St. Paul’s Free University

Date: February 7 – 13, 2020

Time: 5PM PST

In this free online live event, join us in the week before Valentines day to focus on developing a vibrant and healthy relationship with your significant other. For all those in a relationship or singles seeking to attract their perfect soulmate in to their life.

Developing a strong relationship is more than just talk. It takes real commitment and the correct perspective to turn your lover in to the love of your life.

Formatted as 4 short 10 minute takes every day for a week from 4 expert SPFU instructors from a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. See our schedule below.

View the event live on Facebook on the St. Paul’s Free University page.

Phase 1: Falling in Love

Live: Feb 7th, 2020; 5pm

Dating yourself

Wendy Lynn Johnson

Try something new date yourself. Why would you want to do that you may ask? It will help you figure out what qualities and attributes you have to offer someone else as well as learn what exactly you need and want in a partner. If you don’t or can’t love yourself first how can you expect someone else to love you? If you are not clear on what your desires and needs are in a partner how will you know if they are the right one for you? Start by getting to know yourself.

Permaculture Relationships: Planting the Seed

Daniel Mark Schwartz

Taking inspiration in nature, Permaculture Relationships series of talks explores the lessons of natural living when it comes to developing a fulfilling and rich romantic relationship. In the spring time of romantic love, passions are high and love is in the air. And this is exactly the time when we need to take care to plant the tree that bears the fruit of our desires. Too often new couples jump head long in to their desires without pausing to implement these few simple planning techniques.

With a little common sense and a return to all to uncommon simplicity in life, new couples have the opportunity to lay the foundation decades of future harvest.

Looking for Love and Finding Something

David M Masters

They say, “seek and you will find,” and when you’re looking for love and finding something, you may be surprised to discover what you’re finding is the opposite of what you’re looking for. They say, “opposites attract,” but this is ridiculous. Stop looking for love in the wrong places and get the love you desire by not looking for love but being the love you long for. What’s the difference between love and attraction?  Instead of wondering, “Where can I find love,” you can attract your soulmate, that special person who is uniquely matched to you, by changing your love vibration to match that which you seek.

7 Signs Your Partner is Right for You

Amy Elmore

When you are in the first phase of a relationship (falling in love) it can be challenging to take off the rose colored glasses to see someone for what and who they truly are. At some point you will need to return to earth from your walk in the clouds and place your feet firmly on the ground, especially if you are looking for a serious long-term relationship. How can you look past the best behavior to see someone’s authentic self? It takes a willingness to be honest to see your sweetheart without partiality no matter how “twitterpated” you are. While these 7 signs require very little digging or effort, they do depend on your sincerity.

Phase 2: Coupling

Live: Feb 8th, 2020; 5pm

How Long do You Date Before Becoming Boyfriend Girlfriend?

David M Masters

Coupling is all about transitioning from a dating relationship, getting to know each other better, to a more significant relationship which is more exclusive in nature where we are concentrating on each other to see if more depth and meaning is awaiting our relationship and to discover more about our compatibility and potential of loving each other. So, how long do you date before becoming boyfriend/girlfriend, and what does it mean to be in this next phase of love? Can friends become a couple? As you become a couple you might ask when should you move in with your significant other?

7 Couple Goals that Cause Both Envy and Competitiveness

Amy Elmore

We have all seen the cutesy pictures on every social media platform labeled #CoupleGoals that makes us both envious and feeling the need to post similar images in our social media feeds. But, instead of falling into this alternative and modern level of “Keeping up with the Jones” let’s take a deeper look. Past the perfect make-up, matching clothes, and photo-ops the underlying meaning and message is a desire to be a success in our relationship. These pictures reveal the goals we hope to reach and possibly show to the world, a relationship full of romance, adventures, material success, vulnerability, complete trust, and being best friends besides lovers.

Permaculture Relationships: Choosing the Right Zone

Daniel Mark Schwartz

The young permaculture couple are ready to start making a commitment and staking out ground to make their relationship a reality. Following the wisdom of nature and taking inspiration from permaculture design, now is the time for building common sense connections in your life that take the work out of building a relationship. By leveraging your natural strengths a weaknesses, consciously choosing proper boundaries, and making the most of a natural lifestyle, this the opportunity in your relationship to inspire tremendous growth in your fledgling romantic ecosystem.

Questions to ask yourself before taking that next step.

