Courage to Love: Your Guide to Creating a Concious Marriage
This session focuses on the tools and practices for building a conscious marriage. Participants learned about the eight core tools for conscious love, handling conflict with empathy, and intimacy practices to foster deeper connection. The webinar emphasized emotional safety, intentionality, and shared values, offering actionable advice to strengthen relationships, whether newlyweds or couples married for decades.
Time Markers
00:00 - 00:00:27 – Introduction to the webinar by Alexis Alcott, Program Coordinator at Utah Marriage Commission, and introduction to guest Emily Kroupa.
00:00:27 - 00:01:17 – Emily’s professional background and experience, including her work in therapeutic settings like boarding schools, substance use treatment centers, and private practices.
00:01:17 - 00:02:06 – Overview of the webinar agenda, including conscious relationship foundations, conflict resolution, emotional attunement, and intimacy practices.
00:02:06 - 00:02:55 – Instructions for asking questions through the Q&A function and process for obtaining CE credit certificates.
00:03:19 - 00:05:12 – Emily’s personal welcome and guided mindfulness exercise to help participants relax and focus.
00:05:12 - 00:06:38 – Emily introduces herself as a therapist specializing in couples therapy, somatic therapy, and ketamine-assisted therapy, and shares her passion for experiential therapy.
00:06:38 - 00:07:12 – Explanation of experiential learning in therapy, using the metaphor of making a chocolate cake as an analogy for how experiential therapy works.
00:07:12 - 00:08:05 – Discussion on common misconceptions in marriage, including the idea that partners should meet all our needs and the dangers of that belief.
00:08:05 - 00:09:09 – Misconception #1: Expecting partners to meet all needs and how it can lead to dissatisfaction in relationships.
00:09:09 - 00:10:12 – Misconception #2: The belief that couples should always agree on everything and how conflict offers growth opportunities.
00:10:12 - 00:11:27 – Misconception #3: Better communication will always solve conflict, and how it’s often more about how we communicate rather than what we say.
00:03:19 - 00:05:12 – Emily’s personal welcome and guided mindfulness exercise to help participants relax and focus.
00:05:12 - 00:06:38 – Emily introduces herself as a therapist specializing in couples therapy, somatic therapy, and ketamine-assisted therapy, and shares her passion for experiential therapy.
00:06:38 - 00:07:12 – Explanation of experiential learning in therapy, using the metaphor of making a chocolate cake as an analogy for how experiential therapy works.
00:07:12 - 00:08:05 – Discussion on common misconceptions in marriage, including the idea that partners should meet all our needs and the dangers of that belief.
00:08:05 - 00:09:09 – Misconception #1: Expecting partners to meet all needs and how it can lead to dissatisfaction in relationships.
00:09:09 - 00:10:12 – Misconception #2: The belief that couples should always agree on everything and how conflict offers growth opportunities.
00:10:12 - 00:11:27 – Misconception #3: Better communication will always solve conflict, and how it’s often more about how we communicate rather than what we say.
00:11:27 - 00:13:11 – Reference to John Gottman’s research on the importance of a positive approach to conflict and how the first three minutes of an argument can predict its outcome.
00:13:11 - 00:15:12 – Explanation of deeper feelings that mask the surface-level conflicts and how addressing these emotions can lead to healthier communication.
00:15:12 - 00:18:06 – Defining a conscious marriage as one where partners intentionally focus on emotional and spiritual growth.
00:18:06 - 00:20:06 – Discussion of how family of origin and past conditioning influence unconscious patterns in relationships.
00:20:06 - 00:21:23 – Introduction of the eight core tools for conscious love, focusing on emotional safety, intentionality, and personal responsibility.
00:21:23 - 00:22:54 – Explanation of Tool #1: Safe space as foundational for growth in a conscious marriage.
00:22:54 - 00:25:25 – Explanation of Tools #2 through #7, including intentionality, emotional responsibility, positive perspective, shared values, and financial agreements.
00:25:25 - 00:27:16 – Tool #8: Making your home a haven through intentional rituals of connection.
00:27:16 - 00:30:11 – Exercise on creating emotional safety in relationships and avoiding invalidating language that undermines trust.
00:30:11 - 00:36:04 – Conscious conflict resolution, discussing the importance of navigating disagreements with curiosity and empathy to avoid rejection and foster intimacy.
00:36:04 - 00:43:10 – Deep dive into conflict resolution, using the example of Ross and Rachel from Friends to explain how miscommunication can derail relationships, and how conscious conflict tools can help.
00:43:10 - 00:47:17 – Explanation of repairing after conflict and the importance of understanding emotional triggers and casting a vision for the future of the relationship.
00:47:17 - 00:48:56 – Tool #8: Making your home a haven through shared routines and experiences that foster connection.
00:48:56 - 00:49:16 – Book recommendations for couples, including The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and Hold Me Tight.
00:49:16 - 01:00:13 – Q&A session, covering how to continue working on a marriage during health challenges, how long therapy typically lasts for couples, and practical ways to grow a relationship despite challenges.
About Emilee Krupa
Emilee Krupa is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Substance Use Disorder Counselor. She lives and works in the beautiful state of Utah, although she has moved out of state a few times, she always finds herself back here.
Experiences in her early adolescence led her to begin her journey in the mental health field over a decade ago. She worked as a residential staff for a therapeutic boarding school in beautiful Utah. It was here that she fell in love with helping others to heal themselves and their relationships. Since that experience, she has also worked in a variety of other settings including both inpatient and outpatient substance use disorder treatment centers, wilderness therapy, intensive therapy retreats, and several private practices that focus on trauma, relationships, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Through her experience in wilderness therapy she learned to love experiential therapy models and alternatives to traditional talk therapy. Emilee believes there’s new hope for individuals who find limited success in traditional therapy, and she is excited to give her clients a new experience of therapy.
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