“Better than Wine” Conference Teaches Relationship-Saving Communication Skills
We hosted a one-day training in communication and listening skills that have greatly blessed us in our marriage and other relationships. We use them to do our pre-marriage counseling: we teach these skills to the couple and then facilitate their active listening on all the key topics. We introduce these skills in our “Better than Wine: Building and Rebuilding Intimacy” Marriage conference. Last weekend, we were hosted by our friends at Anglican Church of the Redeemer, Franklin, MA (thank you Rev. Dan and Lisa Sylvia!) We dove in with a pilot group of couples. It is our hope to bring this workshop and/or the entire marriage conference to you one day!
We led couples to:
Identify their own communication habits
Learn new helpful ways to gain understanding in their relationship
Gain hands-on experience to put these skills into practice
Testimony:
We came to learn how to actively listen to one another through our own struggles about 7 years into our marriage when we sought marriage counseling. The counselor happened to be an instructor in Couple Communication curriculum by Sherrod and Phyllis Miller and taught it to us. He was a war veteran, a type-A, go-get-’em leader, the kind of guy that would typically want to be in control and often run you over in conversation. But! He learned that his controlling impulse didn’t work in his marriage nor in his practice as a therapist. He would say that it was natural to take control of a conversation, to talk over someone, to interrupt, to sabotage someone’s thought process, to minimize someone’s experience, to deny, to cut off, to dismiss. We do these things reflexively, naturally. We do them as soon as we can speak. BUT, to serve someone through listening, to honor, to respect—that is supernatural. That only comes through a divine intervention of God’s grace in someone’s life, whether they recognize it or not.
This was timely for us as 30 year olds, 7 years married, madly in love and very frustrated with one another. It did not replace the work of owning our side of the street, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation. We needed a counselor to guide us through that. We also found 12-step groups essential to support us in recovery from codependency. We needed the love of mentors and loads of prayer. But in addition to all that, these skills gave us safe ways of communicating so we could do that heart surgery better. They gave us a way to listen to one other and to gain self-awareness as we shared our concerns with one another. This helped us understand each other.
To understand one another is the goal of collaborative listening… not agreement, understanding. Understanding allows each one to feel heard. Understanding generated the connection and love we needed to create and act upon new desires for each of us individually, for us as a couple, and for others. We learned to not violate the listening process. It gave us a safe way to get into the real hurt, the hurt that needed forgiveness and reconciliation, or the recuring problem that needed an answer, or the plan that needed to be made together. It is a learned skill that will help you
Resolve conflict
Make plans
And increase mutual satisfaction through celebrating joys and grieving losses well
Make the other person FEEL heard and thus loved.
Honor yourself and the issues that matter to you where you need to be heard and loved by listening
This program teaches that the fastest way to really connect to someone is not through leading but through following their lead by listening. The passive role of listening will actually connect you on a heart level and create the intimacy you crave.
We are so grateful we got to share this with a pilot group!
Contact us for more information or to explore a visit to you.