walked away with actionable tools, not just a lot of reconnecting that gets lost when you return home.”
“I was feeling lonely and hopeless before arriving to the retreat. We left feeling united and hopeful in making the next level of our journey together with much harmony.”
“I really didn’t know what to expect, but hoped your retreat would help. Not only did it help, it was life and relationship changing. I feel more connected than ever to my wife. I’d say it really doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together (we’ve been married 20 years) the tools and lessons learned in this retreat would help anyone. Thank you!”
“You helped us move past our fears and connect. We learned practical ways to open to love each other fully again. The retreat helped to identify ad defuse years and layers of hurt. Thank you for this deep healing and connection.”
“The retreat far exceeded my expectations. I felt like we got to the core of our issues and heal our fundamental disconnect. You really helped us get to the root of our decades-long conflict and gave us the tools for repairing our deep wounds.”
“I am so glad we came to this group retreat. We came with fear, anxiety of failure and unsure what to expect. We are going home hopeful of a wonderful future together, feeling more connected and attuned to each others’ needs than ever before.”
“Excellent! Helped us from unraveling. We were at the end of our rope and now feel renewed energy and hope for a great future! Great value with top-notch counseling at an affordable price.”
“Before attending my husband and I had already given up on each other. I was attempting to get my emotional needs met elsewhere, and my husband was on the verge of getting his physical needs met elsewhere. We were not even speaking. And my husband swore he would not be participating in the retreat. But after a few hours we let our guards down. The content was amazing, both scientific-based and emotionally intelligent, grabbing both our attention! We learned to communicate and understand each others’ needs. Honestly, we have fallen in love again, mad the marriage a safe place, a real home for both of us. Thank you so much!”
“This saved our marriage. We were discussing on the way that we should have a Plan B to get divorced, but now I know we do not need a Plan B.”
“We’d been in a downward spiral in our marriage, with crises getting steadily worse. You have given us tools and hope for the future, and we’ve seen real improvement already.”
“This was a make-or-break situation for us. I worried what would happen if it didn’t work out. But it did!!! We made it! Thank you so much.”
“To be honest, I only came because my partner insisted. I was in a place of hopelessness. I left filled with hope and feeling connected to my partner.”
“We were looking for ways out of our negative cycle — ways to move toward each other in the face of conflict — and this retreat gave us those. John’s very professional, calm and welcoming demeanor, his comfort and ease with us as couples, all helped me feel comfortable in finding a way through what would otherwise have been tough territory.”
“This exceeded all expectations. I didn’t expect to go home with such common sense practical tools to help our relationship. John was amazing! The body of work, put together with his warm style was effective and compelling. I’m so happy to have done this and fully optimistic about our use of the techniques.”
“My highest recommendation for this retreat and its effectiveness for a couple who is in distress or who needs to touch and regenerate the loving feelings that brought you together in the first place. Just go!”
“Surpassed my expectations and opened up a whole new world. This retreat opened my eyes to a new way of understanding myself and my husband like never before. Literally life changing.”
“The retreat helped me see the places where my partner and I were stuck in unhealthy patterns, and provided the tools to help us develop secure and healthy patterns of communicating.”
“Thank you for saving our marriage. You gave us amazing insight and tools for how to heal and repair our relationship. This will also have an enormous positive effect on our children.”
“You far exceeded my expectations and I had high hopes to start with. This was a game changer. After 26 years with my partner, to learn new things about him was amazing. I can easily say this has changed the course of our marriage and life in general. I feel like we found something we have been searching for. The tools to find mutual happiness!”
“I have a new level of excitement about what’s possible in our relationship!”
“This retreat gave us the building blocks that all couples need for a healthy and happy marriage!”
“I was unsure what to expect. But now I can safely say that the retreat has blown me away with its simple tools that make such powerful changes. Three days with John was much more useful than the two years we spent in marriage therapy.”
“The tools we gained during the retreat have begun to repair years of bad communication habits. We are both very enthusiastic about our future together.”
“The retreat helped us understand what was behind our reactive behaviors and gave us the tools and language to minimize upsets and maximize our shared pleasure.”
“My expectations were more than met. The information was practical, the exercises led to implementable steps. I appreciated the scientific, grounded approach. The immersion and input of the group was amazing. Very beneficial, practical and actionable.”
“We were skeptical of the group format but we actually found the interactions to be very beneficial and learned a lot from others. We have walked away with insight, understanding, a change of perspective, and a set of tools to assist us in real world applications.”
“Exceeded expectations. Learning about the science behind love and relationships was astounding to me. These concepts had a profound impact on me. This is NOT, NOT, NOT your typical marriage counseling. It is more like a re-programming of all the bad/negative things learned or picked up before you even met your partner. And learning how to rewire yourself for success and happiness without the baggage.”
“We have been to many, many marriage retreats. Honestly, your retreat was our last effort at our marriage. Your program has saved our marriage and has made me see things within myself that I was unaware of. I want to give my sincere thanks to you. You have given us hope and a renewed approach to truly bonding with each other and being the best we can be. Thank you!”
“One of the most beneficial experiences of my entire life. Not only for me and my partner, but with regard to all relationships in my life. Sound scientific principles and wisdom. I will recommend this to everyone. Truly one of my greatest life experiences. Thank you.”
“Way more than I could have expected. I have been searching for the tools to help us fix our marital problems for so long and felt hopeless that they did not exist. But now I feel that I have finally found them. I can’t wait to implement what I have learned and turn my marriage into a healthy, happy and supportive partnership.”
“More than I expected. Nice balance between presentation, discussion and couples exercises. From general marital preventative maintenance to learning how to deal with major marital distresses, this marriage retreat is highly recommended.”
Next Steps to Join a Group Retreat
- Get the Details — Costs, dates, accommodations
- Contact Us — Ask us questions about a retreat
- Join a Group Retreat Now — Go here to sign up →