You’re listening to episode number 243, How New Experiences Build Connection. I’m so thrilled to welcome back to the show my friend Kristin B. Hodson. Kristin has been on the show twice before. I will link her other episodes in the show notes. (Episode 90: Intentional Intimacy, Episode 156: Let’s Talk About Sex )

Introducing Kristin

Let me tell you a little bit about her as we get started.

Kristin is a licensed clinical social worker and a certified sex therapist. She’s been practicing for over 15 years working with individuals and couples in pursuing their vision of sexual health. She’s the founder and CEO of the Healing Group, a mental health specialty clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah.

She’s a mom of three humans and one dog and is currently (as we recorded this episode) in India accompanying her daughter who is performing in an international Broadway tour. Wild and exciting, right?

Along with her husband Jake, Kristen is also the co-host of our upcoming Novios Couples Adventure and Connection retreat that will be happening in November in Costa Rica.

When I started hosting in-person retreats about five years ago, my focus was on women, all the retreats that I’ve hosted so far have been groups of wonderful, creative, incredible women coming together, creating space for each other. I try to take really good care of these women so that they have fun, they have new experiences, they learn and develop, they enjoy themselves, make new friends, and come away feeling better than they did before.

From the beginning, I’ve gotten requests for hosting couples retreats. I’ve had several people reach out and say, I would love to come to your retreat, and I would love it even more if my spouse could come with me. My answer was always the same. I don’t really host couples.

I work with women. My focus has always been on teaching women and hosting women. After so many different requests for a couple’s retreat, I realized what I needed was a perfect partner to host couples, and Kristin immediately came to mind.

I’ve been a fan of Kristin’s work for years. We have collaborated on a couple podcast episodes over the last few years, and when I reached out to ask her about this possibility of developing a couple’s adventure and connection retreat together in the location of Costa Rica, which I knew we had a mutual love for, her answer was immediate and affirmative. She said absolutely! I would love to do that, and like she’ll share later in this episode, it’s something that she and I have both been looking forward to for over a year when I first floated the idea.

One of the reasons we’re both so excited about bringing couples together in this type of an environment is that we know the benefits that happen within a relationship when you share adventures and new experiences together outside of the context of your everyday life. This is one of the reasons why travel in general is so good for us, for our minds and bodies and spirits and connections and friendships. And imagine couples travel where you don’t have to worry about the logistics? It’s going to be amazing.

To start off the episode, I’m going to begin with a quick pause for a poem, and then we’ll jump into the interview with Kristen.

Segment: Pause for a Poem

Such heat! It brings the brain back to its basic blank. Small, recurrent events become the daily news- the white-nosed coati treading the cecropia’s bending thin branches like sidewalks in the sky, the scarlet-rumped tanager flitting like a spark in the tinder of dank green, the nodding palm leaves perforated like Jacquard cards in a code of wormholes,

the black hawk skimming nothingness over and over. What does the world’s wide brimming mean, with hunger

the unstated secret, dying the proximate reality? Con mucho gusto-the muchness extends to the stars, as wet and numerous as larvae underground where the ants in their preset patterns scurry and nurture, and the queen, immobilized, pours forth her eggs in the dark. We are far from oaks and stoplights,

from England’s chill classrooms and Tuscany’s paved hills. For thought is a stridulation, an insect sizzling, knit of the moment’s headlines and temperate-zone quips, viable in the debris of our rotting educations, that thatch where peer-groups call each to each in semes

ecosystematically. Great God Himself wilts with a rise in temperature, a drop in soil acidity, a new language in its grimacing opacity. The brain’s dry buzz revives, a bit, as evening falls.

Pura Vida by John Updike

Sponsor: Novios Retreat

Today’s show is sponsored by the Novios Retreat. We have two spots left, two couples invited to join us on this tropical adventure build connection and new friendships. Relax into the all-inclusive experience, built intimacy and higher connection. Learn and grow as an individual and as a couple and create memories that will sustain you for years.

Novios is an expertly planned itinerary with a balance of adventure experiences, relaxing free time, and relationship-building workshops. It’s six days, five nights with incredible thoughtful accommodations and itinerary expertly planned for you. Connection workshops will be taught by Kristen Hodson and myself, Miranda Anderson.

This is relationship building and memory making with your partner in a planned-for-your tropical vacation setting, at its best. For all the information and to apply for Novios, visit the link in the show notes.

Now let’s jump into the interview with Kristen.

