Professional Couples Transformative Circle

Connecting, Celebrating, and Collaborating Through Transformative Conversations

  • Do you spend more time arguing with your partner than enjoying each other?
  • Do you feel that your relationship has stopped growing?
  • Do you struggle to find time to enjoy each other physically?
  • Is the stress at work affecting your relationship?
  • Have you stopped having meaningful times and conversations together?

The Transformative Conversations for Couples is an intensive, powerful learning circle for professional couples that want to recapture or develop intimate, healthy, and happy relationships. I enable and support them to succeed in creating new ways of thinking about difficult or persistent challenges. You will learn how to focus your energy and intention to create and sustain collaboration and intimacy through all the stages of family life, in a way that assures success.

The Transformative Conversations for Couples Program is a virtual (phone and internet based) four month transformative learning experience. It will teach and model a positive, strength based, conversational and collaborative process. It will combine practice and application of skills and tools for developing a healthy marriage.

Please notice that this program will be offered only two times in 2009. I anticipate the programs will be full way before the starting time.  If you want to be able to participate you will have to make an early decision and take decisive action.

My Promise

We will Develop Relationships and Conversations that make A Difference. As our collaborative process advances and the conversations deepen you will find powerful ways to improve your relationship. I will create a safe virtual space in which we can enter into inquiry and practice.

Through dialogue and collaboration you will:

  • gain new insights,
  • see new possibilities,
  • find practical applications,
  • learn problem solving and conflict resolution skills,
  • initiate change,
  • and see your relationship growth.

Key Features

In the Transformative Conversations for Couples Circle you will:

  • Practice and refine relationship skills. Bring your knowledge and be prepared to share, explore change, and stretch your limits
  • Engage in active experimentation using real-life issues. You will get immediate feedback from me and the group as we engage in shared inquiry, mutual exploration, and development
  • Become more comfortable with talking in a way that foster understanding, respect, and change
  • Understand, see differently, and positively engage your own and your partner’s resistance to what seems “different” by examining objections, alternative behaviors, and objectives from new perspectives. You will develop the capacity for solving conflicts or see them ”disolve”
  • Be able to initiate and maintain change efforts more effectively.
  • Identify and clarify core issues that can facilitate or hinder relationships.
  • Master collaborative communication and listening skills translating theory into immediate practice
  • Acquire a greater understanding of systems processes to better understand your family
  • Discover and enhance your own and other’s strengths
  • Build bridges of understanding

Method

The Transformative Conversations for Couples Circle is a four-months program with no more than 20 participants per group (to ensure enough individual focus) providing the support, challenge, knowledge, and accountability that can make a difference for greater success. The basic structure of the program is:

  • Program launch. A two-hour orientation session introduces methods and tools, the participants, and sets the stage for the intense and enjoyable collaborative work ahead.
  • Eight conference calls with all participants (90 minutes each, twice per month for 4 months.
  • The calls will be recorded. If you have to miss a session you will be able to listen to the first half hour with the call content, although you will miss the live coaching and interaction.
  • The first 10 minutes of each call will follow up from the last session assignments. The next 20 minutes of each call includes learning a major strategy or tool for cultural awareness and cultural change and practicing it live on the call.
  • Then in the next 30 minutes we engage in coaching a live related issue brought by a participant while the rest of the circle listens “as if” (we will explain this on the first orientation call). As part of the process we will pause to discuss progress, enrich the conversation, increase the collaboration, and analyze how to facilitate success.
  • Practice with your Partner. The last 30 minutes of each call is an opportunity to give and get support from your Partner in a focused conversation concerning the practice of the featured skill or strategy.
  • A private Master Mind one-hour phone collaborative coaching session. Just you, me, and a very small group (no more than 3 or 4 couples) of other motivated couples on these calls. You get my devoted time and attention PLUS the benefit of hearing what other couples are experiencing while they try to understand each other better, initiate changes in their relationship, or deal with difficult dilemmas. These calls are inspiring, motivating, and really get you into focused action!
  • Visioning as a trigger for successful action planning

What Makes The Transformative Conversations for Couples Circle so Powerful?

For any change process in relationship patterns to be successful, it needs a supportive practical structure with sequence, connection, and fluidity that facilitates the reflective process, generates fresh and creative ideas, and opens new possibilities for action and successful outcomes. I see the collaborative coaching circle process as, well. . . circular (see Figure 1): in any generative conversation you could go through the whole circle or only a segment of it, you could go back and forth between the different stages, or you could spend the whole time in only one of them. I put dialogue at the center, because I believe that internal and external dialogue is the foundation on which the whole collaborative coaching process is anchored and change is made possible (see Figure 1).

