FULL SUMMIT SPEAKER SCHEDULE
FULL SUMMIT SPEAKER SCHEDULE
Day 1
Hope From the Trenches
For many partners, being thrown down the rabbit hole of recovery feels desperately lonely. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless when your life has been thrown upside-down. In this interview, Rosie pulls from her experience of working with women pre– and post–recovery and shares what steps you can take that will really make a difference in breaking the shame and isolation.
We will also be tackling the most common lies that prevent partners from setting healthy boundaries and seeking the help they need and deserve. Finally, we will discover what is inspiring a whole army of women to come forward and share their hope, strength and experience with a hurting world.
Rosie Makinney
Fight for Love Ministries
www.fightforloveministries.com
Kathy & Conrad Reynolds
Daring Ventures Recovery
www.DaringVentures.com
Grief Post–Disclosure, and the Importance of Understanding Your Partner's Capacity
What does grief look like after disclosure? Partners of addicts need to understand the difference between the betraying partner's capacity and desire. It's a common scene: a wife is heartbroken because her husband just doesn't "get it." Sometimes that's true, but it's not because he doesn't WANT to "get it", it's because he just doesn't know "how." This is why it is important for couples to have the right support from the beginning. As they learn to grieve together, they are also writing a new shared story. Grief is like tilling soil to cultivate new growth.
Intimacy Development: Companioning the Emotionally Adverse for Better Relational Availability
Part of the necessary growth in a couple healing together from problematic sexual behavior and the resulting sexual and relational betrayal is the practicing of building trust and connection again. For our couple's care and wellbeing, we find ourselves as practitioners, walking with our clients out of their instinctual traumatic reactions into their desired heartfelt connective and thoughtful responses.
James and Sharon will share four of the most common problematic relationship areas, how to recognize when you are employing old protection, understanding how they are damaging to the self and other loved ones, and ways to practice more connective antidotes that lead to more opportunities for emotional intimacy. The four areas of focus are presence, communication, authenticity, and empathy. Their hope is that the participants in the conference will begin to identify old thinking patterns and understand the damage they carry while choosing new actions that allow more intimacy.
Sharon Rinearson,
LCSW, APSAT CCPS, CCTP, FQS
- and -
James Annear, LMHC, APSATS CCPS, CSAT-S, EMDR-II, CCTP, FQS
CORE Relationship Recovery
Dr. Sheri Keffer,
MFT, CPTT-S, CSAT, CCPS, EMDR
BraveOne Community
From Shattered to Empowered:
How to Not Just Heal, But Heal Well
Experiencing sexual betrayal of any kind shatters us to our very core. Everything you thought you knew and could depend on has been turned upside down. Grief and the layers of loss often feel all consuming. How do we come back from that? Is it possible to heal our relationship? Is there a roadmap for this mess? How do we stop from wandering or spinning our wheels in what’s not working?
Dr. Sheri Keffer believes it’s not only possible to heal, but to heal well. You can become stronger and more fortified. In this interview, she will show you how to move from having your world shattered to knowing the truth and being empowered.
How Intimacy Clarifies Grief and Empowers Growth
Both the addict and the partner suffer from the loss of time, meaning, and clarity. Connecting together through pain, shame, and helplessness (vulnerability) enables them to recreate a shared story of suffering and recovering together. Learning to grieve one's own losses is critical for individual recovery; learning to grieve shared losses is critical to relational recovery.
When the addict, in particular, learns to walk through the partner's experience there is an empathic exchange that recreates a new story in the safety of being seen, heard, and felt. Grief is clarified in that the past takes on new meaning. Both the addicted partner and the betrayed partner begin to view their history as a shared truth. As a result, they are empowered to experience growth toward an entirely new and different relationship — one that is healthy and life-giving.
