rELationships
Re-imagined
08 APRIL - 13 MAY
VIRTUAL WORKSHOP SERIES
A thought-provoking and expert-led workshop series designed to help you explore and clarify the way you want your close relationships to look, in a world of wildly different relationship ideas.
How do you want love to look?
What do you want love, sex, family, intimacy and commitment to look like?
The way we pursue intimate relationships has changed enormously over the last few decades, and that change only seems to be accelerating.
Where previously there had been a defined set of shared cultural ideas about what people were looking for in relationships, and a clear “path” that everyone was expected to follow - from dating; to sexual exclusivity and moving in together; to marriage, mortgage and, kids - all of that is now, more than ever, being called into question.
This cultural questioning of long-standing relationship assumptions is simultaneously freeing and frightening. The old model worked badly for many people, but it at least provided us with some sort of shared roadmap.
How are we to navigate this new terrain when that shared roadmap no longer exists?
This workshop series will support participants in finding tools and their own answers.
Members of the collective all share an interest in alternative relationship and family structures, and have supported many clients through the process of exploring these kinds of questions.
They created this workshop series to share tools and insights they have developed over the course of their practice, and facilitate a wider space for this kind of reflection.
what we cover
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This taster event will get the conversation started, and invite you to reflect on your relationship experiences and aspirations.
Each member of the Hedgerow team (Alex, Anna, Dean, Effy and Nina) will share their insights into navigating our modern unmapped relationship terrain, through the lens of five powerful emotions - Fear, Shame, Desire, Hope, and Tenderness - that show up time and time again in relationships (whether we we want them to or not).
This will then be followed by a panel discussion, an outline of what is to follow in the series, and a Q&A.
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The title for this workshop is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference to the common tendency of couples newly opening up their relationship to set lots of rules for what “is and isn’t allowed”.
But this isn’t the only kind of relationship where people implicitly and explicitly rely on rules. It is a very human trait to try and control any situation which creates anxiety - and constructing rules is one very common way we attempt to do this. In this workshop, we explore the pitfalls of getting locked into a rules-based way of thinking.
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“Attachment” is a big buzzword in popular culture these days, but it’s often oversimplified and misunderstood. In this workshop, we hope to move beyond simple labels to develop a deeper understanding of attachment and how it plays out in relationship dynamics.
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“Conflict” is a scary word for many people. In this workshop, we hope to show that conflict is an inevitable and, in fact, healthy part of all human relationships - though that doesn’t necessarily make it any less scary!
We will unpack common counterproductive approaches to conflict - and explore how they can arise as ways to manage difficult emotions. This will be a practical workshop, exploring different strategies for navigating conflict and reclaiming it as a source of creativity within a relationship.
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In this workshop we return to attachment - focusing on practical strategies for being with the powerful feelings relationships bring up, and embracing the vulnerability inherent in opening ourselves up to attachment. We emphasize the importance of finding and cultivating safety and care within ourselves, alongside our relationships with others - and think about what it means to do that in practice.
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“Boundaries” is another word that seems to be everywhere, but is easy to oversimplify or misuse. In this workshop, we explore an approach to boundaries focused on our needs rather than our expectations of others.
We grapple with knotty issues like: What compromises do we make for the sake of a relationship? What conditions should we place on love? And what can we reasonably commit to when the future is intrinsically uncertain?
Eventually we return full circle, noticing how healthy boundaries differ from rules rooted in fear.