Couples who come to a retreat frequently have felt stuck, stagnant, or unhappy for years. Some are on the brink of divorce. Often one partner has little if any hope left.
Most of the time, in a matter of a few days of working with John, these couples find renewed positive feelings, hope, and trust.
That’s astonishing. Think about it. Stuck for years. Even decades. Partners may barely feel good about each other. They may be ambivalent about staying together.
And then, during three days of intensive learning, something wakes up inside of them — and they authentically feel happy together again. Their lives are changed. They go home with new tools and ways of operating as a couple that sustain mutual happiness.
How is that degree of change possible? And so quickly?
Brain scientists call it neuroplasticity. The brain will change depending on its input. Change how you interact, and you will change each others’ wiring.
With the right tools, you can rewire your relationship to be a place of shared happiness and mutual love. In a retreat, John gives you evidence-based tools derived from the last three decades of scientific research on relationship satisfaction.
How intimate partners interact continuously affects each other’s neural wiring. This means you are rewiring your partner’s brain at all times. It is happening each moment you interact. You have a big impact on how your partner is wired to think about you, feel about you, and behave toward you.
Sadly, a large number of couples unconsciously fall into negative patterns that trigger upset in one another. They inadvertently wire each other’s brains to feel less happy around each other. This is the exact opposite of what they want together!
What Can a Retreat Change?
A retreat with John gives you the essential tools to consciously rewire your relationship with positive patterns. This can quickly change how you feel about each other. Hopeless partners can again feel hopeful. Those “in love” feelings can come back.
You will get tools to repair emotional wounds, resolve issues, navigate differences, prevent upsets, communicate well, collaborate and create win-win outcomes, operate as a team, get your needs met, and sustain the loving happiness you truly want. Tools to dismantle reactive cycles and get to the root of making each other feel safe, secure and loved. Tools to build solid trust and a strong connection that continues to thrive.
John has developed these tools in over two and a half decades of helping couples in his intensive marriage retreats. These evidence-based tools also reflect current findings in neuroscience and research on human attachment.
Attachment research studies how we emotionally bond and connect with a significant other. Over the last few decades, thousands of scientific studies on the nature of human pair-bonding have detailed two very different forms of attachment: secure vs insecure.
Which form of attachment you engage in determines whether you stay happy or fall into a downward spiral. Sadly, many couples unwittingly act out unconsciously programmed patterns of insecure attachment.
Our attachment patterns got wired into our brains long ago in childhood, before we had words! By the time we learned to walk, we also were trained how to emotionally bond. We act out this early programming with our partners today, without even knowing it.
What’s the secret of people who stay happy in love? They got a model of secure attachment wired into them in childhood. So these lucky couples automatically enact patterns of secure functioning as adults. The rest of us have to change our patterns.
Can People Really Change?
Yes. With conscious awareness and the right tools we can upgrade our patterns. We can learn effective ways to communicate and interact that foster lasting happiness.
This is not about changing who you are. It is about giving yourself new options and and increasing your repertoire of what you do. It is about learning how to be effective in getting the love you both want. It’s about learning to operate as a team to co-produce a secure functioning partnership.
Think of it like dance. You can always learn new steps in partner dancing. That doesn’t change who you are. But it does give you new options in how you can join with your partner. You can learn new moves to connect in ways that feel good together.
A retreat with John gives you the rules and tools for secure functioning. You learn what promotes relationship satisfaction, and how to do it. You experience the difference this makes. And you take home these new tools to keep your love on a positive track. As you continue to practice using them, you solidly master the art of secure functioning.
While many couples get lost over time because they don’t know the rules of secure functioning, you can be different. You can rewire your brains — and your relationship — to be more loving and less reactive. You can share happiness in a strong, secure connection.
Most of us don’t realize our power to do this. We don’t know how to turn things around when we hit a bump on the road. So the road just gets bumpier, and we get less happy traveling it with our partner.
You don’t have to settle for this.
Knowing the right tools can make all the difference. With the right tools, you can change everything — and do so much quicker than you thought possible.
Armed with the tools you get in a retreat with John, you can turn destructive patterns around, repair past wounds, and rewire your relationship for security and happiness. In a few days, you can get the keys to make your love life healthy, happy, and strong.