Joyce Schafers
life skills coach
Workshop
End the Arguing
A nine-lesson workshop designed to help you understand why your
relationship has broken down and teaches you how to fix it.
This workshop is based on my self-study course called Getting to the Root of the Problem in Your Relationship. It is a nine-lesson series that runs for nine consecutive weeks. Each evening I will present a new lesson and you will have the opportunity to ask any questions you may have about the current lesson or any previous lesson(s).
You may register on your own, as a couple or with a friend. Registration in all nine evenings is required.
How do you know if this workshop is for you?
Many couples who struggle in their relationship describe having one or two “hot topics” that they repeatedly argue about and can never seem to resolve despite their best efforts.
Does it feel like no matter how hard you try to communicate your thoughts and feelings your spouse still doesn’t understand you? Regardless of how careful you are to express exactly what you’re thinking, you still can’t seem to relay your message? Or, no matter how determined you’ve been to figure out what’s really going on, you still aren’t able to get to the bottom of things? Some people say it feels like they’re living in the twilight zone – they feel disoriented, confused and completely powerless to make headway. You may have even read all of the “right” books and done all sorts of “self-help work” – meditation, psychotherapy, life coaching, maybe even medication too…but here you are, again, stuck in the same spot.
You may be relieved to learn that typically there is a very specific reason that those hot topics can never be resolved and that the solution is easier than you might think. Most couples are very surprised to learn that personal characteristics developed from unresolved emotional pain from the past is the culprit that is wreaking havoc on their relationship and is responsible for eroding their emotional and intimate connection and their ability to communicate effectively.
What you will learn...
This workshop was developed to help struggling couples finally understand the core issue that lies beneath the challenges in their relationship and provides them with practical and practice-able tools and strategies to help them overcome those challenges. Using focused and targeted exercises you’ll not only uncover the root issue that is causing the problem, you’ll actually begin to address that root issue so it stops wreaking havoc in your relationship.
Typically, traditional forms of therapy address surface issues like helping couples learn to communicate more effectively and there's nothing wrong with that - it never hurts to brush up on communication skills, right? However, all of the communication techniques in the world will be useless unless you deal with the emotional root issue that is making communication difficult in the first place.
Focusing on communication skills without dealing with the root issue is like putting new tires on a car that needs a wheel alignment - your efforts won't fix the problem.
My approach does what other forms of therapy seem unable to do - it really was designed to identify and address the hidden emotional pain that's been responsible for causing those hot topics and preventing you from solving the problems.
This workshop will help you:
-
identify and heal the emotional pain that is responsible for causing the problems in your relationship,
-
learn how to effectively communicate with your partner, even when your emotional pain has been triggered,
-
learn effective tools to help you manage your triggers so you can reset mentally and emotionally and regain emotional balance,
-
identify things that your spouse does that triggers your emotional pain,
-
identify the trauma that created your emotional pain, and
-
understand The Cycle of Emotional Pain and how emotional pain from the past has been impacting your life and your relationship.
This Workshop Might be for you if you ...
-
have problems you haven’t been able to resolve or understand fully, despite all best efforts,
-
are open to examining old wounds but not eternally living in them,
-
aren’t into blame and finger-pointing, and
-
would consider yourself open to learning more about your emotions and how they may be impacting your life.
"Without you and this course I honestly don’t think my husband and I would have made it as a couple. This course has been life-changing – it has taught me so much and I can’t thank you enough!!! I see the man I married again and he said he sees the women he married again. Thank you. Thanks for opening my heart and my mind so I could see what was possible for us when we put in the work." AW
Workshop Structure
We will start each evening with a Leftovers segment, where you'll have a chance to ask questions and/or discuss the insights you had from the previous lesson. Next, we will go through all of the theory and concepts of the lesson for that day—again giving you the opportunity to ask questions and get any clarity you might need before you go home and work on the exercises, on your own time.
This workshop consists of 9 lessons and each lesson starts with:
-
The presentation of the concept(s) in the lesson (this is the theory part) and includes clear examples to help you understand the concepts.