(Insert Figure 1. Take it from the present GrowthCoach website, under Articles, open Collaborative Coaching: A Framework for Practice scroll down to the figure of the circle) Following that model, at any given moment in the circle all participants (including the leader) will be expected to:

  • Gently confront others in a supportive way to help interrupt old patterns.
  • Improve accountability to deliver on commitments.
  • Explore different change styles to find your natural path for change.
  • Take initiative and move out of predictable patterns that don’t work.
  • Shift attitudes from helplessness to empowerment.
  • Address tough dilemmas and competing priorities.
  • Build trust in the face of diverse thinking.
  • Explore signature strengths to better utilize them in building a healthy relationship.
  • Generate support and collaboration while respecting differences
  • Establish a safe container where the group can expand the ability to reflect, observe, learn, and change.
  • Influence positively to generate hope, energy, and joy in the process of becoming more competent in your relationship.
  • Participate fully in the coaching circle for greater synergy.

What Distinguishes the Transformative Conversations for CouplesCircle from Other Programs

My framework for collaborative coaching is grounded in the human potential movement, and theories of adult development, systems, dialogue, collaborative coaching, and transformative learning, (Anderson, 1997; Barrentine, 1993; Bartunek, 1993; Bateson, 1972; Freire, 1970; Hargrove, 2000; Ismel, 2000; Mezirow, 1997; Mezirow, 2000; Whitworth et al., 1998). As a result, the program takes into consideration individuals, the couple, context, and systems. It is not a canned class with inflexible curriculum, but a tailored program to fit the needs of the participants. Through the program you will:

  • Learn methods for jump-start change processes in your relationship.
  • Engage in transformative learning experiences with real situations utilizing what arises in the moment to explore fully opportunities for a closer relationship.
  • Give and get immediate feedback that is direct, supportive, and collaborative.
  • Discover and create advance strategies that foster lasting change.
  • Integrate learning into practice through your daily interactions.
  • My expertise, support, and caring about you and your relationship success. For more than 25 years I have been empowering people for change and growth in collaboration. My life and business have benefited from the support I’ve received while learning to be a leader of collaborative change. Now you can have that same level of caring focused on the success of your relationship!
  • Learning from and with other couples who have experience and bring skills in relationship issues. The time for smaller groups of couples will provide this opportunity.

There’s just one more thing to consider before joining me…

Are you a good fit for the Success Circle?

You’re a good fit if you…

  • Are a couple highly motivated to change and grow to achieve a healthier relationship.
  • Are willing and ready to become vulnerable and take action once you feel comfortable and know exactly what to do.
  • Have a “yes, can do!” attitude and want to have a successful relationship.
  • Want to get to a higher level of connection and intimacy with your partner and this is a high priority for you.
  • Are willing to make significant, positive changes in your life and work experiencing and modeling healthy patterns of relating.
  • Love to learn, are self-motivated, and willing to try something different.

You will NOT be a good candidate for this program if you…

  • Have difficulty showing up on time or honoring your commitments to yourself and others.
  • Are unwilling to collaborate and change.
  • Are too fearful of exploring your own contribution to conflicts and problems to ever take action toward growth.
  • Think that you know everything and are not open to learn from others.

My style is direct, honest, loving, inspiring, collaborative, and down-to-earth. I’m always looking for ways to harness your strengths to help you become more competent, and develop healthier relationships.

Remember, when you sign up for this program, you’re getting my wealth of knowledge, experience, and proven success in collaborative coaching people for change and growth on relationship issues, plus the input of other couples. If you have any doubt about whether this program is an excellent fit for you, please contact me for a free, no-obligation, 15-minute conversation.

Information about Registration

Registration for Program: January-April, 2012

Dates and Time

  • All sessions will be held by telephone bridge 7:00-8:30 pm EST
  • Telephone bridge number will be sent to you after you register.

Registration and Tuition fees information will be given closer to the starting time.

How to Learn More

Not sure if this is for you? Please take a few minutes to check for a good fit.

Call or email Dr. Ada Gonzalez to schedule a free 15-minute conversation to explore whether the Professional Couples Learning Circle is the right "next step" for you. 

No pressure, no obligation, just a few moments of information, exploration and support to decide for yourself.

Call Dr. Ada at 302-399-3915 or email us writing "learning circle" in the subject line.