The Perfect Recipe for Love

What ingredients do you need to bake a cake? Eggs, milk, flour, sugar, a few other things. But, merely having the ingredients doesn’t mean your cake will turn out well. You need a recipe. You need to know how much of each, when to add what, how long to bake it and so on. In other words, it takes more than ingredients.

Healthy relationships are much the same. Love is the key ingredient, but love isn’t enough, even though it might seem that way at the start. Countless couples fall head over heels for each other, convinced that they’ve found “the one,” and sooner or later, they find that something’s missing. Truly, love isn’t enough.

Two Indispensable Ingredients

Indeed, two other elements are indispensable to a healthy relationship. Without these two, the “cake” will inevitably collapse. Those two ingredients are vulnerability and empathy. Couples in love open up to one another. They share parts of themselves that they show no one else. They let one another in. That’s vulnerability. And they do it when their partner understands, listens, doesn’t judge or blame. And that’s empathy. It takes both: vulnerability and empathy. Each makes the other possible and both together will heal and grow any relationship. Vulnerability and empathy say, “I am there for you. I will open up to you and I’ll be there when you open up to me. You are safe with me.” 


Creating a Safe Connection

In a healthy relationship, safety is absolutely crucial. When we feel safe, we relax and thrive. That’s how we fall in love. It’s how we stay in love. Emotionally, we become our best self when we feel safe with our partner. We even do better physically. Our health is better. Our longevity is longer. Our resistance is stronger. Safe connection is our happy place.


And, on the other hand, when a couple is struggling, when conflict has become combat, emotional safety is long gone. Protections go up, often thick walls of silence or severity. No one wants to open up; empathy is seldom seen. 


Putting it all Together

Without a doubt, vulnerability and empathy are key ingredients in the relationship recipe. But, how do you blend those together with love? What does it look like? How do vulnerability and empathy combine to create something beautiful? 


I’m glad you asked.


It Happens at Hold Me Tight

That’s what a Hold Me Tight®️ couples retreat is all about. Just as baking is an acquired skill that takes time and practice to master, relationships are much the same. As much as we’d like it to be true, the Beatles were wrong when they sang, “All You Need is Love.” We must learn to connect: learn to be vulnerable and empathize. Come and spend two days near beautiful Orlando, FL learning what loving couples the world over have learned. Hold Me Tight®️ is grounded in long term research, attachment science and the tenets of Emotionally Focused Therapy. (In other words, it isn’t pop psychology or pseudo-science.) You will spend two days with other couples gaining new understanding and the confidence that you can follow your “relationship recipe” and create something more beautiful and delicious than you ever imagined. 


Whether your relationship has collapsed or you just want to take your recipe from good to great, Hold Me Tight®️ can make all the difference.


Learn more at www.couplesworkshopsofflorida.com. Get in on our next event in August. It’s just a few weeks away. Space is limited. Don’t miss out! 


Have a Safety Plan

Change Your Viewing

By Mark Beck • May 29, 2025
What is the first step to changing our station in life, changing a situation or a relationship? I suggest it starts with changing how we view things, how we look at the problem or the person. Do we see burden or a blessing…obligation or opportunity? Often, when we’re stuck, say, in a difficult relationship, we see our partner as an opponent. He or she is the problem. We may even go find a therapist whom we hope will “fix” our partner. We focus on the other’s weakness, faults and failures, how they let us down and miss the mark. If that is your focus, then the more you look, the more you will see. Most couples who come to me for therapy are so focused on their partner’s problems that they can’t see anything else. They are often stuck in blame and negativity. And what we see informs what we believe. If we see only the bad in our partner, it’s easy to believe that he or she doesn’t love us or that the relationship is hopeless. That’s when couples don’t call me; they call lawyers.

We All Need Predictability

By Mark Beck • April 25, 2025
If you are invested in the stock market, it’s been a roller coaster lately. Indeed, perhaps the best short run strategy is to close your eyes and hold on and ride it out—just like on a roller coaster! However you view the market moves we’re seeing—tariffs and the like—one thing is pretty clear: markets don’t like unpredictability. Uncertainty makes markets very nervous. Hence, lots of ups and downs make for tension and trouble. It’s human nature; unpredictability is stressful in any context.

Safety First

By Mark Beck • April 1, 2025
A local factory required all of its employees to attend a safety class. One fellow didn’t really pay attention and when the final exam at the end of the class asked, “In case of a fire, what steps would you take?” the fellow answered, “Large ones!” “Safety First” is a wise strategy, everywhere from the workplace to the highway to healthcare to childcare. Injuries and accidents cost multiplied billions every year and it’s always better to prevent an accident than to treat one. Whatever the setting, people do better when they feel safe.

