Relationships are hard. Bringing two people together who both have their own quirks, beliefs, needs, and desires can be fabulous and wonderful and it can also sometimes drive you crazy!
Most people think that problems in the relationship come from infidelity or growing apart or that having a good relationship is about getting along all the time.
We primarily have two types of couples who come to us:
- The ones who are on the brink of divorce (or having real trouble) and they come as a last ditch effort to save the marriage; and
- The ones who really want to take their love and their relationship to the next level of growth, happiness, and juiciness.
I love it so much when we help people really figure out:
- The problems we “thought” we were having, are not the problems we’re really having.
- I thought the problems we were “really” having were her fault (or his fault, depending upon who the speaker is). Now, I see the problems are the result of our past and our unhealed wounds.
- When we heal our past and our unhealed wounds, we come back into love and I love her (him) even more than I thought!
And of course, you don’t know how to heal your past or your unhealed wounds, you might not even know what they are!
If you’re having trouble in your relationship, I really want to encourage you to look into doing a Couples Soul Adventure, either here in Sedona or At Home. It can change everything.
For right now, I want to gift you with this video about ONE Thing You Can Start Doing Right Now To Save Your Relationship. It’s very simple. It’s not easy for everyone, but it is very simple. I hope this helps:
As I say in the video, if you are constantly giving yourself permission to say nasty stuff to your partner, you are on the road to Splittsville. And no one wants to go there.
But sometimes, telling yourself (or having me tell you) to just “stop it” isn’t enough. Usually with most couples there’s a history of hurts, sometimes there’s a lack of trust. Or worse, you’ve gotten yourself into a vicious cycle that you just can’t seem to get yourselves out of.
That’s where a Couples Soul Adventure comes in. We’ll spend time with you, digging deep to start the process of figuring out what’s holding you back from the relationship of your dreams, then we’ll custom design the perfect Soul Adventure for the two of you. Private sessions with our Master Practitioners are designed to take you from where you are to where you want to be.
Did you know Sedona Soul Adventures has been named to Guidedoc’s “Best Marriage Retreats in the US” for 9 years in a row? 2015 – 2023. Because we are the best. Many of our practitioners have been working with couples for over 20 years.
Talk to one of our Soul Guides about your custom-designed Couples Soul Adventure. Call us at (928) 204-5988 or request a call and they will call you.
Carl says, "Wow--husband and wife lives changed forever and marriage turned around” after their Couples Soul Adventure
I love it so much when people like Carl and his wife come to us and have their lives and relationships changed forever for the better.
Give us a call and speak to one of our Soul Guides. They’ll begin the process of digging deep to discover the blocks that are holding you back from having the life or relationship of your dreams. Those blocks are different for everybody, the cause is different, and how they show up is different. Let’s start the process.
Remember, there’s no cost or obligation and you can do it in-Sedona or from the comfort of your own home.
Call us today at (928) 204-5988 or request a call here and we’ll call you.
Did you know Sedona Soul Adventures was named
“Best of Sedona” for Retreats for 2020, 2021, 2022, & 2023,
“Best Marriage Retreats in the US” 2015-2023 and
one of the "11 Best Couples Retreats Around the World"
by Bride's Magazine in 2022? Plus we were named one of
Global Radiance Review's "20 Most Trustworthy Companies of 2023"
It’s because what we do gets results - call us now, let us help. As I always say, if you knew what could happen, you’d be calling right now.
What area of your life do you need help with most right now…
Your relationship?
Finding your life purpose?
Loss of a loved one?
Healing & pampering?
Or is it something else?
Because we’re here for you - and we’re even open on Sunday!
Remember, there's no cost or obligation to speak with a Soul Guide and have them custom-design the perfect retreat just for you in Sedona or At Home.
Call us at (928) 204-5988 or request a call from one of our Soul Guides and they will call you.
Wishing you a week filled with nurturing!
