Hold Me Tight® Couples Workshops
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Love Should not be a Roller Coaster Ride
Do you like roller coasters? The older I get, the less my stomach likes them, but I’ve ridden some of the biggest and fastest. There is something about about the excitement and exhilaration of a scary encounter. A roller coaster ride is a legal, generally safe and relatively cheap natural high. People are so in love with such thrills that they will pay crazy money and wait hours in line for a few moments of hair raising fun…only to do it all over again…and again…and again.
But, in general, our brain points us away from scary, dangerous places. You have an inborn, hard wired aversion to life threatening situations. That’s your survival instinct. It’s there to protect you. And your brain even responds to emotional threats too. Anything like rejection, abandonment, isolation, criticism triggers us and we react. How we react, how far and how fast, is the stuff of much research, but safety is our primary goal.
Attachment Science is teaching us that love is the search for emotional safety, a close, dependable bond with that beloved one who sees us fully, values us, believes in us and is there for us. Love isn’t random, mystical or mythical. It makes perfect sense, even when what we do seems irrational and confusing; through an attachment lens, it makes sense.
These things, and much more, are what we learn in a Hold Me Tight®️ couples weekend workshop. We learn what love means and how we get stuck trying to find that safe connection. And you won’t just learn about love; you will experience it, new ways of connecting, conversations you never knew you could have with your partner. Couples go home with new confidence that they can be there for one another. It’s not therapy; it’s a low key learning experience that can literally transform your relationship.
Thrills and chills are great at an amusement park, but love should never be a roller coaster ride. Find out how to make it safe and fun. Get in on the next HMT®️ workshop!
Have a Safety Plan
A Hold Me Tight retreat in Orlando is a safe, powerful experience for couples to grow closer together
At Hold Me Tight, couples learn to let go of old baggage.
As I write this, I am waiting in my dermatologist’s office to have minor surgery. He detected a small spot of skin cancer on my face. That’s always a potential problem here in sunny Florida. Fortunately, they caught mine early and the procedure to correct it should be fairly simple. They found my skin cancer in a routine exam. That is to say, I had no symptoms. It wasn’t visible, wasn’t conspicuous, or even noticeable. But, had I ignored it, it most definitely would have worsened and possibly become serious. As they say, prevention beats treatment. And even when treatment is required, the earlier, the better.
Couples at a Hold Me Tight retreat in Orlando change their perspective and their behaviors to grow closer than ever before.
A Hold Me Tight®️ retreat is a transformational learning experience for couples. Two words there are key: learning and experience. First, what do you learn? You learn fascinating insights from attachment science. You learn that emotions are what drive us. Think about it: the word “emotion” contains the word “motion.” Emotions move us, motivate us. Emotions incite behaviors, actions and reactions. Emotions inform every level of our existence. And our most powerful, most vulnerable emotions are beneath the surface.
A Hold Me Tight couples retreat in Orlando will prepare couples for managing conflict and discord.
A Hold Me Tight couples retreat in Orlando can help couples change their focus on their relationship.
I recently decided I need to get in shape. I've "let myself go" for too long. Fortunately, there is no shortage of good home based video programs for resistance training, flexibility or cardio health. So, I perused the internet and found one of each. (I’m going for the total makeover!) I ordered them and when they arrived, I was excited to start my fitness journey. Some of them told me I could get in shape in “just a few minutes a day.” How hard could that be? I was all in. Let’s do this! So, I turned on the TV, queued the video, sat down on the couch and hit “Play.” I even popped some popcorn and got my favorite soda. I watched the first episode and, because I was really into it, watched a second session just for good measure. The next day, I did the same thing…sat right there on the couch and watched my fitness video. In fact, I watched every day for the next two weeks. I sat there faithfully and never missed an episode. After all, consistency is key, right? I couldn’t wait to look like those incredible people on the videos: slim, tight, perfectly toned—man, what bodies! But, something didn’t work. So far, I haven’t lost a pound. My waistline is just as big (maybe even a little bigger). I’m just as puffy and lumpy as ever. I’ll never get in shape. I don’t get it. I watched, I listened, I paid attention. What the heck? I want my money back! Okay, back to reality.
In this blog, I’d just like to share a few reflections on our most recent Hold Me Tight®️ couples retreat. As always, it was nothing sort of amazing. No two retreats are the same, but they never fail to amaze Vicki and me. Last weekend, we welcomed eight couples to our Winter Park (Orlando) FL venue. That is a little smaller group than usual, but it only makes for a warmer experience. It’s always exciting to meet new couples for the first time, to hear their stories and what brought them our way. The couples in this retreat varied in age and number of years together, from 4 years to about 40 years. It was clear that some were very stuck, unsure that they could figure out their relationship, but willing to try. Others were happy together, but wanted to make their good thing even better. Later, we learned that at least one couple saw the Hold Me Tight®️ retreat as sort of a “last best hope” before throwing in the towel on their marriage. You wouldn’t have guessed it to look at them, but they weren’t the first such couple to come to a Hold Me Tight®️ retreat as a last resort.