Interview with Kristin

Miranda:  Kristen, welcome back to the show. So happy to have you here again. You have been my most frequently requested guest, and so I’m so excited to share another episode with your expertise and, and your wonderful insight.

Kristin: Thank you. Thanks for having me back. I have loved being on your show both prior times.

Miranda: Awesome. Thank you. For people who aren’t as familiar with you, I’ll link all the previous shows that we’ve done together in the show notes, but give us a little quick intro to you, what you’re up to, and tell us a little bit about your time in Costa Rica.

I mentioned that we’re leading this group retreat together there this fall. And I’d love to just hear a little bit more about your experiences there.

Kristin: Okay. I am a licensed clinical social worker and certified sex therapist. I have been practicing for 16 years now. I’m based in Salt Lake City and have my husband, three children and dog.

And in 2018, my husband pitched me with the idea to kind of uproot our family and go to Costa Rica. And admittedly I was not a go, but he really felt strongly that we needed to do something for our relationship and for our family, that we were a bit in a relational and familial rut. Mm-hmm. And reluctantly I went, and it was probably the best, well, it wasn’t probably, it was the best decision in our family’s life.

And it truly was one of the pivoting points in my marriage and the gifts we were able to gain from living abroad together as a family. Sharing one car and just having all these new experiences are one of the reasons why when there was the opportunity to lead this retreat with you in Costa Rica, it was an easy yes for me because there is so much to be gained from having new experiences.

As a couple. That’s so

Miranda: Awesome. I feel the same way about. Being, well, my first experience in Costa Rica was by myself, but it was that same sort of rut feeling I was in college and felt like I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I felt like if I just stayed doing, you know, random classes to sort of get through whatever degree, I would just end up kind of at the end of the pathway that everyone takes.

And so rather than continue that, I took a semester, went to Costa Rica, with the intention to just learn Spanish and after. You know, eight, I don’t know, eight, 12 weeks, however long I was there, I came home feeling like an entirely different person, just like having mm-hmm. Experiences, shaping perspective, meeting new people, feeling totally vulnerable in this, you know, kind of outside of my element, but that.

Just kind of changed my whole pathway. So, it’s been fun to go back several times, both by myself, with my family, and with my husband. And I’m so excited to go and share this experience with you and Jake and with these couples who are, who are coming down for this fall. So, thanks so much for sharing that.

And the last couple episodes we’ve done have been specifically talking about intimacy, intentional intimacy, learning about building intimacy and connection in your relationship. And we’re going to talk about that today. Without so much of the sex, more of the, the connection that happens in your mind and your relationship and your family and your coupleship, because of exposure to new experiences and to adventures.

And of course, we’ll probably talk about how those things all work together, that you know how connected you are in your home. Yes, necessarily means that you’re going to be connected in your bedroom. Yes,

Kristin: and I’m, I’m so glad you said that, because they have everything to do with sex and nothing to do with sex.

And oftentimes when people are wanting to reconnect intimately, it. It’s in these other experiences that they’re able to reform that connection, which then forms a natural pathway forward to connect intimately. So, it, it is, it’s exciting to talk about all these other things that will contribute to feeling connected intimately and just emotionally and relationally.

Miranda: It’s, it’s been funny, and fun as Dave and I have been preparing for and talking about and getting excited about the retreat. He sort of cheekily calls it sex camp, and every time he says that I, it’s not sex camp, I’m not like, that’s not what it meant to be, but I think he kind of loves this idea of like, oh, we’re going with, you know, with this kind of focus on intimacy.

And I’m like, it is, but it isn’t. And so, I like how you said it’s all about sex, but it’s not about sex. Because the retreat is not like a sex camp. 

Kristin: I do want to talk about it. Because I think when people initially heard it, they’re like, they probably came up with a similar idea, like, this is sex camp with a bunch of couples, I don’t know.

You know, it’s, it’s vulnerable enough to talk about sex within your relationship, let alone strangers. And so, I’m glad you’re bringing it up so that we can clear the air on that. I also just want to put a pin that this is the first retreat that I’m doing alongside Jake, my partner and I, I don’t know if it’s the first retreat, you’re doing it alongside your partner, but yes.

What, what that dynamic is going to bring is I’m loving. That they’re going to bring this masculine and this male energy and the partner element to this connection, which is going to be it. It’s honestly going to be more different than anything that I’ve led. And I am excited, and it will be, it will have.