Wendy Lynn Johnson

Dating, becoming a couple, questions to ask yourself before taking that next step in becoming a couple. The things you must know before taking the next steps into a relationship. Not only about the person you are considering dating however the things you must know and love about yourself.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of falling for someone new; everything is exciting, and you discover so much about yourself and the other person throughout the entire process. It truly feels euphoric. However, before you start picturing your life with them, you might want to take a few steps back and evaluate the situation before you develop feelings. We will explore what those important questions are to see if you really should be taking that plunge into a potential relationship.

Love with Lolo: What do you think of online dating?

Phase 3: Sober Up

Live: Feb 9th, 2020; 5pm

7 Ways to Survive the Post-Honeymoon Phase

Amy Elmore

The dreaded “The Honeymoon is Over” phase can make or break some relationships, this is a time when a relationship can no longer depend on romance to blind one another of the foibles and flaws we all have. The newness wears off and unless you have established a strong bond or have taken time to really know your partner beneath the surface, your relationship might not survive the shift from superficial romance into long-term security. However, this relationship phase is a good time to strengthen and deepen your connection to your romantic partner. As long as you have a good foundation to start with, the rough periods always bring opportunities to improve relationship skills.

Infatuation vs. Love

David M Masters

What is love? What is infatuation? What is the difference between love and infatuation? And does it make a difference? If you’re looking for a truly meaningful and deep relationship little is more important in your search for a true love partner. If you’re partner’s infatuated and you’re looking for something more, it could be a problem. But what if you’re in “fatuation” instead of love? It goes both ways when you wake up out of the love-drug-infused romantic whirlwind? Can infatuation turn into love? Can friends become lovers? Can you be friends once you’ve been there? What can you do to preserve the sacred space for having all the love your heart desires?

Real love vs In Love

Wendy Lynn Johnson

You have taken the plunge into a relationship maybe even moved in together. Life may not seem to be that blissful as you had anticipated. You had such high hopes. You were so in love you were going to make each other supremely happy, blissful. Other couples argue and fight not us. We love each other. You were not totally naïve. You knew that eventually you would have differences. However certain you would be able to discuss those difference openly. You have now arrived and neither of you are feeling so open. Now its time to pursue real love. I will help you see the difference between the In-love experience and how it does not focus on our own growth nor the growth or development of our partner. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived. You will recognize the in love experience for what it is a temporary emotional high and now pursue real love. The kind of love that unites reason and emotion. It is the kind of love that involves a willingness and requires discipline, It recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic need is to be genuinely loved by another.

Permaculture Relationships: Survival of the Fittest

Daniel Mark Schwartz

Continuing our course of conscious relationship building inspired by nature and permaculture design, we now come the rising action of our newlyweds story. Nothing worth having comes easy, and this is best exemplified by the natural axiom that that which is no longer growing is dying. Nature has a way of weeding you anything which is no longer serving a constructive purpose, and this is the time in your relationship to fight for survival. When living a more natural lifestyle, hard work is inevitably a component of life. But it need not be destructive. In this talk I’ll discuss ways to leverage the inevitable stormy days to strengthen the relationship and further swell eventual fruits to be had during the later stages of love and relationship maturity.

Does past love affect your choices in future love/romance?

Rosa M Luna

Do you wake up one day to find out you’ve done it again? What do you think? Do you keep attracting the same kind of partners? How could you change that destructive cycle? Discover how true this is… Why? why? why?

Is this you doing this?

Choosing the same personalities, habits, and emotionally unavailable partners, over and over again! Sometimes you do try not to make the same mistake in picking a mate, friend or lover. “what the heck?” What is really going on here?

Love with Lolo: What do you think of LGBT relationships?

Phase 4: Deepening

Live: Feb 10th, 2020; 5pm

What’s your love language?

Wendy Lynn Johnson

Love languages? The emotional needs of our partner must be met if we are to be emotionally healthy. How to communicate a heartfelt commitment to your partner. If you communicate love in a way your partner does not understand he/she will not realize you have attempted to express your love at all. Could it be you are both speaking two different languages? Love languages? People express and receive love in different ways Dr. Gary chapman identifies these as 5 languages of love: Join us as we discuss a little about each love language as well as learn about the importance of keeping your partners love tank full. When your love tank is empty its like a car that is out of gas. Let’s fill those tanks.

Permaculture Relationships: Pattern Understanding

Daniel Mark Schwartz

Growing together as a couple in the deepening phase of love primarily a task of establishing a life rhythm that complements and benefits each other. In nature we call the act of forming a cohesive whole from many desperate parts an ecosystem.

