Relationship Renew
a Six-Week Live & Online Training Program
Next Online Course starts Saturday 8th February 2025. Next Bali Relationship Retreat 13-18th July 2025 - see Bali Couples Retreat page.
… because living and loving well take practice.
Relationships are hard! Although as human beings we’re wired for love and belonging, our brains and nervous systems have also evolved to be negatively biased towards detecting threat and danger. Without awareness and knowing how to respond safely and skilfully at a felt, bodily level, we can find ourselves reacting to loved ones in automatic and unhelpful ways, often getting stuck in negative cycles of interaction.
This new training shares what actually works in relationships. Maggie uses her many years of counselling and mindfulness experience to bring to life and make practical the new evidence-based understandings proving to be transformational – including from Sue Johnson (EFT-C & Hold Me Tight), Stan Tatkin (PACT), Brené Brown, Polyvagal Theory and The Gottman Method. During and between sessions you will be invited to track and practice what enhances safety, closeness and connection. Because theory is not enough! To keep renewing relationships in healthy ways, we actually need both awareness AND the felt experience of closeness when we respond with more skill and vulnerability.
The course is structured in a way that allows you to listen to the theory in the large group, but then share and practice the exercises just with your chosen other in the privacy of your own home. Embracing the reassuring fact that relationships are challenging for everyone – including the experts – means this training is for anyone and everyone, including counsellors. As is sometimes said in the mindfulness and compassion fields, our negatively-biased brain is not our fault, but it is our responsibility!
Relationship Renew is now a pre-requisite for anyone wishing to take up private couple therapy sessions with Maggie (in-person or Zoom). Why? Because although your relationship is unique, we now understand that so much of what we struggle with is universally shared. Learning about this in a group rather than therapy space and applying D.I.Y. tools and practices is empowering! This not only supports change happening quickly if needed, but also ensures that your time and money invested in Relationship Therapy is likely to be significantly reduced. You can choose whether to dive straight in to the Relationship Renew program or start with a no-obligation private session with Maggie (for additional fee). Depending on availability, private sessions can also be arranged during or after the course.
What’s included?: Live Online Sessions & follow up emails; Handouts; Recordings for short mindfulness practices to practice between sessions; & Links for relevant podcasts, interviews, readings etc.
What you need? Each other, notebooks & pens, a private space & to set up the weekly online session time for minimal interruptions (you may wish to consider a babysitter if childcare is likely to reduce your capacity to be fully present). A copy of Sue Johnson’s Hold Me Tight book or pre-listening to the audio version, is also recommended. Most importantly you need to be willing to be open to practicing some non-automatic, possibly new or different, ways of relating.
Private Session or not? Whatever gets you both started is best! A downside when the only support option is Relationship Therapy is that many couples wait way too long. If your relationship feels particularly stuck, volatile or distressed, a recent infidelity &/or other trauma has occurred, or one or both of you feel hesitant about the course, a private counselling session with Maggie is recommended before starting.
“We have a pretty good relationship already, but understanding how to deal with each other in a kinder and more compassionate way, backed with the wide range of scientific relationship evidence provided has transformed how we see it and respond to each other.”
Joel, Relationship Renew participant, 2021.
“Much appreciation and gratitude to experience this course and be opened up to relationship skill development in this training. It has been so practical and useful for better relating and more fulfilled pleasure of relationship - thank you!”
Lola, Relationship Renew participant, 2022.
Details
Live Online via Zoom, 2 - 5pm Saturdays, starting 8th February 2025
6 X 3 hour sessions over 2 month period
Program Outline
Session 1 – Wired for love AND danger: Understanding Love & Attachment & Changing our Relationship Mindset, Saturday 8th February
Session 2 – Tracking the Negative Cycle: including ‘Fighting Well’ & Practicing Quicker Repair, Saturday 15th February
Session 3 – “The Story I’m telling myself:” Working with the negative bias & Daring to be Vulnerable, Saturday 22nd February
Session 4 – Emotional intelligence & regulation - within self & within the relationship, Saturday 1st March (please note, no session on 8th March, long weekend)
Session 5 - 10th June - Sex and Intimacy, Saturday 15th March
Session 6 - Living and Loving On Purpose. Cultivating Closeness, Gratitude & Appreciation, 22nd March
Cost
Fee: Standard per couple $890 / Concession Card Holders $790 .
Optional pre-course or follow-up Private sessions - Initial session 90 mins $220, standard 60mins $185 incl. GST
To secure your place, please make your payment via Direct Deposit to the account below & complete Enrolment form below
Please reference your payment with your initials followed by RR.
Direct deposit details:
Account name: Margaret O'Shea
BSB: 633000
Account number: 145643953
“Thank you so much for making this relationship course available. I have found it truly valuable for improving the quality of how I relate, how I want to be related to and really see the benefits for creating better relationships overall, not just with my loving partner. It’s really good stuff.”
Daniel, Relationship Renew participant, 2021.
“Thanks again Maggie for a wonderful course - it really has given us so much faith in working through our tricky moments. I love remembering that we are bonding mammals - such a simple thought, but life-changing …”
Claire, Relationship Renew participant, 2021.
About Maggie
Maggie is a Relationship Therapist & Mental Health Social Worker who has spent many years combining her counselling with teaching evidence-based mindfulness and compassion programs in groups. She met her lovely partner in Rome in 1988 and it was the challenge of staying happy together while working and raising three daughters that inspired her to go back to study for a second Masters degree, this time in Relationship & Couple Therapy. She is passionate about turning theory into everyday embodied practice and sharing what works. Maggie is a long-term meditator and finds mindfulness & compassion practice to be particularly helpful in terms of befriending the nervous system, ourselves, and our “others” in the relational space. She has a Private Practice in Castlemaine, lectures in the Masters of Counselling at Swinburne University and Relationships Australia Victoria & is also registered to teach: the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program; the Mindful Self Compassion training (MSC); Brené Brown’s Daring Way and Rising Strong programs; Rick Hanson’s Positive Neuroplasticity Training (PNT); and Yoga (400 hours).