At the root of it, yes, I am a sex therapist, but we are going to be focusing on connection and the elements that build. We’re not going to be, I mean, I guess you can go to awkward movies where if you can imagine sex camp, like none of that will be happening. The strengths in the room are to help. One of my strengths is to have people feel comfortable and safe around uncomfortable topics and confidently knowing how to lead. While this is my first retreat with Jake, this is not the first time I have led multiple couples or groups in situations like this and feel very confident in creating a safe boundary container where we’re all able to have a wonderful time having connecting experiences.

Miranda: I love that. And I feel like this is absolutely my first retreat with Dave and I’m so excited because I, this’ll probably be my 12th or 13th group retreat that I’ve led over the last five years. And I feel like what I’ve brought to the table is a real focus on, at an attention to detail, which I’m, I, I love the, the details of a retreat and the thoughtful touches that make it just feel over the top special. But there’s something about creating a container for connection.

And I think the, the further into technologically advanced life that we get in this 21st century, the further away we get from real, in-person in the room together. Meeting other people. Meeting our spouses in a new way, connection. And I feel so deeply about that and am so excited to foster an environment where connection can really thrive.

And that’s what we want to talk about today. We’re going to share five ways that. New experiences, new adventures going outside of your typical day-to-day life and your typical comfort zone can foster connection. And I loved when we were just chatting a little bit before we hopped on the call, I loved that the first, one of the first things you mentioned was the newness and awe that happens in the beginning of relationship.

Yes. You’re able to rediscover that when you’re in a new environment, even as a very older or comfortable couple. So, elaborate a little bit on this newness that happens in a new environment.

Five Ways New Experiences Build Connection

1. Newness Invites Attention

Kristin: I think a lot of couples. Cherished and missed that new feeling that you get. You get these sparks, and you have these experiences over the longevity of your relationship.

But when you get into a new environment, it pulls up, I call it like this newness and awe where you are rediscovering new things together. You might. Share this fun like drink on the beach and you’re sharing it together and you’re like, Ooh, yes, I love it. And you’re talking about it. Or you both decide to try a new activity like paddle boarding that you’ve never done, and you’re laughing and you’re clumsy, and you get to re-experience the newness and laughter and joy that you had at the beginning of your relationship by just simply stepping into new circumstances and.

New areas that you don’t, you don’t have to create it or force it cause it just, it just happens. It occurs because you’ve said yes to something new and a new environment.

Miranda:  I love thinking about the sort of giddiness and that that chemistry that happens at the beginning of a relationship where you’re hyper aware of everything that’s happening.

You notice what they’re wearing, and you notice, you know mm-hmm. How new bodies are in relationship to each other. And part of that is simply because in new environments, our brains must take in. Information to decide what is relevant and what’s not. And the more comfortable and the more routine you get in a relationship, the more your brain turns off because it knows.

Mm-hmm. This is just part of our regular day. This is just what we do. This is how, how we do it. This is. What he looks like. It may be, I mean, I don’t know for those of you listening, but sometimes it, you, you mean look at your partner every day for months and there will be a day when you look at them and you see them for the first time in months because for whatever reason you’re, you just know what they look like and something is a little bit different and you see them and you’re like, oh my gosh.

Like we look at this person and it can be exciting and that whole thing, your brain turns back on again. When you Yes. Put your entire self in a new environment, and like you said, you don’t have to engineer it. It happens automatically because when everything’s new, our brains wake up and there’s something really cool about that.

Kristin: You’ve triggered something of shift, like changing context when sometimes we just need, when you’re in that routine, you’re in your bedroom with the laundry and you’ve got to wake up and you’ve got to do breakfast, and that’s your context. Having new and different context can really support new and different connections.

You can be yearning for a new connection, but you’re in the same context. And at times people can feel really stuck. And this can very organically and authentic, authentically break people out of that, that stuckness by creating. Sometimes you just need to shift context. Totally.

Miranda: I totally agree. That’s the first reason or the first sort of big benefit of getting into a new environment, having a new experience, is that the newness does come back.

2. Fostering Friendship

The second thing that we want to talk about is friendship. This is such a simple, fundamental, and off forgotten piece of a marital relationship. People can love each other and after years maybe not like each other very much. And so fostering friendship happens through spending time together, doing fun things.

Kristin: That that is just it right there. Like simply said, having time and space to be together and do fun things uninterrupted, and the number of couples that I’ve worked with navigating the parenting stages of life, feeling like they don’t have the opportunity. They would love to go on a date, but they’re, they’re navigating their children and their jobs and their life, and they don’t have time.