The key feature of a successful long term relationships is that the partners are evenly matched and get more from the arrangement than they give. There needs to be a balanced give and take on both sides to make the arrangement stable in the long term.

In this talk I’ll discuss patterns in nature that can shed light on the proper way to establish this foundation phase of life long romance. As well as suggest some ways to make deep love a reality in your relationship.

What is a Power Couple?

David M Masters

If you’ve contemplated the melding of two powerful love personalities into one, you may have asked, “What is a power couple?” and could you and your partner ascend into such a powerful love relationship? Discover what does power couple mean and find out if this appeal to you and your partner. If your ready to amplify the efficacy of your relationship as the ultimate gift to the community and world at large. Being a power couple is not for everyone, but if you have the desire and ability, the two of you combined can bring so much more together to the world than either of you could independently. Hand in hand you can bless others and make the word a better place.

7 Questions that will Deepen Your Romantic Partnership

Amy Elmore

Once you and your partner have established your relationship and you feel like you’re both in it for the long run, you may want to understand your partner on a deeper level. What makes them tick? What are they passionate about? What are some goals or dreams they haven’t revealed to you? By sharing our dreams with our partners we have a deeper understanding of what our loved one truly desires and it gives us the opportunity to being vulnerable and building trust in one another. Knowing what our partner wants can also help us to be supportive and become their biggest cheerleader, and in turn they become our biggest supporter.

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Phase 5: Genuine Bonding

Live: Feb 11th, 2020; 5pm

All We Need is Love

David M Masters

You are taking your love relationship to the next level, and you’re convinced that, “All we need is love,” but you’re going to need more than love to truly bond with each other in this critical phase which moves you to the most meaningful of romantic relationships. You’re willing to say to your partner, “I love all of you,” and mean it with all your heart, and if your partner loves you just as much, how do you grow together even deeper? Is it possible to, in a sense, become one flesh? Can you break the boundaries of a normal relationship and potentially become more connected than other couples?

Permaculture Relationships: Symbiosis

Daniel Mark Schwartz

Genuine bonding is the phase of the relationship story where couples begin to accept there role in the couple and burgeoning family as part of their own identity. They begin to consider this pairing and an indispensable part of their own survival strategy.

In a strong relationship, the bonds that bind us exist on many levels, from a material need and egoistic identification, to intellectual bonds and higher emotions.

Once again nature has much to teach us in the search for a deeper and longer lasting way of relating. Using mother nature’s approach to symbiosis as our guide, in this talk we will discuss how we can go from “individuals in love” to “born to be together”.

7 Tips to Deepen Your Bond

Amy Elmore

Do you know how strong your bond is with your partner? Is communication between you open and honest? Are you spending enough quality time together that doesn’t involve screens? Here’s a few tips that will get the ball rolling towards a strong and secure relationship that will last for the long-haul. Having a deep connection is important when your goal is long-term; in order to stay together, building a solid foundation is key. There may be times when life’s storms causes damage and re-building is necessary especially if there’s children and their stability to consider, but not having a firm foundation one can’t repair without the danger of things falling apart easily.

Genuine bonding

Wendy Lynn Johnson

What prescription is best for you and your love?

Where do we start when it comes to bonding as a couple?

There is no one “best” activity that couples can engage in to build a healthy relationship and safeguard from divorce or separation because each couple will have their own relationship style.

For some couples, it may be engaging in a shared hobby together, like bike riding, playing games, or playing music together. For others, it may be the long talks they often have when looking up at the stars, over morning coffee, or lying in bed at night.

No matter what this activity is, the only things that matter are that the activity:

1. Is something you can do together
2. Is something you can do regularly
3. Is enjoyable (or at least not unpleasant) for both partners, and
4. Is something that allows you to communicate in a healthy and productive way.

These four criteria don’t narrow down the world of activities very much, and that’s how it’s meant to be. The prescription for a good relationship for one couple may not work for another couple, and vice versa. Each relationship is unique and should be appreciated and treated as the unique connection that it is.
If you’re stumped on what activity might be best for you and your partner, join us in some exploring this deeper.

Phase 6: Comfort

Live: Feb 12th, 2020; 5pm

7 Ways that will Revamp a Stale Relationship

Amy Elmore

Every relationship goes through a rough patch when we’re too complacent. We’ve stopped trying and have become lazy in our pursuit of romance and adventure taking for granted our beloved. While it’s good to allow the natural cycles of life to ebb and flow giving us time for rest and re-growth, it isn’t wise to stay stuck in a rut. So, when the days begin to blend into one another and look too much alike, this is a good time to rekindle the romance and passion in your relationship. While absence makes the heart grow stronger, there is a need to keep things interesting and exciting in order to move past relationship plateaus.