Dr. Windell Gill, PSAP, PMAP
Daring Ventures Recovery
Dr. Barbara Steffens,
LPCC-S, CCPS, CPC
Safe Passages Counseling & Coaching
www.drbarbarasteffens.com
Surviving Sexual Betrayal
Betrayal can be devastating to your partner and your relationship, but many couples still love one another and are committed to mending their relationships. In order to do this, it is important for the unfaithful party to understand the traumatic nature of betrayal, and understand how to respond sensitively to their partner's pain. It is also critical they adopt a stance of honesty, transparency and commitment in their relationships. This often includes participating in a facilitated disclosure and emotional restitution process.
Growing Through the Grief of Separation and Divorce
The discovery of sexual betrayal can be devastating. What happens when that grief is compounded by separation and divorce?
While no one expects this to be their story, it's important to know that hope is not lost. You can go through your worst nightmare, grow through your grief, and discover a better life on the other side!
Andrea Rogers, MA, MCC, CPC
Fully Alive Coaching, LLC
Day 2
The Only Tool You Need to Thrive:
"Move Toward™" with Jenna
Have you ever noticed that "Moving Against" the parts of yourself (and others) that you don't like only makes things worse? "Moving Against" keeps us stuck in our grief, and prevents us from our best spiritual, emotional and sexual lives.
Join Jenna in this lively and highly applicable session where she teaches us how to "Move Toward™" the hardest parts of ourselves so we can transform our grief into growth. You will leave this session with 3 words that will literally change your life.
Clinton & Charity Muñoz
Restored 2 More
www.restored2more.com
From Disconnection to Connection
Clinton and Charity are a couple with a story of restoration. In their summit interview, they will share how a couple can be in recovery but still miss the mark on how to come together.
Recovery can be a beautiful opportunity to build connection rather than disconnection, through understanding each other and supporting one another through the process.
How to Have Fun Again After an Affair
Is it possible to have fun again after an affair? This session explores how couples can restore not only health to their marriage after an affair, but a reigniting of fun and passion.
Without making light of the difficulty of restoration after infidelity, Jonathan will provide a framework for hope that even after such betrayal and grief there can be even greater joy and intimacy in the healed parts of such a marriage.
Jonathan Daugherty
Be Broken Ministries
www.bebroken.com
Coming Out of Spiritual Trauma and Finding your Voice to Advocate for Change
Many of us have experienced spiritual trauma. From religious books, movies, conferences to sermons and well-meaning church members, damage has been done to our belief in God. Spiritual trauma may have been caused by hearing teachings about religious beliefs, like turning the other cheek or winning your unbelieving spouse by not uttering a word. By heeding this advice, many have accepted abusive behavior for the “sake of the cross.”
Many mistruths about submission have caused women, in particular, to lose their voices when unacceptable behavior calls for a firm boundary. Testimonies about “love abounding in all things” can send a message that any difficulty can be fixed with love and faith to men and women alike. All of these situations and many more others have caused many to lose their voice and their power. The first step in healing the trauma is realizing how it occurred and acknowledging the damage that has been done and then grieving it piece by piece. The traumatized must be healed in order to have a voice that can be heard and advocate for change.
After this, the person can grow to develop an empowered voice to make changes in our religious systems. One way the empowered grow is becoming educated on the topics involved. There is a difference between being overly emotional and being passionate about this topic. Acceptance and letting go of outcomes are growth tools to empower Beautiful Outlaws to send the message regardless of whether it lands or not.
Grieving the Spiritual Damage of Trauma and Discovery
Childhood trauma and the trauma of discovery don't just leave emotional wounds. They also leave spiritual wounds that need to be grieved and require their own process of recovery.
In this presentation, Matt will talk about the importance of acknowledging spiritual wounding stemming from trauma, why people tend to view God through that lens, and give practical ways to address spiritual identity in the recovery process, helping you move into a more loving relationship with your Creator.