Or they’re like, we’d love to cuddle at night, but our kid comes in the room, and we can’t, we don’t even have time. We can’t even do, do that. And I love what John and Julie Gottman have shown in their research that relationships where friendship is strong are the ones that have. The greatest longevity and endurance because they have, they’re having fun.

They see each other again, not just as managing logistics, like my partner to manage logistics, that gets super dry and that’s not why you got together in the first place. Like when you got together in the first place, you’re doing a lot of fun things like friends do. And then we get into this place where we are like time managers and doing all the roles and responsibilities of.

An adulting and like you get to put down, you get to be like adulting in super fun ways. Playing.

Miranda: Absolutely. We don’t go into marriage thinking this will be a fun person to run a business with. We think like, oh, this is who I want to spend my life, yet this is what I, who I want to spend my time.

Yes. My free time with. And like you said, it gets all filled up and Dave and I have had a great habit for probably over a decade now of going on a weekly date night. And it’s fun. E even, I mean, I absolutely love it. It’s great. We’ve done a great job of it. I think it really has helped keep our relationship fresh.

And, even that sometimes, because it’s, yes, our weekly date night the same time that that’s right. You know, we go to new restaurants and stuff. But it’s kind of a funny thing that even a weekly date night can become routine when that’s the thing you always do. And so, getting outside of even those types of contexts can be helpful.

One of my favorites I did a show last year or the year before about building friendship as an adult. Mm-hmm. And there was this cool research study about timelines and friendship, how much time you spend with people to go from acquaintance all the way to like good friend. Mm. And the researchers.

Found that it had a lot to do with actual hours spent together. And I think about that in terms of my relationship that at the beginning when Dave and I didn’t have any kids, and we were both in school and I mean we were, we were busy in terms of like being adults with jobs and in school, but we spent hours together every day because there wasn’t and hours together all night.

Yes. Whereas we’ve gotten older and more, you know, had, have more kids, and have more creatures and have more hobbies and other things. I mean, I could probably count on two hands the number of hours, quality time that we spend together each week. Yep. And that’s not enough to sustain a lasting friendship.

Kristin: It’s one of those things when I’m working with a lot of couples and, and they’re feeling disconnected when we look at how much time they’re getting together, they’re getting very little, which is hopeful. That’s like the good news in all of it, of be like, well, of course you’re feeling disconnected.

You have no time to just be friends and go enjoy each other’s company. And so, when we travel, we create this special container where we get time back and we get to, to claim that quality time that, that we often don’t get in our day to day, just to be able to be together.

Miranda: Absolutely, and that sustains us over time. Dave and I went to Costa Rica for our anniversary two years ago and we spent 10 days together. That was the longest couples’ trip that we had done in, in a quite a long time. Because our kids are getting a little older and we can leave them for longer.

And we still regularly refer to and talk about experiences that we had together during that. Container, like you said. Because it was so fundamental to reestablishing our connection and our relationship as this sort of new season of parents, of teenagers, and yes, I, I’m so glad that we took the time, made the investment both of time and money and planning and logistics to, to make it happen because it’s feeding our relationship even years later.

Kristin: That I completely get that when Jake and I give ourselves opportunity to have time and, and it is through travel. I think that’s why you and I are so excited about this is it has completely reinvigorated our friendship and we are reminded of like, oh yeah, we like totally to like each other and love each other.

Like, we love each other, but we really like each other. Like you’re fun. Like there’s that, Hey, you’re fun instead of. Gosh, where did, how did we get into these people? And I think that’s what I’m probably most excited about, is the opportunity to be like, I’m fun. Like this is, this is underneath everything that I’m doing as a parent and like all the things.

And so that friendship piece, just having the time to be friends and see e see each other in that light again.

3. Risk and Vulnerability

Miranda: It’ll be awesome. Next, I want to talk about risk taking and the learning and stretching that happens when we do things that might be a little bit difficult or unexpected together.

Kristin: I mean, risk taking, for a lot of people, we can just go to a place of vulnerability. For some people having conversations about intimacy with their spouse is a risk and. There are times when we can avoid those risks because we can, but just by traveling and getting on a plane to an unknown place where we don’t totally know the train is a risk and it requires and draws in different parts of ourselves that are very vulnerable, and we rely on each other differently.

