This Wednesday night Pat Johnston and I co-led our first workshop of six in the Forever. For Real. workshop series at Family & Children's Services. We had a lot of students and I think everyone learned something new on Wednesday night. This is my first experience using PREP 7.0, a newly updated version of the PREP curriculum that we've been using for the past several years. I love the new version! It's much more interactive and entertaining, and I believe with my whole heart that this new approach to the same information will help people remember the concepts and apply them to their lives.
We started with some ice breaker exercises, getting the couples comfortable talking to each other and with each other about the concepts we will discuss over the next six weeks. We also discussed relationships today, what a good marriage looks like (there is no right answer by the way) and what we look for in a mate. Then the last half of the class, we got into the meat of the material. We talked about the four commuication danger signs, or four warning signs that let you know that your communication is not working. Marriages work well for different reasons. We all have different things that we are looking for in a mate. In contrast, most relationships that fail fail for the same reasons. In other words, while couples are unique in what attracted them to each other, we all tend to fall out of love because of the same relationship-damaging habits in our communication. We discussed these four danger signs: escalation, invalidation, negative interpretations and avoidance and withdrawal. We noted that all couples get into these patterns, but healthy couples exit these patterns quickly because they realize these are damaging to their relationship. If not, many negative things are said that cannot be taken back and many, many positives are needed to rebuild the relationship back to the place where it began.
Next week, we're discussing time out (and that's not putting your spouse in the corner), good communication, and events, issues and hidden issues. Week 2 will help couples exit damaging conversations, learn to speak about issues in a safe and constructive way, and get to the root of that fight about nothing that keeps happening over and over.
It's tough stuff we talk about in these classes, but the class itself is light-hearted and fun. We laugh a lot and it's more of a workshop atmosphere than a classroom atmosphere. Couples can save $45 on their marriage licenses for attending but more importantly, any couple, at any stage in their relationship, can learn something from this class and benefit from this class -- if they apply it. Just like anything else in life, you get out what you put into it. I feel so fortunate to be able to teach this material and reevaluate my own marriage. Every time I teach this class I learn something new, or recall something that is more relevant to my marriage now than it was to my marriage the last time I taught this material. It helps me become a better wife and a better helper to Bobby. To be able to give more of myself to Bobby and help others to do the same for their spouses is a great feeling. I'm glad to be a part of the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative and the good things they are doing for couples.
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