Tending the Relationship Garden

Get started with the course by downloading your course Field Journal.

Before you begin, take a moment to discover how this course is designed—and how to get the most from your journey.

Every journey begins by understanding the landscape. Let this short welcome orient you before you step onto the trail.

This connection practice explores the five senses, and how our sensory experience connects us to the present moment, the space around us, our bodies, and one another.

This curiosity practice is a guided visualization to revisit a memory that supports reconnecting with a state of curiosity and awe.

This communication practice invites us to notice what is unfolding in the present moment while sharing what we notice with our partners.

This cultivation practice is a guided visualization that invites us to imagine the future relationship we would like to grow.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and connect to the five senses.

In this journey we’ll explore the roots we grow from to better understand the values that shape how we move through the world.

This connection practice is a guided visualization that connects us to a comforting and peaceful shared memory to create “our cozy place”.

This curiosity practice invites you to take an everday household item, and try to describe it without using it’s name. It invites us into a fun, playful, creative space so we can tap into curiosity.

This communication practice explores how nonviolent communication can support increased understanding and connection without blame or defensiveness.

This cultivation practice guides you through an exploration of your values to better understand one another and both your shared and differing (or complementary) values.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and connect to what lives underground, beneath the surface.

In this journey we’ll explore what nourishes us so we can care well for ourselves and the ecosystem we create together.

This connection practice will guide you through grounding yourself and then grounding with your partner.

This curiosity practice guides you through a mindfulness practice that brings attention to the sense of touch using an everyday household item.

This communication practice guides us through the art of reflective listening, and it’s ability to promote shared understanding and connection.

This cultivation practice supports you and your partner to reflect on your individual and shared ecosystem care needs.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and connect with how reciprocity and care move through the ecosystem you visit.

In this journey, we’ll explore our stories, assumptions, and influences that sit quietly beneath the surface.

This is a connection practice that invites us to connect to our heart centers through our own touch and through shared touch with our partners.

This is a curiosity practice that guides us into imagining that for one day, a curious tree gets to be a human for one day—what does it experience?

This is a communication practice that supports you and your partner to explore a story you have about a pattern, conflict, or tension in your relationship.

In this cultivation practice, we’ll explore the hidden maps we carry to better see and understand one another’s influences, lived experience, and more.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and connect with the seen and unseen forces in an ecosystem you visit.

In this journey, we’ll tend to ecosytem repairs that need tending and create shared agreements to invite the kinds of conditions that support a thriving ecosystem.

This is a connection practice that invites us to connect with our breath as a way to come back into contact with ourselves, and then to breathe with our partners to deepen connection.

This is a curiosity practice that guides us into imagining how different members of the forest might experience a common pattern, conflict or tension in our relationship.

This is a communication practice that supports you and your partner to revisit a moment that might have caused upset to our partners, and practice reconnecting and repairing.

In this cultivation practice, we’ll explore what conditions your relationship ecosystem needs to truly thrive.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and connect with some plants in an ecosystem you visit.

In this last journey, we’ll map the trails that lead us away from our relational values, share gratitude for all we have explored, and dream about the beautiful ripplies our thriving relationship garden might invite into our communites and wider world around us.

This is a connection practice that invites you to brainstorm with your partner about what kind of cozy space might support more connection and care, and then to create your very own cozy sanctuary.

This is a curiosity practice that guides in identifying and mapping out a common trail or pattern that your relationship has struggled with, and after exploring how it works, noticing what other trails might support the kind of connection you prefer.

This is a communication practice that supports you and your partner to share appreciation from the heart in a way that sustains and strengthens your connection.

In our final cultivation practice, we’ll imagine what impact we hope our thriving relationship might have if we were truly and deeply living in close alignment with the relationship we desire.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and sense into how nature changes over time.

Some final practices and reflections to support you in journeys beyond the cabin.

In this nature invitation, you’ll bring everything you’ve been learning out into a natural space, and find a rock relationship companion to serve as a symbol of the stability you have created for your relationship through this entire journey.