We open to each other differently and risk allows us to move beyond our comfort zone. And, and push a bit of our, our growth edge. And when we don’t put ourselves in the position of having some level of risk, that’s where we can find ourselves in a rut. And I think as I think about Costa Rica, there are, so, when I think of risk, it’s just simply saying yes to new experiences.

It’s being invited in to try something new. And that can be a risk of like, I, I have never hopped on a surfboard. I’m going to just give that a go and give myself the, the feeling of and permission to just not, not know how to do something and laugh about it and be figuring this out. Or I’m going to say yes to going down a waterside on a, a river and.

Jumping into unknown waters, like metaphorically and literally. And so, when we say yes to risks, that can very much translate into our relationships in ways that we will continue to benefit many years later, that when we realize we have the capacity to tolerate these, these new experiences, and risks, and they’re healthy for our relationship and our own personhood.

Miranda: I think that this, that Novios will be an interesting place for people to be able to experiment with that. Because of the psychological safety that we are going to provide as hosts. Yes. Being able to prep people a little bit for how to support each other. What does it look like to be encouraging and supportive of your partner as they’re trying something new?

What does that communication look like? How can we all develop that? Even if we have a great relationship, that there are things that we may be missing or forgetting as we’re all going into new experiences together. How to hold that you know, loving, encouraging space for each other because it’s. A vulnerable time for everyone and knowing that it’s not like a risk of falling off a cliff, it’s like a risk of you.

You will be caught, you will be held, and you will benefit and learn through these experiences together. And there’s something really cool as adults, just in general as adults, about learning new things because. For whatever reason, our culture seems to believe that we sort of hit adulthood and then we’re done, and we just know everything.

Right? And so, there’s, there’s not a lot out there in the world in career building in e even in parenthood. There’s sort of an expectation that you’re just supposed to know how to do everything and that something’s wrong with you if you’re a beginner. And the truth is that that beginner mindset is what enables us to continue Yes.

Learning and development through our lifespan. Yes. And. This opportunity. Creating opportunities for people to learn and grow together is really, cool.

Kristin: I’m so glad you said. When it comes to risk, the opportunity to rediscover the beginner’s mindset, because we have it so honestly. When we’re born and when we’re little and we approach things because we’re excited about them because they look fun, because our friend is like, hey, let’s go do this.

And we very much have this beginner mindset. We’re not running scenarios of what if I can’t do this or how am I going to look? Or none of that. And, and like you said, us being able to create a container of a beginner’s mindset to know, like the, the metaphor I love is when if you imagine people jumping out of a plane, The way that you can take that risk is because they know, like often they’re in tandem with an expert.

Yes. And they’ve got their parachute on, and so they can take that risk because they’re the whole, there’s so much safety that allows them to take it. And so that’s the, I think that’s important piece to all of this is that the container that’s going to be created to support people in having new experiences and that, that those can be positive?

4. Building Creativity

Miranda: Absolutely. Learning and growing. One of the pieces that I’ve been really like deeply, I’m like neck deep in the study of everyday creativity and how creativity benefits in our daily lives. And one of the pieces of research that’s been just wildly exciting for me is this idea of combining things that are comfortable and known with things that are entirely unknown and that creativity exists in that meeting place of what is known and what is unknown and sort of the bridging of different people from different pieces of life. Or when you travel, you take with you maybe things that you know from your background, but then you encounter all these things that are totally unknown.

And it’s that sort of interesting balance of bridging the known and the unknown. And I think that in general, new experiences allow us to build creativity and, and like innovation and problem solving in our everyday lives because we are. Out experiencing things that are foreign, that are different and absolutely.

In this retreat, it will happen in a lot of different aspects. One, I mean, and, and think of as I share these, those of you listening can think of how you can engineer other experiences like this. One thing that’s going to be known is your partner, because it’s a couple’s retreat, so you’re going with your partner who you know well, and then the unknown is that you’re going to be with a group.

Of other couples who we are planning on doing some calls and a couple group things ahead of time so that people know each other, just like, you know, have some familiarity and we can be friends before we head mm-hmm. Down there. But we’re going to get to know different couples and how they do things differently and their personalities will be different.

And, and then we’ll be in this entirely new place and space, and we’ll try these new, new skills and, and adventure activities. And there’s just going to be this kind of nice bridge of known and unknown. Building in ways to take home innovation and, and new ideas.

