Falling in love is the easy part. Staying happy together is another matter.
Unresolved differences and negative communication patterns will diminish shared happiness.
Lacking effective tools to repair their differences, an unfortunate number of couples either stagnate or eventually split up.
Knowing the right tools makes all the difference.
A retreat with John gives you the essential tools to resolve issues, navigate differences, repair upsets, communicate well, get your needs met, and sustain the loving happiness you truly want. 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 is about 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 reveal two basic forms of attachment: secure vs insecure.
Which form of attachment you engage in determines whether you stay happy or fall into a downward spiral.
Unfortunately, many of us act out patterns of insecure functioning.
We do this unconsciously, of course. Our attachment patterns got wired into our brains in childhood, even before we had words! By the time we mastered walking, we were also programmed in how to emotionally bond. And we act out this early programming with our partners today, without even knowing it.
With conscious awareness we can change our patterns. A retreat with John shows you the rules and tools for secure functioning. You learn what promotes relationship satisfaction, and how to do it.
John often sees couples on the brink of divorce — partners who had been stuck, stagnant, and unhappy for years. Most of the time, such couples successfully reignite joyful, alive, vibrant, loving partnerships in a matter of a few days in John’s retreats.
Think about that. Stuck for years. Sometimes decades. Often they arrive barely liking each other. They may be ambivalent about staying together. Maybe they are only doing it for the kids.
And then during three days of intensive learning, something wakes up inside of them and they authentically feel happy together again. Sometimes more than in their original honeymoon period! Their lives are changed. They go home with new tools and rules-new principles of how to operate as a couple.
How is that possible? Brain scientists call it neuroplasticity. 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 follow rules that result in insecure functioning. Over time, they rewire each other’s brains to feel less happy around each other. This is the exact opposite of why they got together!
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. Armed with the rules and tools in a retreat with John, you can turn destructive patterns around and rewire your relationship for happiness. And you can learn the keys to keeping your love life healthy, happy, and strong.