I want to talk to you today about something that you would think nobody should have to say, but evidently it needs to be said because I see this out there all the time. Here it is:
If you want healthier, happier relationships, you need to stop saying nasty stuff to people you love.
I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking, “Duh, Debra, everyone knows that,” and okay, maybe everyone knows it, but is everyone abiding by that? Not from what I see.
Think about it. What do we see on TV all the time?
Reality shows get bigger ratings the nastier the people are, especially if they’re plotting against each other.
People constantly watch the Kardashians being nasty with each other and talking trash about other people.
But the biggest thing I see over and over again – and it breaks my heart – is to see, hear or be told about the nasty stuff that families say to each other and the nasty stuff that couples say to each other.
Think about it. These are the people that are supposed to be the foundation of love in your life and you’re saying nasty stuff to them? And I’m not talking about them saying nasty stuff to you, you don’t have control over that (send them this video and maybe it will help). I’m talking about the person who has the control here and that’s YOU!
You have control over what stuff comes out of your mouth and whether it’s nasty or not. And I would be willing to bet that if there have been nasty exchanges that there has been nasty stuff said on both sides, so let’s just focus on the person who has the control here, and that person is YOU!
At this point, let’s define what I mean by “nasty stuff.” I have to say my definition is very, very broad. Because by definition, anything that isn’t coming from love, is negative, not pleasant, not good and not helpful for your relationship. And then you have the next level down, which is the really nasty stuff, where you’re calling each other names, you’re telling the other person what’s wrong with them and generally saying stuff which makes them feel bad.
Let’s get really honest about why you are doing this. Because you want them to be different. You want them to work harder or you want them to work less and spend more time with you, or you want them to spend more time with their friends, or you want them to spend less time with their friends… You are saying stuff because you think you want them to be different than they are.
And you’re telling yourself that you’re just trying to help them, and I’m sure part of that is true. But I want to tell you what I know after 20 years of being a divorce attorney and over 17 years of working with couples – when you are constantly criticizing or complaining to your partner, a family member or a friend, or telling them what to do or saying nasty stuff to them, you are killing intimacy. You are killing the one thing you say you want – which is love and connection.
I know what you’re saying – “I have to tell him what to do, he’s a child, this entire household would collapse if I left him to his own devices” – and I will tell you, that kind of thinking is killing your relationship.
And I get it. I grew up and got married during the time when lots of therapists were saying, “Get it all out, don’t hold back, say what’s on your mind.” And I gave myself permission to say all kinds of nasty stuff because I thought I was “airing things out” and the stuff I was saying was, of course, “true” and I was just trying to help my soon-to-be ex-husband be a better person.
Well, all the studies are now showing that the opposite is true. Saying nasty stuff, fighting, arguing, complaining and criticism is death to a relationship. Because it kills love, it kills the nurturing that we all hunger for.
There are therapists who can watch you and your spouse interact for a short period of time and tell you with astonishing accuracy whether or not you’re headed for divorce. The #1 telling factor is – how do you treat each other? Are you nurturing? Are you friends? Or are you nasty and controlling? If you’re nasty and controlling, your relationship is on the road to Splitsville.
So what’s the answer? It’s really simple, you have to:
- Understand the nasty stuff is killing your relationship
- Stop the nasty stuff
That’s pretty easy, right? Well, as someone who gave myself permission for so many years to do this, I know it’s not easy. But that’s the key. Make the decision to stop giving yourself permission.
Making that decision can change everything in your relationship.
We had a couple here just a few weeks ago, let’s call them Carol and Mike. She was telling us that she is an overachiever and her husband isn’t, and that bothers her. And her husband was saying he wanted more intimacy with his wife and to feel closer and more in love again. Which is interesting because most of the time with the clients who come to us, we find that it’s the woman who is asking for more intimacy, but here it was reversed.
I went into the office to say hello to them during their orientation and during our 10 minutes together, she talked over him, interrupted him and corrected him 4 times. This was during 10 minutes of me just saying hello and asking them how they were feeling.
