POSA™ Blog
New Healing Retreats for Partners!
Two weeks left of winter and we are bursting at the seams to unveil a brand new resource for partners that we are thrilled to share with you all!
If any of you have purchased the set of ebooks I co-wrote with my colleague, Cassie Kingan, you may recall that in ebook four, Recovering from Infidelity, we list twenty four active-healing suggestions that I personally found were the most helpful to me in the aftermath of Discovery. We also offer these recommendations to our own private coaching clients and have received positive feedback about them.Before we tell you which of our recommendations occupies the number one position at the top of our list, it feels important to say: For me (Lili), going to a 50-minute therapy session once or twice a week just wasn't doing much to help hold me together when my world was blown to bits by the discovery of my partner's secret life.
Going home afterwards and facing my partner's moodiness, rages or stonewalling when I needed to talk, pretty effectively un-did all the calm I had just spent fifty minutes gaining.
I was desperate to get away from the chaos at home for a few days so I could re-center myself and think straight about what to do next, but I was so traumatized that just figuring out the logistics would have up-ended me entirely. I also didn't want to be alone because I was already in a terrifying headspace, but I knew I'd feel too pressured to be "good company" if I invited friends along. And what if they asked questions about why I was so tearful and needed some alone-time, too?
No, going away wasn't happening, so I stayed in a toxic environment becoming more and more dysregulated as my partner blame-shifted, minimized and shut me down, the usual responses from a man who was angry his secrets had been found out.
That backstory, that all-too-visceral memory, then, is what inspired us to place this recommendation for Recovering from Infidelity at the top of our list on how partners can heal--
From our ebook:
Take some days off, preferably away from home.
Being home in the relational chaos after your Discovery can become incredibly emotionally draining and oppressive, especially on top of the trauma you are already suffering.
A simple foray somewhere where you can be either alone or with supportive friends can be most restorative. What you may notice is that often within hours of getting away, you will start to feel better: stronger, freer than you have been in months.
The rumination about his behavior loosens its grip on your every minute. Soon enough, twenty whole minutes has passed without pangs of distress or the waves of grief have passed. You smile, what matters to you becomes clearer.
Yes, the grief and anguish are there, of course, but away from his misery, you have a clearer sense of yourself.
Where to go? Ideally, somewhere with both quiet and solitude, peppered with a few activities that appeal to your interests, such as museums or nature reserve hiking. When powerful emotions rise, retreating is usually what we crave.
Away from your usual environment, you can breathe more easily, uninterrupted by your husband's presence and all that it elicits for you. Even if you cannot take time away from work, a weekend away can do wonders beyond relaxing and unwinding. Even the most anxious partners who escape for a two-day getaway return calmer, and sometimes even joyful.
If supportive girlfriends bring well-needed laughter, you may relish the freedom and ease of their company, even as you are struggling. You may prefer solitude. Your husband brought destruction, therefore learning to revitalize yourself is a critical task in recovering from infdelity, solo or with a group of friends. Once you gain enough distance from the turmoil at home, you may notice clarity, inspiration... and improved moods quickly follow.
How could we have known that one short year after publishing our ebooks, a wonderful new resource that perfectly describes the best self-rescue tool we know, would become available for partners?! Not only that, we knew and immensely respected its creator.
Our colleague, Tania Rochelle, who is a licensed counselor, EMDR practitioner and was a partner in a long-term marriage to a sexually deceptive man, has extensive practice working with partners for the past many years.
Tania and her carefully assembled team is now offering partner retreats in idyllic locations that feature peace and solitude in nature, lovingly-prepared and delicious meals, one-on-one time working with her, as well as time to make new friends with other women attendees going through the same challenges.
This is the exact thing so many of us wished we had: being "seen and held" energetically by a nurturing therapist who understands because she's been there, and having access to her and other women in a beautiful surrounding for days.
Here is Tania's website for more information on her upcoming Sweetwater retreats in Georgia, Florida and Ohio: https://www.sweetwaterretreats.org
We hope to see you there! Please feel free to share this resource with your clients, therapist or anyone you know who could use more than one 50-minute session a week to help her reconnect to her strong self again.
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