Where it all began…
We were both raised in conservative middle-class families in South Africa and diligently went through our schooling and then proceeded to study towards our respective professions. No different to most people / couples, we went into the world not knowing how to nurture our mental wellbeing or relationship, and when hard times presented themselves to us, we didn’t have the tools to successfully weather them.
Isn’t it interesting how we spend so much time and energy nurturing and growing our professions, providing for and supporting our families, looking after our finances, our retirement planning, our physical health, our homes and cars etc … yet in comparison we spend precious little time on our mental wellbeing and or our relationship. The irony is that by not caring for our mental wellbeing, and by not having a strong, healthy and stable relationship, all the above listed areas of our lives are negatively impacted in some or other way. Being in a troubled relationship and / or navigating life with an unhealthy mental state, impacts on just about everything … from our professions to our families, our finances, our retirement, our health and so the list goes on. We were never taught how to go about nurturing our mental wellbeing and or a relationship.
Neither were we taught how to deal with mental wellbeing and or relationship challenges, and the associated consequences thereof. We never attended mental wellbeing or relationship schooling and yet, they form the building blocks and the very foundation of our life’s journey.
We, like a lot of people / couples out there, had to learn our lessons the hard way … through a deluge of trials and ‘painful’ errors, we started to learn all about how to nurture our mental wellbeing and our relationships. For us, it’s been a very long, painful and difficult journey … but nevertheless, a journey that we have learnt and grown immensely from. It is regrettable that we learn and grow the most from negative and hurtful life experiences … but it was through these painful experiences that we became better versions of ourselves … for ourselves, our partner, family, friends and work colleagues. We initially knew no better, but now we have the knowledge, and with this knowledge we are more equipped to get out in front of life’s hardships and proactively manage the impact they have on our mental wellbeing and or our relationship.
Between us, we have independently experienced a lot of pain and emotional turmoil … to the point of having gone through trying separations and painful divorces. We progressively sought assistance and support from influential teachers, psychologists, doctors, priests, spiritual / transformational healers, and so many more practitioners in this field … never seeming to quite find the answers we sought from each of the interventions on their own.
Following all these interventions and the associated costs thereof, we concluded that one single intervention on its own, was not sufficient to help us successfully understand and navigate our troubled lives and or relationships. Our individual experiences led us to conclude that the answers we sought lay in a combination of (what we believe to be) the most practical and usable aspects of each intervention.
It was this awareness and the application of the most practical and usable aspects of each intervention, that guided and assisted us to successfully heal from all the hurt and to create and nature a loving and caring life and long-term relationship.
At no point do we want to forget the pain and hardship that we endured on our respective journeys, as it is these very experiences that motivate us to share what we have learnt, so that we can in turn guide and assist others.
Having experienced the emotional turmoil of mental wellbeing and troubled relationship challenges, and not being equipped to deal with them, we understand first-hand your struggles. We know what it’s like to feel hopeless and to not know how to shift towards achieving mental wellbeing and or achieving relationship unity.