Matt Wenger, LPC
Boulder Recovery
Michael & Kristin Cary, CPSAS
Living Truth
www.living-truth.org
Connection Through the Chaos
Staying connected as a couple is extremely challenging, especially after recovering from unwanted sexual behavior and sexual betrayal. When triggers still come and we are flooded with overwhelming emotions, how do we make our way back to one another?
Michael & Kristin share their personal experience, having blended a family while diligently working toward a more connected marriage for eleven years. This is no small task, especially when two people are so different from one another. But, as they will share, it is SO worth fighting for!
Adding Attunement to Empathy
In Julie's interview, she will discuss why attunement is important, how it can be developed, the three C's of Non-Verbal Communication: context, cluster, congruency.
Albert Mehrabian's 55%, 38%, 7% Rule states that only 7% of what we communicate is with words, and yet we focus so many tools on this aspect. The rest of what we say is through signals, micro-expressions, facial reflexes, breathing patterns, and noises. Developing attunement to your partner's distress signals prior to the need for tools may help co-regulation prior to a conflict erupting. This can change the energy between partners and create safety in the relationship.
Julie St.Onge,
RN, BSN, ACC, CPC, BSP, C-SASI
New England Coaching Services
www.newenglandcoachingservices.com
Rob Weiss, PhD, LCSW
Seeking Integrity: Los Angeles
www.seekingintegrity.com
Growing Past The Myth of Codependency: A Strength-Based Model for Those Who Love An Addict
Since Codependent No More became a self-help book sensation nearly 40 years ago, we’ve seen a torrent of book titles, articles, workshops, and even whole therapy centers centered around codependence work as a therapy concept. Codependency is what we know. But codependency has never been formalized as a diagnosis in the DMS or the ICD. Not ever. In fact, there has never been a formal, criteria-based addiction or mental health diagnosis for the “issue” that we call codependency. So, what does this mean to our work today? Which one of the 340+ books on this topic holds the ‘right’ method?
Perhaps codependency requires a review for 2022. This thought-provoking talk by treatment specialist, author, and speaker Dr. Robert Weiss LCSW asks attendees to question old assumptions and consider new ideas, ensuring the work we provide remains strength-based, useful and deeply compassionate.
Day 3
Deep Work — Deep Healing
In this interview, Karen and John will discuss their own stories of loss. From their story, you will learn how to look at what is lost, grieve, find safety to grieve, understand needs, create boundaries, and move toward growth.
Working With Couples Through Grief:
Another Three-Legged Stool!
Couples recovery from addiction and betrayal is a three-legged stool, three pieces coming together to create stability. Each person must do their own work, and that work must be used to create connection and transformation in the relationship. Working with couples through grief is one of the most important and painful parts of the relational recovery journey.
In this interview Cat will answer questions and unpack the messy realities of grieving, both individually and together—the costs and tragedies of couples' journeys. She will explore some of the reasons this part of the journey can be such a challenge and some common pitfalls, offering practical steps and solutions as well as stories of recovery and hope.
Catherine Etherington, CPC, ACC
Head of Recovery, Naked Truth Recovery
www.nakedtruthrecovery.com
Drew Boa, MA, PSAP
Husband Material LLC
Healing The Inner Child
Trauma interrupts emotional and/or sexual development, with the result that part of us never grew up (the "inner child"). Engaging the inner child with curiosity and compassion has an uncanny way of opening up tremendous space for transformation in recovering addicts and betrayed partners alike.
Inner child work facilitates greater self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-regulation, accelerating the journey from grief to growth.
Intimate Sex After Secret Betrayal
What can sex after betrayal and long-term recovery become? Repairing the ruptured attachment doesn’t mean returning to the sex life you had before awareness of betrayal. In fact, most partners will share how they felt painfully unsafe and disconnected from their betrayers, resulting in a lack of emotional and sexual pleasure during the time of the unknown betrayal.