As I left the office, I said a special prayer for them because I had a bad feeling. And after their first day I checked in with their practitioners, which I don’t usually do. I discovered that in their Love Codes session, we discovered that his biggest Love Code is Words of Praise (you can learn more about the Love Codes in my video “Want to Fix Your Relationship?”), meaning that he needs Words of Praise to make him feel loved and really Nurtured. They both agreed she criticizes him constantly. And when she was asked if she could stop criticizing him and instead discuss things with him in a nice, positive way, she said she couldn’t, because she has to be honest and if the truth hurts, so be it.
We found out that her biggest Love Code is Protection and she doesn’t feel protected by him because he doesn’t work as hard as she does and doesn’t do things the way she wants him to do them, so she doesn’t feel protected by him.
Their next session was the Enneagram and we discovered the she, like me, is an Eight. Watch my videos on the Enneagram for more of an explanation, but briefly, unhealed Eights are the aggressors, always picking a fight. They think they’re right about everything and they don’t trust anyone. So here she needs Protection, that’s her Love Code, but she doesn’t trust anyone, including her husband, because he doesn’t do things the way she wants.
He told us that he actually wants to protect her, but that every time he tried to do something he got criticized and it was never good enough. He had basically given up.
So we have two people who know what the other one needs and one person is willing to give it to the other, but the other person isn’t willing to give it to the other because she feels like she’s right and she wants him to change. She is completely unwilling to change. Even worse, she believes that her criticism is the truth and that telling the truth is more important than nurturing her husband.
And she’s right. As an attorney for 20 years, I can say that telling the truth is very important. But if it’s hurting the person you love, is it getting you what you want? The question becomes:
I spoke with their other practitioners and while progress was being made, Carol just wasn’t making that switch. She wasn’t getting it that she just has to stop saying nasty stuff to him. Mike was totally getting his part in all of this and he was having huge transformations. Things were getting better between them, but she was holding onto what she saw as her sacred duty to criticize him.
And then, magic happened. She did her Breath Journey and in that session, her mother who had passed away a few years ago came to her in a vision. Her mother had been a very critical person, of course, that’s where Carol got it. She had been very critical of Carol, Carol’s father and her siblings all during her life. She came to Carol and apologized to her for being so critical, apologized that it made Carol feel so unsafe that she felt she needed protection.
She told Carol how much she loved her and how proud she was of her, something that had never happened while her mother was alive. She told her how sorry she was that she unknowingly “taught” Carol to do this and showed her how she was teaching this to her own children and how important it was to break this generational pattern. Carol told me that after this experience with her mother, she never felt so full of love before and so safe.
But the best part was, she got it that she had to stop with the criticism. She said, “I just have to stop.” And it’s so funny, because all of her practitioners were telling her this and it wasn’t quite sinking in. But suddenly, her dead mother shows up in a breath journey and then she can hear it.
See that’s how this stuff has to happen. This is how these transformations happen. It doesn’t work to have someone tell you something, you have to experience it and really take it in, down to your core. This is what I talk about when I say that our retreats work on all the levels.
If your relationship is having problems, take a look at how you talk to each other.
Do you speak lovingly to each other?
Do you treat each other like friends?
Or Do you give yourself permission to say nasty stuff? And remember, my definition of “nasty stuff” is anything not coming from love.
Start talking nice for one week and see if it makes a difference. I think you might be amazed.
I get it that maybe you’re in a situation where a lot has happened and there is anger, resentment and problems on both sides, that’s usually the case. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Try this and see what happens.
But if there’s deeper stuff there, come to Sedona and do a Couples Retreat. We can help you discover your true needs, because a lot of people don’t even know for sure what they need and how to break through to the love that brought you together in the first place.
If you’d like, go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or even better, if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that will turn your relationship around, call us at (928) 204-5988.
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You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.