THE COUNTERCULTURE TO RELATIONSHIP MEDIOCRITY

Your invitation - With Tully O'Connor

Can you live an amazing life if your relationships aren’t thriving?

The money, the career, the kids - we pour so much energy into them and all too often our relationship is the sacrificial lamb.

Put on the backburner.

Consistently bumped down the priority list.

“We’ll give it some more energy when things aren’t so hectic.”

And yet, we know how this ends…

Either in flames and conflict,
or the slow, dark and lonely descent into silent resentment,
disconnect
and apathy.

In Australia there’s a divorce every 9 minutes.

According to research  by the Gottman Institute within the first three years after a first child is born, there’s a 67% decline in happiness and relationship satisfaction..

Heavy, right? 

The transition into parenthood has the potential to be the most heart opening experience of our lives, yet all too often it’s  the opposite.
And there’s a multitude of reasons for that, which I’ll explore in detail in upcoming pieces.

The Liberating Love publication is for those  committed to being part of the counterculture to relationship mediocrity.

This publication for you if you are:

- Committed to creating connected, secure and thriving relationships

- Interested in building the type of relationship to form the foundations for thriving children and communities.

- Ready to take responsibility for your own healing and relational development.

- Seeking to understand the clear link between the skills required to cultivate a thriving relationship and the skills required to be an open, intentional and effective parent.

About Me:

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a deep curiosity and passion for understanding humans.
I’ve always asked…
What does it take to cultivate thriving relationships?
Personally and professionally,
this question has occupied my mind for the last 15+ years.

In these weekly articles I’ll invite you into  both my personal and professional perspective.
Most often a combination of the two provides the richest information for both knowledge and practice.

Professionally, I’m a Physiotherapist turned Trauma-Informed Transformational Coach and Facilitator.

The insights and frameworks I’ve developed and shared with hundreds of couples have their roots in a psychobiological approach to relationships. A fancy word for the relationship between the psychological and physiological. Think the interplay of brain function with movement and behaviour.

I’m allergic to dogmatic points of view and how people “should” operate in relationships and am very attuned to the limitations of ALL frameworks. I practice what I preach and don’t claim to have ALL the answers.
I definitely have a few though ;)

I despise the idea of striving for a “perfect” relationship and actually think that impossible expectation is at the root of so much relational pain, because it denies our humanity.

Personally, I’m a 36 year man who’s built a thriving relationship with my beautiful wife.
We’ve been together 9 years,
built multiple businesses,
moved house more times than I can count,
travelled extensively,
have a son born in 2020 and another in 2023, with likely more tiny feet on the cards in the future.

It’s safe to say we’ve navigated our fair share of challenges,
especially in our first years of parenthood.

Values alignment and projection, jealousy, breaches of trust and many other juicy challenges havepresented themselves in the “shadow phase” of our relationship.

And the thing I’m most proud of!
Each challenge we move through brings a deeper level of love, respect and connection than we’d ever previously experienced.

This is the potential within conflict and challenge. It presents an opportunity for us to know ourselves, and our partner, more deeply.
It represents an opportunity to Liberate more Love in ourselves and our relationship. 

When we’re equipped with the insights, tools and the frameworks to navigate relational conflict and challenge effectively (and with curiosity and compassion) the whole game changes.

There’s so much potential for more connection, joy and creativity when we can Liberate all the energy that gets wasted in repeated conflict, resentment and judgement. 

This is the biggest gift we can give our kids, and our communities.
This is the real power of Liberating Love.

So I invite you to follow your curiosities.
That part of you that knows there’s a better way to do this “relationship thing”.
The part of you that knows there’s so much more available when it comes to communication, co-created life design and intimacy. 

My intention is to share written pieces, audios and prompt conversations to expand your capacity - as an individual and in your relationship - to Liberate theLove in all of our lives.

Welcome to Love Sex and Laundry.

Tully

PS. I highly recommend you to download the Substack app or access via desktop for a more nourishing and wholesome experience outside of your email inbox. This will give you access to chat and the community also.