Couples Bootcamp: Working It Out In The Desert

Corrine and Joe have been married for seven years. This marriage is the second one for both of them. They elected to attend Couples Boot Camp to “improve our communication and resolve ongoing arguments about the amount of time we spend together.”

 

While each of them proclaims their love for the other, they also have different expectations about what coupleship looks like in terms of quality personal time vs. family time, and the issues are causing a rift that invites bickering and further withdrawal.

Consider this: Your partner’s behavior isn’t what drives you crazy. Your own brain is.

What you learned about relationships likely came from interactions, dysfunction, and traumas you experienced in your family of origin. You may often hear the strident voice of your immature brain reminding you of the less-than-ideal things you may have learned about the way adult couples are supposed to treat as you navigate your relationship with your partner. Rob complains that Jennifer is so reticent and depressed that he has lost hope that he can be enough for her. He is weary of being the cheerleader and counselor to her. Jennifer admits she has low self-esteem and counters that Rob’s constant nagging and criticism have worn her down. Both come from family backgrounds of addiction and emotional abuse. They aren’t sure they can remain together; however, both recognize that their unresolved issues will likely carry over to any future partners. They state that Boot Camp may be their last resort to stay together.

At this workshop, participants learn that they are not so much addressing their partner’s behavior as they are reacting to unaddressed family of origin wounds. When they stop projecting their past relational disappointments onto their spouse or partner, the path becomes clear for a more rewarding, intimate coupleship. Boot Camp process includes exploring family of origin roles and dysfunctional messages that individuals carry into their committed relationships.

Marilee and Jason have been together since high school. They acknowledge that they argue and “fight like we are still 16 years old.” As their 29th anniversary draws near, they wonder if they have simply outgrown each other or will they be able to redefine the relationship from a new perspective as life-long partners. They value the comfort and joy their children and grandchildren give them but dread the thought of spending the rest of their lives unhappily married to each other. Their objective at Boot Camp is to find a way to restart the marriage as mid-life adults.

This workshop curriculum invites exploration of skewed relationship thinking and offers respectful solution-finding to unresolved and/or repetitive relational issues. Couples find that this supportive environment is a safe place to examine difficulties within their relationship. Because the participants reduce areas of shame and open up previously-closed dialog, they learn through guided processes to problem-solve together and mediate agreeable solutions. Among other communication tools, healthy boundaries and limit-setting are introduced as effective strategies for bringing couples to a higher level of trust and intimacy. “Aha!” moments are not uncommon throughout this week.

Workshops are held for two to three couples at a time. The benefits of positive and supportive feedback from the group peers are plentiful. Among them:

• couples realize that they are not alone in their relational issues; others have the same problems;
• hearing viewpoints of several different facets can shed light on a previously murky solution;
• genuine, positive regard among all the participants can bring healing in unexpected ways for other areas of wounding.

If you are open to learning more about yourself, your beloved, and the life path you both share, Couples Boot Camp may serve as the relationship experience you seek. For more information or to enroll in a Couples Bootcamp call the Intake Department at 1-866-986-3225.

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Equine Therapy for Therapists and Counselors

I have been through the desert on a horse with no name, and it was a profound experience. The experience I’m talking about is the Horses Helping Clinicians workshop offered through the Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows. It takes place on a beautiful ranch, tucked behind some mountains, just outside of Wickenburg, Arizona.

The first morning of the workshop, after introductions, workshop facilitator Colleen DeRango said, “Pick a horse or let a horse pick you.” As I made my way from horse to horse, I waited for a sign, not really knowing what a sign would even look like. After standing in front of a number of horses, a black and white horse with no name picked me.

It’s hard for me to describe this experience with words. It just isn’t possible to do justice to exactly how incredible this workshop was for me. What I can tell you is that without any words at all, that horse gave me a great deal of valuable information about myself. He showed me how I relate to myself, my feelings, and my biggest challenges in life.

Register for Horses Helping Clinicians

Our professional development equine workshop, Horses Helping Clinicians: Somatic-Based Skills to Assist Clients in Restoring Resiliency, is designed to allow professionals to do their own work through the use of equine therapy, safely surrounded by their peers. While this workshop is not designed to teach therapists how to facilitate equine therapy, 18 clock hours of continuing education are offered for attendance. To enroll in this workshop, please contact our intake department at 1-866-280-2874.

