the invitation i still can't quite believe

i still remember the moment.

i was sitting beside my mentor while we were talking about her next couples retreat.

she'd already facilitated more than twenty of them.

then, almost casually, she turned to me and asked,

"would you be interested in co-facilitating with me?"

on the outside i think i managed something reasonably composed.

"yeah... absolutely."

inside...

oh my gosh.

are you serious?

me?

out of everyone she'd trained over the years, she was asking me.

i honestly couldn't believe it.

looking back now, i realise she probably saw something in me that i couldn't yet see in myself.

isn't it funny how often that happens?

sometimes someone else believes in us long before we do.

that one quiet invitation changed the next seven years of my life.

i went on to co-facilitate six couples retreats alongside her.

and every single one taught me something new.

not just about relationships.

about people.

about communication.

about conflict.

about vulnerability.

about myself.

the funny thing is...

people often assume facilitating couples retreats must be emotionally exhausting.

for me, it never felt like work.

it felt like sitting in the front row of what becomes possible when two people remember the problem is the problem not each other.

i watched walls come down.

i watched conversations people had avoided for years finally happen.

i watched laughter return.

i watched softness return.

and every retreat quietly changed me too.

none of us are handed a manual on relationships.

most of us are simply repeating what we grew up around.

or reacting to what hurt us.

or trying our best with tools we were never taught.

i often found myself thinking...

why don't we learn this stuff at school?

how different might our friendships, families and relationships be if we understood how to really listen...

how to stay curious instead of defensive...

how to communicate what we need without making someone else wrong?

those retreats didn't just help me support other couples.

they helped me become more aware of myself.

they made me notice the stories i told.

the assumptions i made.

the conversations i avoided.

they reminded me that healthy relationships don't happen because two perfect people find each other.

they happen because two imperfect people keep choosing curiosity over certainty.

i often think back to that moment.

one simple question.

"would you be interested?"

my beautiful mentor will probably never fully know what that invitation meant to me.

but i do.

because every now and then, someone quietly changes the direction of your life without even realising it.

has someone ever believed in you before you believed in yourself?

jodi x