RETaC For Your Relationship workshop

That it can be challenging to keep a relationship loving is a given for most people. There is a reason why there are so many relationship counselors.

Controversial Jordan Peterson advises people against divorce, no matter how difficult it can be in the relationship. Why? The statistics show that divorced partners with children both fare badly. In a financial sense, in terms of starting a new relationship and in terms of emotions.

Opportunity

In a way I agree with him. Do not get me wrong. I am not propagating that people should stay in a relationship where there is all kinds of suffering. I do think that relationship distress offers a huge opportunity for both partners. An opportunity to learn to understand something about yourself that is fundamental to how you relate. Because this ‘something’ probably played a role in previous relationships as well. And if you don’t adres the cause that ‘something’ will likely play a role in a future relationships…

In a relationship: Do you have relationship issues that are difficult to solve? Are there recurring issues that stand in your way? Quarrels about ‘nothing’? Crisis? Problems with your blended family? Do you feel misunderstood? Do you feel unsupported, unloved or attractive? Then join the two-day RETaC for your relationship workshop or the Retreat.

Single not in a relationship: Are you experiencing repetitive relationship issues? Are your standards too high? Do the same issues repeat themselves with new partners? Are you afraid you will never find anyone? Do you feel lonely or misunderstood? Want to make your next relationship more likely to succeed? Then register for RETaC for your relationship workshop or the Retreat in Greece.

The RETaC for you relationship takes two days. Below is a brief summary of some of the topics that will be covered.

Day1: Themes

The neuroscience of emotions

• You will learn the latest knowledge about how your emotional brain works.
• And you learn a new theory about how emotions emerge.

The issues in relationships

• You will playfully explore and practice the foundations of how emotions emerge.
• You learn how emotions cause problems in relationships and why.
• We will discuss which themes cause problems in being together.
• You will explore why we blame each other for our feelings and how you can change that.
• The secret of crisis in a relationship. You will discover the purpose of a relationship crisis.
• You will learn to feel again.

Day 2: Themes

Transforming Relationship Emotions

• Practice exploring your own relationship issues and transforming them.
• You will experience how your relation-emotion-prediction loop works and how to influence it.
• You will explore what it takes to feel understood, supported and loved.
• And learn how to change your relationship-emotion-prediction loops in yourself and with each other.
• You will learn how to make new predictions (together).
• You will restart your togetherness.

The 5-day RETaC retreat will be a special event. Every morning you will explore the specific themes that are recurring in your relationships. Slowly but surely you will learn how to transform deep feelings and thus change your reaction patterns. You will gain deeper understanding of where your feelings come from and the reaction patterns of your (possible) partner. As soon as the emotional ‘load’ is reduced, you can start to work together.

When that time comes, we’re going to talk about the future you want to create for yourself in terms of relationships. You will experience deep relief and healing of wounds. In the afternoon and evenings there are activities such as yoga and you are free to do what you want. Join 5 days of healing for yourself. Healing for your partner (if you have one), and healing in the interaction!

Recent neuroscientific research shows that emotions may play an important factor in how we take decisions. For most of us, the feelings associated with these emotions are largely outside of our conscious awareness. Unconscious feelings play a central role in relationship problems. However, we do not experience these emotions as our own. We experience emotions in relationships as a result of the action or in-action of the other. And this “mistake” makes our emotions stronger instead of weaker.

Research has shown that these relationship emotions are very hard to overrule with our thinking. This explains why so many forms of couples therapy, advice and techniques don’t work when  they are really needed. When emotions emerge!

Couples therapy

Being empathetic to the perspective of the other. Non-violent communication. Embracing thinking style differences. Understand what “color” your partner is. Communication advice. Family constellations. Insight into your attachment style, et cetera. All meaningful things. But when it comes down to it, relationship emotions overrule what you know and understand.

You can read more about how our emotions emerge in the spring edition 2021 of INSIGHT, the Dutch journal for NLP. Journalist and coach Aranka van de Pol has written an excellent article about RETaC.

Relationship Emotion Therapy and Coaching (RETaC) is not the same as EFT (Emotionally Focussed Therapy). RETaC is based on recent neuroscientific research by Dr Lisa Feldman Barret. She explains in great detail how our emotions emerge and that is not how we have learned that they arise. The source of our emotions lies in one of the most important functions of our brain: predicting what is going to happen. These predictions create our emotions.

Predicting what is going to happen

Predictions arise from unconscious bodily feelings. It turns out that a large part of our brain is busy extracting information from a until now (relatively) unknown sensory system: interoception. Subtle heartbeat changes, or tension around organs such as stomach, intestines, throat. Or restlessness in the legs, et cetera, are closely monitored by the brain. The brain links these (often) unconscious feelings to memories. Why? To be able to predict as accurately as possible what will happen.

This ‘predicting mechanism’ of our brain is very useful. Because by making predictions we can deal with new things and experiences quickly. However, feelings can also be linked to experiences that consistently make the “worst” predictions possible. All we notice about this whole process is the emotion it creates.

Other than conscious

An important aspect of this is that we do not link our emotions and feelings to the past consciously. We relate them to what is happening in the moment! We are unaware of the origin of our prediction. Our brain links our emotion to the situation or person of that moment.

By accurately modeling how emotions are made in our nervous system, we have been able to develop a method to work with this neuroscientific knowledge. With RETaC we make unconscious processes conscious and change predictions so that the emotions can also change.