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What’s Love Got To Do With It?

At Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows, one of our most popular intensives is the Love Addiction/Love Avoidance workshop. The people that attend are often in severe Love Addiction withdrawal—it is real and it is gut-wrenching. Or, for those who are love avoidant, they have found that the pain of enduring loneliness has superseded the fear of being consumed in a relationship.

How Your Love Life Replicates Childhood Dynamics

The Meadows Senior Fellow Pia Mellody, author of Facing Love Addiction, coined the terms “love addict” and “love avoidant” and detected the cyclic dance between the two. Both of these conditions are considered attachment disorders that are borne out of childhood pain. Unintentionally, love addicts and love avoidants attract one another like magnets.

Early in treatment, Willow House at The Meadows therapists are able to identify patterns in the patient’s love life, or lack thereof, which replicate childhood dynamics. The therapists are able to turn the patient’s attention from the most recent relationship disappointment to childhood relational trauma. That is because unconsciously we draw to us people that rupture our old wounding in an effort to heal that wound.

The love avoidant learns how, to be honest, and real with others and develop healthy boundaries so they can safely engage without becoming overwhelmed.

So, what’s love got to do with it? Everything! Learning to love oneself unconditionally and how to be real with and connect with others is well worth the effort. It is truly the greatest gift one can attain and give others.

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Mutual Respect and The Power of Intimacy

Power is a very interesting phenomenon. I remember having numerous conversations about the complex intersection of power and relationships in graduate school. There was a lot of confusion as to what exactly power even is.
One of the most common misunderstandings about power is that it is a linear phenomenon. In fact, power comes at us from numerous sources all of the time.

The second most common misunderstanding is that power is a zero-sum game— either you have it or I have it. And whatever you have, I can’t have, and vice-versa. This fundamentally flawed way of thinking about power greatly impacts our experiences in relationships.

There are two main ways we experience power in our relationships: power with and power over (you have power over someone else or some else has power over you). The Man Rules say that real men have power and are never weak or powerless. Therefore, from a very early age, young boys are encouraged to find power over – power over others, power over their feelings, and power over themselves.

The Woman Rules say that women should be cooperative, passive, nurturing, selfless, and not too strong. Therefore, from a very early age, young girls are encouraged to find power with. Women are expected to share power with others even if it puts them at a disadvantage; even when it means they have to give up their own power.

And that is the rub in so many heterosexual relationships.

Making Peace with Power

You cannot have a relationship that doesn’t involve a complex interaction with power. What some people don’t often consider is that power can be healthy. In fact, it is an essential part of the day-to-day human experience.

To help us explore the complexity of power in relationships, we can look to the classic Karpman drama triangle which illustrates the shifting, and sometimes destructive, roles of persecutor, rescuer, and victim that people play in relational conflicts. In this “drama triangle” each person involved in a conflict experiences and acts out all of these roles at different times. The role we take on can determine how we perceive our partners, interpret their behavior, and interact with them.

The reason these triangles arise, and often endure, is that each person, regardless of their role, finds that they get their unspoken, and often unconscious, psychological needs met by playing these roles—roles which they most likely originally “perfected” through the power dynamic that played out within their family as a child.

Whether they play the victim or persecutor, or some combination of all three roles, in the end, each person feels justified in acting upon their needs. Feeling satisfied, they often conveniently fail to acknowledge the dysfunctional ways they tend to go about getting their needs met, or the harm that is being done as a result to themselves, their partners, or any third parties (like children) who may be directly or indirectly involved in their conflict.

When there are times of disconnection in the relationship and even if, for whatever reason, there is a loss of respect between partners, intimacy can only be restored in the space of mutuality. We have to move away from the desire to have power over our partners toward the experience of having power with them. When we are able to uncover how our emotional needs arise from our childhood trauma, and release some of that pain, we have the ability to break free from the drama triangle and build an intimate and nurturing environment of mutual respect. Is it easier to let our relationships fall into a series of power plays or to maintain a space of mutual respect? I would suggest the former.

We have to build up our emotional and spiritual muscle in order to truly listen to our partners and maintain respect, especially when they are being their very human and imperfect selves and not doing what we want them to do or being who we want them to be.

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