Our week with Matt townsend owner of relationship center. connecting heads, hearts, hands and hopes.
Do you watch him on studio 5?
We met him 10 years ago when we were at a stage in our
marriage of seriously lacking communication skills.
This was definitely before he was famous.
Saved a marriage which is now 42 years old!
Matt was funny then too, think that kept me going back.
And his relationship tools made sense.
carl was having serious back problems and in need for his
first back surgery, I think he physically/ mentally shut down.
Once a year he travels with a group of 30 couples of ALL ages and stages. Your marriage definitly does not have to be in trouble to attend, its more learning about relationships,communication skills, learning your needs, your partners needs and what really matters.
You can live in any state and go.
Matt seems to have a strong popularity in Utah counties up to logan.
Its called Cancun land cruise, but we stayed in Playa del Carmen all inclusive Iberostar Tucan which was 5 star!
(I posted about this heavenly resort just below this post)
We are in the retirement stage now and matt says its a hard stage. we've been independent our whole married lives (yes, hardly see each other 40 years, right, and then your together... a lot.)
He has 5 steps for retired couples.
You can find him on Sirius radio byu station 3 hours each day in the morning.
There was a newlywed couple...I saw them on the airplane and they were kissy kissy . I said to carl...they have to be newly weds! Married 4 days. This was a second marriage for them so they appreciated getting those love hormones back and had depth of love from their other relationships! They were possibly in their early 50's. We had retired humanitarians, some older than us, many with teens, clergy.
Matt is quite the entertainer with his stories and realities plus his wife is just lovely as lovely!
Each day was a 2 hour class in the afternoon. It was the only time you felt you were traveling with a group. we did take an excursion one day.
The first stage of love is full of yearning + hormones, they last 3 years. You feel you can do anything!
dopamine, non stop energy, oxytosins, low clarity.
remember them, staying out late
???
All I wanted to do was get married to a return missionary and have a family. We met on a blind date and that was it...9 months later married! He was 5 years older.
Our first 3 years was 2 children and built a new home.
wow, powerful hormones!
We were encouraged to think back to those days of how you met, why, how you felt and try to get some of it back.
Can you remember those days?
Earning... the 2nd stage
we grow character, chemistry drops and clarity goes up.
obligations. We earn our relationship.
3rd stage is Enduring
no longer chemisty. clarity is high. worked hard established who we are.
Love senses there are 4: we had to rate in what order we needed these: touching. hearing. seeing. presence.
Then be mindful of our partners number rating.
Much to learn in this class.
extremely funny matt!
synergy in relationships: 1 + 1 = 4
you can accomplish more together than alone.
getting real:
writing what triggers our emotions and what they make you want to do.
learned how to mirror their emotions to invite understanding.
we have an 8 second attention span so this needs to be short.
smoke and fire:
when we have these needs met our smoke is less:
security
trust
appreciation
respected
validation
encouragement
dedication
The bus trip matt told stories of how men and women are different and we need to recognize it. Men have born hierarchy/ego's that's why boys are attracted to super hero's and women need to be protected and feel secure. Yes, we,the natural man is an enemy to god for real!
Last lessons really pulled it all together:
It was about character development and how important it is for healthy relationships.
Think how important a healthy character is in relationships.
Then... it is what it is...and it might "not ever" change.
think health. wealth. income. genetics. how someone was raised. how they wont budge at certain things. religion. what they like or don't like to do.
Build your spirituality...to use it to understand our partners/relationships and being more "in the moment" and to do what Christ would do if he were standing right next to you.
All this was in depth with lessons to work on.
Our most important assignment when we went home was to list each day 3 things how you noticed your partner serving you, no matter how small. This was to serve, but to help remove the negatives in time. We just talk about it at the end of the day. There will always be gaps in any relationship, we always have things to work on. But we need to work on
keeping the gap not so wide.
We give this trip an A plus
and united airlines a D minus for getting us home
a day late with 2 hours of sleep.
1 comment:
What a great vacation! I've seen Matt on Studio 5 for years. What a cute guy with advice that makes so much sense.
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