Better Together
The Importance of Doing Your Own Work in Your Partnership
From the Onsite Journal
Sam and Chrissy’s Story
One of the best things you can bring to any relationship is a whole and healthy you. At Onsite we have discovered that when one person gets healthy, they often inspire and give permission to the people around them to do the same.
Alums Sam and Chrissy recently shared the impact their individual Onsite experiences have had on their journeys and their partnership. Sam attended a Living Centered Program in 2020 and had a life transformational experience that affected him on a personal level and brought healing to his marriage. Chrissy, a therapist, was inspired to attend Onsite herself in 2022 after witnessing the change in her husband and their marriage following his experience.
Sam’s Story
Before Onsite I felt like I was playing a character that I had developed over the course of my life. Through my experience, I discovered how to become the person that I was meant to be. The Living Centered Program was a fundamental shift in how I move through life.
What brought me to Onsite was essentially a lifetime of poor coping strategies. I knew I had to make a change. I couldn’t go forward the way I was doing life. I think my biggest takeaway from the Living Centered Program was truly learning how to love myself, and coming to believe that I was worthy of loving myself. I discovered that if I could learn to love myself, I could love others better, including my wife, my kids, and my family. I think the world would be a far more loving place if everyone went to Onsite.
“I think my biggest takeaway from the Living Centered Program was truly learning how to love myself, and coming to believe that I was worthy of loving myself.” — Sam
One of the biggest tragedies is that we are not taught how to love ourselves and, by extension, others. We can’t give something we don’t have. My experience at Onsite gave me a set of skills that I could use to love myself and others.
It’s been a few years since I went through the Living Centered Program, and it was the catalyst for me starting my next journey. The journey is not free of struggle and challenges, but it’s a life far richer than I was living.
I now experience life with more depth, more color, more love, more understanding, and more empathy. And that’s the gift. It’s almost indescribable.
Learning to love myself through the Living Centered Program allowed me to see the depth and beauty in really hard situations and hard parts of relationships. And it was a catalyst that led my wife to her own experience.
Chrissy’s Story
I was really worried about our family. Sam had to change, but I had to change too. In our marriage vows, we promised to change with each other. That’s my favorite vow that we ever made. And we’ve done that. Onsite was probably one of the biggest parts of that for us—the biggest tool to change. I feel like I got my husband back, but I got the marriage that I wanted. And obviously, it’s not perfect. We struggle all the time, but we have a new foundation through the change that we’ve made and the empathy we can now hold for one another.
My experience at Onsite impacted my life in every area, from my relationships with my parents and my siblings to my relationships with friends. —Chrissy
After witnessing and experiencing Sam’s healing, I was drawn to doing my own Onsite experience. I had a lot of curiosity and a deep desire to heal. As a mental health professional, doing my own work has been the most impactful educator in terms of helping other people through the therapeutic process. If I’m telling others to do the work, I have to do it too. And I knew that as much as I was recommending Onsite, I needed to experience it myself.
At the time of attending, I was really burnt out. I had been seeing people through the pandemic while experiencing it myself. I was trying to hold space for everybody else and had forgotten about myself.
My experience at Onsite impacted my life in every area, from my relationships with my parents and my siblings to my relationships with friends. And, of course, my immediate family, but also my work and my relationships with my clients. It allowed me to return to my work, life, relationships, and spirituality in a much more authentic way, but also softer, gentler. It remains with me now, and I don’t have to look for my worth in any of those relationships. I know more about where my worth is coming from.
I get to incorporate everything that I learned personally into my work as a therapist.
Onsite is a place where you don’t feel like a problem. I didn’t feel like I was broken. I didn’t feel like I needed to be fixed. I felt very honored and seen by my group and the team. Onsite is a beautiful place. It’s a relaxing place. It’s a healing place. And you don’t feel less than there.
I have been such an advocate for Onsite because it changed my husband’s life. And it changed my marriage at a time when I didn’t know if our marriage could continue.
