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Coming Up
San Diego
Relationship: The Missing Link, Oct. 1-2
Kauai, Hawaii Extraordinary Relationships, Oct. 15-22
See what's left in our 2011 schedule!
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Relationship and Family Coaching
Contact Us
Workshops
Relationship: The Missing Link
Reinventing the Heart and Soul of Family
About Relationship and Family
Who invents our relationship?
Our first answer has been an emphatic "We do!"
"We get to make it up" is the unofficial motto of our marriage, a triumphant insight from the 56 years of life that flowed under the bridge before we found each other. If there was one thing we'd both learned from other marriages, from divorces and grief, it was that our marriage is our own creation, not a default, not limited by a pattern handed to us by family, culture or tradition.
We are free to create our relationship! Or are we?
How free are we? Is our relationship fully independent of influences from family, friends, culture and community? And do we want it to be?
Early in our love affair, we took ourselves to couples' retreats and workshops. We loved these so much that we began to host them, to lead them, to invent them. We grew through these experiences, and we also delighted in the company of the couples who came to these events - couples who were up to having deeply fulfilling, passionate, loving relationships.
And it took us a while to notice one more thing - maybe the most important thing:
It wasn't just that we loved these people: it was also that we loved us when we were in their company.
In these special communities, we and our marriage were bigger, more vibrant, more alive, more in love. Our love for each other was brighter, more exciting. These communities inspired our love for each other to show up as it did nowhere else.
We also noticed something missing in other communities. What was missing was us. In some groups, some environments, we're less than fully self-expressed as a couple. In neighborhood gatherings, there's something muted about us. Definitely the skinny-dipping-in-the-backyard-pool side of us gets toned down at the neighborhood Wine and Cheese Get-Together. But maybe it's more than that - maybe there are important parts of our relationship that we don't allow to show up in some communities.
Almost all of us spend our lives immersed in many communities - family, neighborhood, school, friends, work, church and more. How profound is the impact of your communities on your marriage or intimate relationship?
We think this is a question worth exploring deeply; so we've begun to engage in it with two of our favorite relationship explorers, Sandy & Lon, and other couples who are up for the inquiry. Of course, we have to have this inquiry in community - how else could you do it?
Since we fell in love eight years ago, we've created a wonderful marriage gazing (literally and metaphorically) into each other's eyes. The question that engages us now is how much of our marriage has been shaped by the loving, critical, inquisitive, mystified gaze of the various communities that fill our lives? And how might we manage that influence, tap those communities for the support and nourishment our marriage wants and needs?
Our Contributors
Carol and Paul live in Bethesda, MD. They are the Chair-couple of Couples Coaching Couples, "an international movement dedicated to making couples lives profoundly fulfilling, joyful and fun".
Carol and Paul have participated in several of our family and relationship workshops over the last six years, including our recent Alaskan cruise workshop, and they have become our close friends and co-developers of many of the insights and ideas of Relationship&FamiliesByDesign. They will be co-leading our Extraordinary Relationship: Living It workshop in Los Cabos in November.
Carol and Paul at a previous Los Cabos workshop
Here are our remaining workshops for the year:
| San Diego, CA | Oct. 1-2 | Relationship: The Missing Link |
| Kauai, HI | Oct. 15-22 | Extraordinary Relationship II: Living It |
| Los Cabos, MX | Nov. 5-12 | Extraordinary Relationship: The Freedom of Commitment |
| Los Cabos, MX | Nov. 12-19 | Extraordinary Relationship II: Living It |
| San Diego | Dec. 3 | Parents: Outside the Trap |
To get details, simply click on the workshop title.
And if you wish to join us, email us as soon as you can at sandy@familiesbydesign.com or call 760/603-8343 to register for the workshop of your choice or to get more information.
If there is anything that you need in terms of taking care of your families and/or your relationships, please feel free to call us at 760/603-8343. Our lives are dedicated to supporting relationships and families.
With our love,
Sandy and Lon
www.familiesbydesign.com and www.relationshipbydesign.com
Sandy and Lon Golnick
Relationship and Families ByDesign
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