Connie and Bob will share from their own journey to give insights into the necessity of grieving the losses the betrayal caused, overcoming hindrances to emotional intimacy, then creating a safe, secure attachment where a new relationship can thrive on every level. The shared grief and new beginnings can lead to a sacred friendship that opens the opportunity to develop a vulnerable sex life. Whether you have chosen to stay together, divorce, remarry each other or another, pause and ask yourself if you are willing to let the past acts of betrayal rob you of the possibility of an emotionally intimate sex life.
Bob & Connie Spiegel, CPC
Daring Ventures Recovery
www.DaringVentures.com
Grief and Brokenheartedness
Scriptures says He is close to the Brokenhearted (Psalm 34). What does this actually mean for a person who has experienced betrayal in one of their most intimate relationships?
Lyschel will share how her avoidance of grief held her hostage rather than keeping things in control. She will also talk about the various lies commonly connected to grief. Learn how to make space for grief and see the Lord's purpose in it. Grieving is surrender for the body, soul, and spirit.
She Exchanged Her Betrayal Trauma Baggage for a Clutch of Wisdom Gained and Forgave Herself*
While the loss of trust accompanying sexual betrayal causes a huge rupture in the relationship between the partner and the betrayer, often the biggest relationship rupture is the shattering of the partner's relationship with herself. Many partners ask themselves, "Why am I not enough?" "What's wrong with me that I picked this guy?" "What's wrong with me that I didn't see this?" "What's wrong with me that I stayed after I found out the first time? Here we are AGAIN years later and it's been betrayal after betrayal!" Often, sadly, followed by, "Why am I so stupid?" All of these questions reflect a betrayed partner's loss of trust in herSELF.
It's this loss of trust in herself, as well as her loss in her sense of who she is, that is an often unaddressed part of a partner's grief. In this talk, Laurie will discuss how understanding the process of grieving a betrayal is an important part of exchanging the emotional baggage of betrayal for a clutch of wisdom gained. By honoring their grief, partners can forgive themselves and embrace the woman they were always meant to be.
*This title comes from the title of a painting by autistic artist Michael Tolleson
Laurie Hall,
REcP, CPC, PSAP, RLBT
Awakened Heart Betrayal Recovery
Just in Case:
Relapse Preparedness for Partners of Sex Addicts
Relapse. Few words strike more visceral anxiety, dread and anguish into the hearts of sexually betrayed partners. There’s no avoiding the intensity surrounding this infamously hot-button topic; it’s seared into our autonomic nervous systems, ignited and inflamed by historical ruptures within our most intimate human attachments.
But what if recovery could offer betrayed partners a practical, purposeful, and proactive approach to this subject, empowering us to courageously, safely, and comprehensively explore our biggest emotions surrounding this ”worst-case scenario"?
And what if therapists, coaches, and counselors were better equipped to respond when couples present their most highly charged questions and quandaries about relapse?
In this interview, Gaelyn will introduce some key concepts from her signature “relapse preparedness” paradigm, offering a few priceless gems for addicts, partners and practitioners alike. She’ll also highlight the ways that ambiguous loss, anticipatory grief, and complicated mourning manifest within relapse preparedness work—inviting greater self-compassion, emotional maturation and (ultimately) post-traumatic growth.
As with all of Gaelyn’s conversations about Betrayal-Related Grief™, she promises she won’t leave us hanging in “the messy middle” of this sticky wicket; instead, she’ll offer a few of her favorite mechanisms for Mourning to Move Forward™—an essential paradigm shift that determines whether we “go” through grief (what happens by default) or “grow” through grief (what happens by design).
Beyond Betrayal & Addiction:
Practical Steps for Moving from Hopeful to Heroic
Is reducing the pain or achieving sobriety all there is to look forward to? Or does God have bigger plans for your life?
Join Michael and Christine as they share some practical steps that will move you forward on your journey from healing and recovery to living a redemptive life filled with passion and purpose.
Michael & Christine Leahy
BraveHearts
www.bravehearts.org