-
Next, you are given focused and targeted exercises intended to evoke the insight and emotion necessary to help you understand the concept in each lesson and how it impacts you and your relationship.
-
Lastly, you will be given simple homework assignments in the form of tools and strategies you can practice in your daily life so the lesson content becomes integrated, making lasting change possible.
Lesson Content
In this workshop, you will learn about the Cycle of Emotional Pain, how it impacts you and your relationship and you will be given strategies that will help you break the Cycle and restore emotional balance and peace within you and your relationship.
The 9 lessons are described below:
The Cycle of Emotional Pain
Lesson 1: conditioning
In this lesson, we explore how our conditioning as children can potentially create difficulties in our relationships. Understanding how we are conditioned or 'wired', is a crucial step in knowing what needs to change so we can be more effective in our relationships.
Lesson 2(a): trauma
In this lesson, we explore events in our past that may have caused emotional pain and suffering. This is where we identify our Unmet Emotional Need (i.e. what we needed emotionally, but didn't get as children) which surfaces in our hot topics and makes communicating with our spouses very difficult.
Lesson 2(b): the impact of trauma
In this lesson, we explore how the difficult events in our past impacted us as children and how those events may still be impacting us today, as adults. This is an important point to gain clarity on when resolving relationship issues because typically, we tend to handle current challenges in a similar way we handled them as children - which isn’t always ideal. We’ll also explore more effective ways to respond to challenges so that we can approach our hot topics in a way that will give us different results.
Lesson 3: externalizing
In this lesson, we identify the expectations we might be placing on our spouse to behave in certain ways so we can feel good. This and the next step, Lesson 4: attachment, are important aspects to explore so we can better understand the emotional pain driving our hot topics and making communication difficult.
Lesson 4: attachment
In this lesson, we explore how much we need our spouse to behave in specific ways so we can feel good. Building on the previous lesson, Lesson 3: externalizing, this will help us better understand the difficult dynamic causing our hot topics.
Lesson 5(a): breaking the cycle by identifying triggers
In this lesson, we identify all the ways our spouse triggers our emotional pain from the past. This is the first step in breaking the Cycle of Emotional Pain that wreaks havoc on our relationships.
Lesson 5(b): breaking the cycle by managing triggers
In this lesson, we learn how to Managing our Triggers, which is one of two very powerful strategies I use to break the Cycle of Emotional Pain and restore peace and harmony in relationships. It is a reactionary strategy that is used when our emotional pain is triggered and we need to reset emotionally.
Lesson 5(c): breaking the cycle by filling your emotional cup
In this lesson, we learn about the second strategy I use to break the Cycle of Emotional pain. It is called Filling Your Emotional Cup and it is a proactive strategy used to help us meet our emotional needs, heal our pain from the past and promote emotional balance.
Lesson 5(d): breaking the cycle using communication
In this lesson, we explore how our emotional pain can cause difficulties in communication. You will be given new strategies to help you communicate your thoughts and feelings in an effective way so you can begin to resolve your hot topics.
Dates:
Currently, there are no workshops scheduled.
Cost
In addition to your personal access to me on a weekly basis, you will get unlimited email support between lessons, ensuring you have support, every step of the way.
The cost is $225 per person or $350 per couple when registering together and includes:
-
One copy of the 79-page pdf document that contains all of the lessons and exercises needed to help you get to the root of the problem in your relationship, once and for all.
-
Weekly, in-person access to me, where you can get all of your questions answered and get the support you need to make the absolute most of this course.
-
Email support between weekly meetings so you can get questions answers, as they pop up.
You may register by purchasing the workshop on my Store Page.
Are you ready for things to get better?
If you want to learn more, please contact me. I'd love to arrange a phone conversation to make this workshop is the best option for you. The call is free and there's absolutely no risk or obligation to proceed if you don't want to.
To schedule a time to chat, the best way to reach me is via email. My email address is support@joyce-schafers.com.
Additional Resources
Be sure to check out my Radio Interviews if you'd like to hear discussions about my coaching philosophy or take my Relationship Health Quiz to identify any areas of your relationship that might need help.