Our Work

1. Foundational Supports

Healthy relationships are built on solid foundations. These four areas often need revisiting as couples deepen their relationship.

Self-Care and Self-Awareness: Beyond the basics, how do you each actively nourish yourselves—physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Relationships thrive when both partners are intentional about their well-being, creating the foundation for passing the baton of support back and forth over the years.

Work-Life Balance: Do you protect the time and energy needed for a vibrant relationship amid the demands of modern life? Over-scheduling often serves as a way to avoid conflict, unintentionally limiting connection. It takes courage and trust to create space for your relationship, especially if it’s been neglected.

Rituals of Connection: Shared rituals—such as meals, walks, bedtime routines and playtime—are opportunities to enjoy each other and repair after ruptures. Without them, stress, resentments and disconnection tend to grow. Claim these rituals boldly, no matter the challenges to doing so.

Commitment to the Journey: Ambivalence or despair are common when a relationship feels stagnant. Commitment isn’t about guaranteeing a certain outcome but about being fully present to the challenges of the relational maturity journey. Even an initial 12-week commitment to working on the relationship can set the stage for positive momentum and growth.

2. Facing Challenges Together

Couples encounter all kinds of challenges that can impact their love and connection. Here are 6 that we frequently encounter. The first three have more to do with “process” whereas the last three can block the relational work if not addressed:

The Reactive Dance: This is the conflict pattern that entrenches disconnection. Change begins with recognizing this repetitive pattern and each partner’s role in maintaining it. Reducing its frequency is a key marker of progress.

Chronic Dysregulation: Most relational harm occurs when we are emotionally flooded and stuck in fight/flight/freeze responses. These moments activate unconscious childhood coping strategies and typically result in escalation and shut down. This is more biological than psychological. Growing your capacity to self and co-regulate is essential.

Losing Strategies: During the reactive dance, we often rely on unproductive strategies like being right, control, retaliation, unbridled self-expression and withdrawal which will never get us what we want or need. We have to practice noticing these habits and instead choose more relational ways of getting what we want.

Misery Stabilizers: Anything we habitually do to feel better in order not to feel the despair of being disconnected perpetuates and deepens our relational misery. Obvious examples are addictions, affairs, and digital distractions. Closing these “relational energy leaks” is often a process, not an event and may require that you do work outside the couples work.

Trauma: Individual and/or relational trauma eventually emerges in long-term relationships. Your relational growth may require both individual work (to better regulate your own nervous system) and relational work. Relational trauma work often involves being willing to work with the reality that you each activate painful feelings have you reliving the past.   

Individual Mental Health: Depression, anxiety or other significant mental health issues have to be addressed separately from the relational growth work. While learning to change your relational behavior can support individual well being, it may not be enough. Some individuals will have to begin or maintain their individual work in order to participate as an equal in the relational work.

3. Core Couples Therapy Practices

These are just a few of the practices that we see supports couples in walking the path from coping in isolation to thriving in connection:

Embodied Awareness: Many of us live in our heads, disconnected from our physical and emotional experiences. Practices that slow us down and foster awareness of feelings, energy, and thoughts build our capacities for deeper relational connection.

Relational Mindfulness: This involves being willing to slow down and notice your partner’s experience while also being aware of your own internal state. It involves bringing curiosity, empathy and our full presence into the relational field, moment by moment, for the purpose of discovering a new way of being together.

Conflict as Opportunity: We have to learn how to step back from our investment in our stories and content and instead notice the process of getting hooked again.  We have to learn to reflect in the moment or later, “what opportunity for growth, healing or repair” might have just been missed. When conflict arises we have to learn to pause and ask, what’s the growth, healing ore repair that might be possible in this moment? We are then on the path to embracing conflicts as opportunities for transformation.

Ownership and Accountability: In long-term relationships, we inevitably hurt each other. What we say and do, especially when we triggered, has impact. Many of us did not experience or observe significant repair taking place in our families. We all unintentionally hurt people we love. Repair is the the process that begins with taking responsibility for your impact and committing to meaningful behavior change.

Healthy Boundaries: Some of us push for connection at all costs, while others maintain emotional distance for safety. These styles are often a consequence of how we navigated feelings of parental intrusiveness or abandonment as children. Learning to not take things personally, to be less desperate for reassurance from others, or to allow walls to come down supports vulnerability and deepening connection.

Gratitude Practices: Expressing and receiving appreciation regularly shifts the emotional climate of your relationship. It’s a powerful way to show your partner you notice their efforts. Research consistently shows that thriving couples maintain high ratios of positive to negative interactions. Always lead with what is good.

4. Deep Dives

If you both feel competent in a number of foundational areas, you may be ready to take your relationship to a deeper level with couples therapy. For those with foundational work still to do, remember that’s where everyone starts and often must return to as we grow. Here are ways to dive deeper:

Personal Inner Work: Transformative practices like IFS, Jungian shadow work, and somatic work help you address emotional blocks, creating space for both personal freedom and relational growth. By deepening your relationship with your inner world and releasing patterns that keep you stuck, you open the door to living with greater freedom and vitality. This inner transformation directly supports your capacity to engage in the relational journey with openness, presence, and authenticity.

Couples Intensives: Our Encounter Centered Intensive is designed to create a transformational shift that will allow you to see each other with new eyes. This kind of shift will inspire you to re-invest in the ongoing work of navigating relational challenges. It’s a powerful way to jumpstart your relational journey and will inspire you to continue to do the work.

Transformational Experiences: Attending yoga, dance or meditation retreats and workshops to name only a few offer a meaningful opportunity to explore ourselves and uncover the barriers that hold us back. When done together, these experiences allow couples to support one another on the journey toward mind-body integration, wholeness, and authentic self-expression. Retreats—whether focused on yoga, dance, meditation, or nature—can help you create powerful opportunities to forge deeper connections and cultivate new levels of mutual understanding.

5. Living in Connected Aliveness and Flow

Here’s what we see emerging when couples do their work and are living in aliveness:

• Emotional Regulation and Repair: You’ll navigate disagreements with resilience, repairing ruptures quickly and with kindness
• Compassion for Inner Parts: You are each able to hold your adaptive child parts with love and patience for while doing the same for your partners’.
• Strengthening Friendship: You are continuously investing in the bond that forms the foundation of your friendship. Your connection continues to deepen, becoming both playful and joyful.
• Shared Dreams and Goals: You have become more clear about your journey as two souls living an interwoven life while also enjoying individual autonomy.
• Rituals and Intimacy: You prioritize emotional, physical, and spiritual connection through shared practices and meaningful time together by consistently creating opportunities for emotional, sexual, and spiritual exploration and connection.
• Sustained Growth: You live in an interwoven flow state, embracing self-discovery and relational evolution.

Where to Begin?

Identify your strengths and challenges. What feels most pressing? What inspires growth? Whether you’re starting with foundational work or exploring transformation, we’re here to support you. Take the courageous next step toward a thriving relationship. Let’s begin the journey together.

Call Leslie at (207) 710-0199 or Steven at (207) 710-0198. We’re here to help wherever you may be in your relational journey.