Kristin: And it’s true! Right now I’m in India and me, I am, it has been so invigorating to be reinspired and to re like that, those creative juices have completely been flowing and that is just such good energy.

To feel, and I love that you just brought up, it’s the, the bridging of the known and the unknown. And I, I have been reminded why I love to travel is I love to feel those feelings of creativity and have new ideas and freshness spark

Miranda: up again. Mm-hmm. And doing that with your partner where you.

Sometimes I travel. I mean, I travel a lot without Dave, and so I’ll come home and try to sort of like share it and explain it and he can follow along. But until he’s there experiencing it with me, he just, it’s just hard to, to like to have it sink in all the way. So, there’s something so special about traveling as a couple where you can.

Not just come home and share about all the adventures that you had and all the things that you saw and did, but that you’re doing those things in tandem and you’re sharing these deep, you know, unique, different, sometimes, you know, totally mind-blowing experiences together and that those then. You can, you know, bounce off each other moving forward and say, hey, remember when we were in Costa Rica in this thing?

You know, we saw this. Yes. How can we apply that to our life at home? It just becomes part of your memory bank of like inspiration, which is cool. Yep, absolutely. And so wrapping up kind of these are all kind of leading in one to another. The, the final thing that we want to share about is the idea of perspective and how you gain perspective through new experiences that can benefit you in your relationship and at home.

5. Increased Perspective

Kristin: and I just want to plant this, that I have a bonus six thing that as we’re talking about Oh, great. A bonus thing of travel and how it helps. But I think again, when you can experience different cultures, experience different parts of the world, how people do things, it allows you to zoom out and get.

Like not reoriented, but sometimes we can get so myopic in how we’re viewing our lives, our relationship, our problems, the solutions, which that’s where creativity and inspiration can come in, and the newness that when we zoom out, we can get a new perspective That absolutely stays with us when we return to our home.

But there is something to be said of having new ways of doing. The things we’re used to doing. Mm-hmm. I mean, just case in point, transportation in Costa Rica, I remember driving and we landed at the airport and, and so this is a, you, and I both now know how to travel through Costa Rica, but I remember when Jake and I landed there with our family, and we were.

Needing to get out to our, the house that we had rented. And it was like, you’re going to go to this road, you’re going to turn left at the giant cow and then you’re going to go like, that’s really what it was. And we’re like, okay. And there truly was a giant cow. It was a huge like cow statue that you can’t miss.

They weren’t wrong, but there was totally. Different perspective and just to see that there’s more than one way to do things that is so healthy for a relationship where we can get stuck on the right way instead of Right. Oh, there are so many ways to do the same thing. And so, you can pull out of gridlock that can occur, or you can just start to explore other ways to do the things that you’ve been doing for so long.

Miranda: absolutely. I have a coaching client who recently spent over a week in Iceland with her husband, and on a call after the trip, she was telling me a little bit about it, and she said, we just have such a great time when we’re together and we have all this time, and then when we get home, Everything goes so fast, and it’s like all of the things that we really love about spending time together get absorbed into our everyday life.

So, we spend some time for the rest of the call talking about how you take what. Those experiences that were created and that you learned that you loved about this trip and translate them into realistic, an applicable thing in your everyday life. And we came up with several examples of how to bring some of that Icelandic.

You know, slowness into their daily lives, and it takes a shift in perspective, and it takes a little bit of an adjustment of like, but this is the way we do things. And questioning, do we have to do it that way? Just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. And if we That’s right. Want to live a little bit more slowly, or if we want to, whatever it is.

Maybe it’s that you go to Costa Rica, you realize you really love hiking, and you don’t do a lot of hiking at home. How do you bring those things and infuse them into your daily life so that you. Feel like you’re living more aligned with just all your values and goals and hopes and dreams, rather than always needing to take a vacation to feel good that I That’s right.

Think that vacations help you live your daily life better and more meaningfully and that’s right. So, I think that is a piece of the perspective that’s so great that you don’t know what you’re missing until you go experience it and then you can bring it home with you. That’s right.

Kristin: It’s like the, that’s the best perspective is one of the best souvenirs you can possibly take from travel.

Miranda: Absolutely. I love it. Oh, I’m excited.

Bonus: Anticipation

Kristin: I guess, you don’t know what it, but I wrote down, I was like travel and having a trip on the horizon. Gives you the gift of anticipation. And when we have something to anticipate and to dream about and to talk about and to look ahead too, that alone is invigorating.

