Emotional Safety in Relationships: Why It Comes Before Intimacy

This week, I held a three-and-a-half-day Private Intimacy Retreat at this beautiful location in Noosa, with a couple I felt genuinely privileged to hold space for.

As I began the retreat, I found myself contemplating the process.

The first day isn't about technique, conversation starters, or anything either of them “should” be doing differently.

It's about safety.

Before two people can open to each other — really open, not just perform openness — the body needs to know it's safe enough to soften.

And the heart needs to know this too.

Safety isn't the warm-up act before the real work begins.

It is the work.

Everything else we build over the following days rests on it.

This is a relatively new offering, and I'm sometimes asked why I offer private retreats alongside the group Making Love Retreat.

Sometimes a couple wants to come to a group retreat and simply can't.

A work schedule that won't bend around the dates. Young children who make six days away impossible.

And sometimes, what a couple is carrying is so tender that a room full of other couples, even a warm and safe one, isn't the right container.

They need something quieter. More private. A place where they can begin at their own pace.

This private retreat format grew out of genuine requests from real couples.

And I want to be honest with you — I love it as much as I love the group retreats.

They hold different things, but both are rich. And I feel incredibly fortunate to be trusted with this work in either form.

A private retreat is also never just the three-and-a-half days themselves.

It's a held container across roughly three months:

• A pre-retreat session before we begin
• The retreat itself
• A follow-up session within the month afterwards
• And another session at the three-month mark

Because I don't want what has opened between you to simply close again when everyday life resumes.

I bring 25 years as a psychotherapist working closely with couples and individuals into this work.

Over those years, I've learned so much from the couples I've had the privilege of working with. I've developed my approach to support couples to move through a stuck place and find their way back towards love, connection and intimacy — without pressure or performance.

I've now mapped out next year and will have six places for three-and-a-half-day private retreats, as well as six places for one-day private retreats, which have a similar support structure.

If a private retreat feels like it might be right for you, you're welcome to add your name to the waitlist.

You'll be the first to hear when the proposed dates are available >> Waitlist

 If you'd like to read more about the Private Retreats click here