Workshop: Practical Tools for Open / Poly relationships | Göteborg
Schedule
Sat Oct 19 2024 at 02:00 pm to 06:00 pm
UTC+02:00Location
Stigbergstorget | Gothenburg, VG
Are you living open/poly relationship(s) or relating? Or maybe you are dating someone who is? Or maybe you are curious to explore openness in your current or coming relationship but hesitant and want to see how openness can thrive, honestly, and sustainably? Then this workshop is for you!In our experience, there are two main challenges within open/poly relationships:
1) The emotional challenge is too high, and 2) the relationship loses connection or excitement because there is too much processing (around jealousy, boundaries, meeting others, etc.). And both are usually interlinked.
Very often a journey of poly or openness starts with the intention of more freedom, intimacy, sex, and love. But often and quickly our needs seem to be in conflict. My need for emotional safety is challenged by your freedom and adventures and/or the other way around. Most people’s strategy is to talk it through and if that doesn't work, talk some more. We believe these challenges need to be addressed at a deeper level. The deeper level includes, but is still beyond, our attachment styles and our relationship traumas.
🐾 In our experience what we need is not necessarily more talking but a combination of more effective talking (read as more connected communication) that can hold deeper levels of healing and the skill to consciously invite external support when needed (be it friends, poly/open-community, or professionals). Acknowledging that everything can’t be held in a serving way within a relationship(s) is as important as communication - because sometimes the only healthy and constructive way forward is to let someone outside our constellation do the supporting.
What if there are practical tools and skills that can help us reach the point where we can stay present with and support each other, in our wounds and beyond our reactions and shortcomings? Even when it is challenging. Exhaling together with our lovers/partners. No longer facing each other, struggling around who is right or wrong or whose needs matter more. But instead standing next to each other, as a team, living openly and healing our wounds naturally along the way.
🤸🏽♂️ In this workshop, we explore and practice some of these tools & skills.
It can be hard. Most of us exploring openness/poly has grown up and been conditioned with a monogamous relationship paradigm. Often built on fear and "rules to protect us from pain", and if pain comes we try to solve it alone within our relationship(s)/constellation. Often turning partners against each other. To build open, free, and safe relationships we need a paradigm shift to one that supports us to stand next to our partners, invites external support, and as gently as possible, facilitate the growth we need to live love as we want. Helping the day-to-day poly/open life but at the same time, in every moment, healing us and facilitating the inner growth we need to live openness with more ease tomorrow.
🍀 Who are we:
Practical Love is a community and an organization in the early stages of researching what tools and support we humans need to live love more authentically and fully. With the starting point of accepting (some of us even celebrating) that attraction to others is normal, we've started to develop a practical framework. The Pillars of Practical Love and Practical Love Tools support singles, couples, and other constellations to cultivate the skills needed to feel free and safe - at the same time - in their relationships. Aiming to live beyond fear and conditioning in what we call 1 + 1 = 3 relationships. Where the sum truly is greater than the parts.
🌱 Where did we grow from:
- Communication-based practices such as Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Circling, and Restorative Circles
- Somatic practices including Awareness Through the Body (ATB)
- Consciousness awareness philosophies such as Integral Yoga.
- Evidence-based therapeutic models for trauma and healing including Internal Family Systems (IFS) and theories such as Attachment Theory
- Community practices from the communities Tamera in Portugal and Auroville in India.
This workshop is your introduction to Practical Love and an invitation to explore the following:
✨ We normalize and welcome our humanness to also be attracted to others and discovering ways to feel freer and safer by acknowledging it.
✨ We’ll practice keys of self-expression and listening, that can support you in difficult conversations.
✨ We will explore Practical Love tools such as Competence to confidence, Honesty beyond sharing, Trust beyond honesty, Need walk, Try talk, Guidelines to communicate, Reflective listening and Premature reassurance.
✨ You'll be introduced to a framework for personal growth in relationships that we call - the Pillars of Practical Love.