Curious or Critical

By Mark Beck • March 14, 2025
Somebody said, “Marriage is a never ending conversation.” I think that’s true. It certainly is a never ending education. That’s part of what makes it fun. Everyday I learn something about my wife, Debbie, about how she sees the world and sees me. And I’m often surprised at our different perspectives. We were on the verge of an argument the other day, simply because we both saw the situation very differently. Neither of us were wrong. But, once I realized how Debbie saw things, I understood her actions and reactions much better. And I realized again that a real key to connection lies in understanding, more than being understood. The late Sue Johnson used to say, “People calm down when they feel understood.” I’ve certainly found that to be true.

Love Is a Team Sport

By Mark Beck • January 29, 2025
If you’re a sports fan (specifically, football) this is your favorite time of year. The NFL playoffs showcase the best of the best and even for the non-fanatics out there, some important truths are evident. Football, like many other sports, is a team game. For sure, individual superstars shine, but only because those around them pull together for a common goal. The best teams operate as one. Eleven players, all on the same page: focused, supportive, picking each other up, pursuing the same goal. When they do, they become more than the sum of their parts…highly efficient. They minimize mistakes and overcome them when they happen. When adversity hits, lesser teams slip into fault finding, sniping and looking out for number one. In any sport, if teammates ever become opponents, they can’t win. It’s game over.

Relationship Rescue

By Mark Beck • January 24, 2025
You might remember the cruise ship Costa Concordia that foundered off the coast of Italy in 2012 after her captain carelessly steered her too close to shore. Rocks tore a 175 foot gash in her hull and the ship listed severely to her starboard side, taking on water and running aground. Ultimately, 32 people died and the recovery cost about $2 billion. Perhaps the greatest blunder though, was that the captain waited over an hour to give the order to abandon ship. For such negligence, he was ultimately convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years. Indeed, he left the ship with 300 passengers still on board! (He said he “fell” into a lifeboat as it was being lowered.)

Help Is Nearby

By Mark Beck • January 17, 2025
I had a close call today. I was almost duped by a very slick hacker. He posed as a security guy from PayPal and I nearly gave him remote access to my computer. (I know, that sounds pretty stupid on my part.) Fortunately for me, when things smelled fishy, I tapped out before any real damage was done. But, I didn’t know what to do from there. I unplugged my PC and called an expert. He knew just what to do and he got me up and running in no time. What a relief! It cost me a few bucks, but most likely saved me a lot more. Computers are a necessary evil in my life. I can’t even imagine managing my home or my business without one. But, they can sure be troublesome. And a cyber wizard, I am not. That’s my problem. I know just enough to be dangerous. It sure eases my mind that help is available when I need it. Because some things I can’t fix. That doesn’t make me stupid…it’s just not my expertise.

Comfort Isn't Always Comfortable

By Mark Beck • January 10, 2025
Intimate relationships are never easy and too many don’t survive. Courtrooms and counselors’ offices are full of couples who didn’t set out to destroy their love; it just looks as if they did. Maybe you’re one of those couples…trying to figure out how you went from newlywed to nearly dead...and you never saw it coming...or you did and you didn't know how to stop it.
A Hold Me Tight couples retreat in Orlando is a great way to ring in the new year

Happy New Year

By Mark Beck • January 2, 2025
A Hold Me Tight couples retreat in Orlando is a great new years resolution

When You Hit Turbulence

By Mark Beck • December 16, 2024
Now and then, I travel by air. I enjoy it, for the most part. But, on one trip, seemingly out of nowhere, the plane hit heavy turbulence. Suddenly, the cabin was shuttering and shaking. I looked outside; the wings were visibly bouncing up and down as the plane lurched and pitched. I tried to hide my fear, but (pardon the pun) it really shook me up. My stomach tightened; my breathing got shallow. I couldn’t think straight. Having such little experience with something like that, I feared we would crash. But, then, I noticed the flight attendants. They were cool as the backside of a pillow…no panic or alarm. I wondered how they could be so calm. Soon the pilot came over the intercom and in a steady, measured voice, explained that turbulence is normal, the plane was built for much, much worse and it would all subside in a few moments. The crew had been through this many times. They understood what was happening and what to do. I was so glad that somebody did! Their calm was contagious. Gradually, I was able to relax and realized that it wasn’t the crisis I had feared it was. That was a game changer. I got through it and now, turbulence isn’t the problem it used to be for me when I fly. It still happens, but I know what it’s about when it does and that gets me through. .
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