And that also reconnects us with that earlier energy of when we were dating. And we would anticipate when we would get to see them again. Like, oh, Friday night’s coming, or we get to anticipate because we have this plan on the horizon. When we give ourselves something to anticipate, which this is happening in November.

Mm-hmm. We have so much to look forward to and I know that I am anticipating it. I know that for me, when we solidified this, this is like my most looked for. I’m looking forward to it in all my 2023. I am. I’m not living for tomorrow, but I will tell you, I am so excited. Of, and, and Jake and I are dreaming together and like it’s reconnected us in that way where we get to dream together and talk about all the fun things we want to do and experiences we want to share.

Miranda: Absolutely. It, that’s such a good one. And it’s like, it’s a great reminder because there’s, there’s wild research about how sometimes the anticipation of something is the same as, or better than the experience itself can be the best part.

Kristin: true.

Miranda: The, the further in advance you decide, and you plan on doing something fun, the more you get to enjoy it all the way until it happens.

And I think sometimes that anticipation infuses the experience itself with such great energy because you have been looking forward to it and savoring it in advance that you pay attention to how great it is as it’s happening. Because you were just really excited about it and looking forward to it.

More Specific Benefits of Novios Retreat

And I’ll just plug for Novios as well, that. Some of the best parts of vacation are going to be fully intact for the attendees and some of the difficult parts like planning and logistics, figuring out the transportation, making decisions about where to eat and what to go, and how to spend your time.

We are taking care of all the potentially negative pitfalls of vacation planning for you. So, it is a all-inclusive, delightful, adventure, connective experience that you just come. Just come and let us help you. Experience all this connection and, and joy and adventure together without having to worry about all the details.

I happen to love the details. Like I mentioned earlier, that’s one of my favorite parts. Yes, the details and, and the, and the logistics is, is very much in my wheelhouse. And so, I’m, I’ve been so excited putting it all together and just knowing that it’s such a relief for people. I mean, in all the retreats that I do, I have women sometimes sit down with tears in their eyes as dinner served to them saying, I don’t remember the last time that I didn’t have to make myself a meal for several days in a row.

And I didn’t have, you know, didn’t have to think about it just to be taken care of. And so, one of my primary values as a host is to just really take good care of the folks who come retreat with us. So, I’m, I’m really excited to provide that type of a bonus experience as well. It’s not just like a couple’s vacation, it’s.

A thoughtfully prepared all-inclusive adventure vacation where you don’t have to. Deal with all the, the, the potentially negative things, and you got to just enjoy your time.

Kristin: Well, and to put down the mental load. Like oftentimes if you are the planner in your relationship, the idea of going on a trip, it sounds nice in theory, but if you’re the one that’s left to coming up with all the details, the agenda, executing it, buying the plane tickets, booking the hotel, that can also be exhausting.

Where you’re like that I’m not, I get the benefit and I don’t have the energy to do all of that. And so, what you’re saying is, All of that. You, you don’t have to till with any of the mental load. You truly, both of you get to enjoy the experience and we are going to take care of you.

Miranda: Absolutely. I’m going to just do a quick run through just recap the things that we talked about today.

The benefits of experiencing new things with your spouse are:

1. Having that newness and awe like you did in the beginning of your relationship.
2. Building your friendship by spending time together, discovering new things.
3. Learning through risk taking.
4. Building creativity and problem solving
5. Adding perspective
6. Being able to anticipate things that are fun coming up in the future.

I hope that this, whether you’re coming to Novios or not, I hope that these ideas will spark some creative thoughts for you about how can you include some of these perspectives, some of these ideas into your daily lives or into your summer plans or your fall plans so that your relationship can benefit from the connection of new experiences and adventures together.

Do you have any last thoughts or ideas you want to share, Kristen, before we close out today?

Kristin: No, I think that that was such a good recap and just to let, hopefully people have just. Felt inspired through this and have ideas, like they said, if they don’t come to Novios, just to have new ideas to reinvigorate their relationship and to find connection.

So, I think it’s a great place to end.

Miranda: Awesome. Well, I again, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time. I hope you enjoy your last couple weeks in India, and then I’ll be so excited to see you in Costa Rica in November. I know it’s going to be great. Okay, I’ll talk to you soon. See you later.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope that these tips, ideas of how having new experiences really cultivating and intentionally seeking out new experiences with your partner can build connection within your relationship. This is the idea behind the Novios retreat. And it’s something that you can experience in your daily life if you’re looking for it.