✨ We will do exercises that will support you in exploring your own life and discovering what you need in relationships. Maybe you will get clues on what type of relationship is right for you on your path towards 1 + 1 = 3 relationship(s).
✨ This workshop is above everything else a safe space to share and explore together with likeminded people where we can support each other as a community.
Who is it for?
💜 People who are living in an open relationship(s) or other intimate constellation(s) and want support, tools, and skills for growth in challenging and honest conversations.
💜 People living in a monogamous relationship but with curiosity to open up.
💜 Poly/open singles who are looking for poly/open relationships, or just doesn’t want to stop dating others after meeting someone interesting, but wants to be able to communicate honestly about it.
💜 For anyone who is dating someone in an open/poly relationship and want perspectives to understand and tools to thrive.
💜 For anyone longing to live free and safe, in 1 + 1 = 3 relationship(s).
You get the point! This workshop is for anyone exploring or curious to explore open/poly love and how to live it authentically in your own way. Young and old, singles and couples, other constellations, and everything in between. Together with your partner(s) or alone.
🦒 The space: We will be a small group of 3-11 people with the focus above anything else to create a safe space to share and explore.
🇬🇧 Language: English
Even if the workshop is in English you are always welcome to ask questions or do exercises in Swedish.
📌 Where: Stigbergstorget, Göteborg. A more exact location will be included in the confirmation email.
📅 When:
Saturday 19 October 14.00 - 18.00
- Not yet open for registration
It is the same workshop, but on several occasions - pick the date that suits you best when booking. If you wish to get notified when we set new dates, click on the link: https://www.practical-love.org/reminder/
🗝 A little bonus: Anyone who has attended this introduction workshop is ready to join our practice groups and weekend workshops, places where we get the chance to dive deeper and practice even more.
💎 Workshop fee: 400 SEK, you will get payment details through the registration link below.
📌 Book your spot: https://www.practical-love.org/register/
Feel free to share the event with friends and lovers if you think it would resonate.
Hope to see you!
With love
Practical Love team & community
Curious about the facilitators?
🥥 Main facilitator: Nils
In 2018 Nils initiated what today is Practical Love. He saw how his mixed experience of date-coaching, open relationships, lecturing about fear, living in community and Nonviolent Communication gave him a perspective of love that was valuable to others on their journey and in their struggles. Ever since he has been developing and teaching tools that support love to emerge, in coaching and workshops.
🌸 Supporting facilitator in training: Cecilia
Cecilia’s big passion for communication and growth guided her to studies in psychology, then her own learnings from moving through struggles in relationships led her to Practical Love. She’s here to share tools, hold space for others, and continue to grow.
🙌🏽 What others are saying about Nils, Cecilia and Practical Love:
”Nils Johansson är en av dom mest skinande i den nya generationens inspiratörer. Hans tilltal är varmt, innerligt och väldigt underhållande. Han talar om allmänmänskliga rädslor på ett sätt som ingjuter mod i oss. Och bäst av allt, han talar helt från egen erfarenhet, och sin oförvägna resa genom sina egna rädslor."
- Björn Nattiko Lindeblad
"Cecilia is one of those very special people who hold the ability to create a space that is completely free from demands and pressure. Instead, Cecilia fills the room with a presence that inspires. With her guidance and the tools that Practical Love offers, I felt truly inspired and curious to explore; to find the path to understanding why I feel, act, or think as I do in certain situations. I felt guided to find the words to express these feelings with honesty and thus come to accept and value them in a whole different light. Within the atmosphere that Cecilia creates I felt welcomed, guided and free."
- Julia Nordenson
"With his presence and openness, Nils makes me feel calm, safe, and at home. The tools of Practical Love slowly open space for new perspectives and offer an invitation to trust one’s own and others' abilities in relationships. Nils has supported me to be courageous enough to feel and reflect upon feelings that before were unexplored but waiting under the surface. With his help to self-help, I have for the first time dared to get to know myself more deeply."
- Lana Lawa