Are you too comfortable in your relationship?

Wendy Lynn Johnson

Signs that you are too comfortable in your relationship and it is causing problems. Its an amazing feeling when you get to a point in your relationship where you can relax and complexly be your true self. However, you want this comfort to remain Positive. If you are to comfortable you may find that you stop putting any effort in. You may be giving off the energy that you are to comfortable. In a relationship you want to get to the point that you are not stressed about all the little things, make sure you are being conscious of how your partner is feeling. You do not want to find that they are feeling as if their feelings do not matter. When you become to comfortable in a relationship you run the risk of the relationship not being a priority. We will discuss ways to avoid this and how to keep on track and if you find you have fallen off how to get it back.

Permaculture Relationships: Surviving the Seasons

Daniel Mark Schwartz

In this final and most difficult trial of the bonds of relationship, couples must deal with boredom in the relationship. Up to now everything has been new and exciting, but now that some form of stability has been achieved there is a pronounced instinct for self sabotage.

However, the real key to long term survival is learning to leverage the power of the relationship to give back and grow the world around. One key concept of permaculture is that everything must contribute positively to the world around it. And this goes doubly so for a couple coming in to their power of love.

As two, your personal strength is potentially multiplied many fold by the partner standing beside you. But, in order to stand the seasons you must originate a strong forest around you.

Healthy Love

David M Masters

You know the sweetest phase of love when tow share healthy love together. This is the sweet spot of love where mutual respect and support flows freely between the two of you. You are fully supporting each other with very little effort. Compromise is not an issue, you both support the highest and best of each other and find fulfillment in your blossoming into this phase of love. This conscious loving is the most mature healthy love, free from drama and trauma of struggling for independent expression when compared to other love and relationships. There exists a daily love compatibility between both parties which is in peace and harmony.

Love with Lolo: What if you partner is not emotionally available?

Phase 7: True and Enduring Love

Live: Feb 13th, 2020; 5pm

Permaculture Relationships: Harvest

Daniel Mark Schwartz

The great maxim of the farmer is that, “You reap what you sow.” After years and decades of work and intentions you are at the phase where the seeds of your choices are coming to fruition. Although not necessarily a set time in life, harvest is a key step in any lif long soulmate relationship.

Throughout life, we need to be ready to take the fruits of our effort whenever they are available. Further, we must have the future in mind when we are planning for today.
Like every aspect of a homestead, developing a rock solid relationship requires a long term perspective, deep perception, and a commitment to hard work.

In this talk, well round out the permaculture relationship with goal setting, methods to enjoy life today, and connecting our relationship goals with every other aspect of our life to form the ultimate goal of a permaculture, a cohesive whole.

True Love

David M Masters

The attainment of true love is no longer illusive. You’ve found your true love relationship. Your conscious loving has moved to the next level and you are both the love expert and your love light shines bathing others within proximity with your vibrant light of love. This is the most coveted of all types of love relationships. As the fortunate participant in the deepest level of love and trust in relationships, you surpass known expectations of traditional psychology of relationships and love. True and enduring love is the epitome of partnership love relationships, where love for your partner is beyond reciprocal and natural in this highest and best true love relationship.

What ingredients are necessary to build or strengthen your relationship?

Wendy Lynn Johnson

What exactly is true and enduring love? Many people have enduring love for chocolate, they have loved it for a long time, and will continue to love it. the word enduring means long lasting. Relationships are often construed as easy you fall in love and all is blissful. That’s the way it happens in the movies. Long-lasting relationships are built on enduring love, which is itself based on a healthy foundation. Couples can build ahead and plan the foundation. Couples who find that their relationship seems to be lacking the things they desire can take corrective steps to strengthen their foundation. I will be discussing 6 ingredients necessary to build or strengthen your relationship foundation.

7 Habits of Happy, Long-Lasting Couples

Amy Elmore

Have you ever seen an affectionate older couple and think “I want that”? Nature doesn’t make the perfect couple, it takes work and a desire for both of you to be happy and fulfilled, it’s a balance of give and take equally; if one partner is always and only giving—they suffer burn out. It takes patience, compassion, trust, communication, and a sense of humor to live under the same roof of any human-being let alone a partner we’ve committed our lifetime to. Life can be as beautiful or as challenging as you make it, the same goes for your relationship. With some effort and investment from both partners, your relationship can be both endearing and enduring.

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