Healing The
Family
Our team is strongly committed to
the emotional health and healing
of spouses, partners, and families impacted by the consequences of
negative behaviors. We understand that destructive patterns often
result in hurt, betrayal and a breakdown in trust between the
individual and their family members. The
Meadows' Rio
Retreat Workshops have been developed to help participants tackle
their emotional issues and gain a better understanding of how they
can discover a better way of living.
Rebuilding
Relationships
Workshops at the Rio Retreat
Center are designed to help you understand your own needs, desires,
emotions, habits, and everything else that makes you who you are. The
more you know about yourself, the better equipped you are to engage
in healthy relationships and have an improved sense of self. To learn
more about the Rio Retreat Center or to sign up for one of our
groundbreaking workshops, call us at 866-835-5431
or fill out the form below and a representative will be happy to
provide you more information.
Specialized For Your Needs
Our workshops
allow participants to learn and receive support from people facing
similar issues. These transformative programs help individuals to
identify negative patterns, and break the cycle of negative behaviors
that holding them back from living the life they desire.
Committed To Seeing Our Participants Succeed
Workshops at the
Rio Retreat Center are designed to help you understand your own needs,
desires, emotions, habits, and everything else that makes you who you
are. The more you know about yourself, the better equipped you are to
engage in healthy relationships and have an improved sense of self. To
learn more about the Rio Retreat Center or to sign up for one of our
groundbreaking workshops, call us at 866-441-0368 866-441-0368 or fill out the form below and a representative will be happy to provide you more information.
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.
Book any workshop for 2017 during the month of March and you’ll
receive $500 off the cost of registration. (Some exclusions apply.)
A few of the life-changing options we have coming up for March, April, and May can help you begin to…
