You know that place where love just leveled up — and then some sneaky sabotage pops the bubble? That's upper limiting. Nothing is wrong with you. It's a human condition.Mike Elliott and Courtney Wren-Mabbutt sit with Gay and Katie Hendricks — pioneers of conscious loving and body intelligence, authors of The Big Leap and Conscious Loving — on how couples upper limit love the moment it expands.They share early sabotage loops (ease → criticism → weeks of repair), Gay's ice cream origin story, conscious vs unconscious intentions, body literacy for the Big Three feelings, play instead of "working on" the relationship, and what 25+ years without criticism opens up. The invitation: recommit to expanding your capacity to give and receive love.Guest resources:Hendricks Institute: https://hendricks.com/Art of Showing Up (Nov 2026): https://hendricks.com/seminar/the-art-of-showing-up-in-person-seminar-ojai-ca/Foundation for Conscious Living videos: https://foundationforconsciousliving.org/Connect with us:The Initiated Man: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIMThe 2:2 Couples Container: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-detailsCouples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredweOracle: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-himCourtney 1:1: https://www.courtneywren.com/containersMike coaching: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coachingEmail:[email protected] | [email protected]:@mikeelliott.relating | @courtneywren.relating

Trigger alert: it's not him — it's you. (Well… not entirely you.). If you're aching for him to do the work and finally meet you emotionally — and you know what you've been doing isn't helping — Courtney and Mike go into the feminine's role in sacred relating.

They name the "if he changes, everything will be fine" shadow, the wall women yell over, and why mothering him kills polarity.

The invitation is a different seat: land in Me, know the little girl who's hyper-vigilantly managing him, and embody desire so he can actually feel it — consent before hard talks, fierce love, and delivery from the oracle (not accusation). This isn't another layer of self-blame. It's radical responsibility and freedom: do your part of the dance so the alchemy can come online.

Connect with us:

• Free: Bringing Your Oracle to Him → https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• The Initiated Man: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Courtney 1:1: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Mike coaching: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

[email protected] | [email protected]

IG: @mikeelliott.relating | @courtneywren.relating

3 Somatic Practices for Deeper Connection

👉Sign up for a FREE guide here: https://www.sacredrelating.com/deeperconnection

When you feel disconnected from your partner, it’s rarely just about them. In this episode of The Sacred We, Mike and Courtney share why the disconnection so many couples feel isn’t ultimately about the relationship — it’s a disconnection from God.

Mike and Courtney open up about what it means to build a God-led relationship: the different names they each use for the divine, how spirit guided them to each other and into the very home where this podcast was born, and the daily practices — prayer, gratitude, communion — that keep them connected to something bigger than themselves and to each other.

They also unpack two often-misunderstood spiritual concepts, communion and matrimony, not as church rituals but as spiritual initiations every soul moves through — the ongoing practice of staying intimate with spirit and keeping the heart open, again and again, no matter what arises. If you’re ready to understand your relationship as sacred ground for your own awakening, this conversation will meet you there.

Connect With Us:

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

[email protected] | [email protected]

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating  |  @courtneywren.relating

Every couple knows this dance: she reaches for more and he braces, or he tries to fix what was never broken and she feels unseen. In this episode, Mike and Courtney unpack two of the most common wounds in relationships — the "too much" wound in the feminine and the "not enough" wound in the masculine — starting with a reframed reading of the Adam and Eve myth through a goddess mythology lens.

Then they get real: earlier that same day, Mike and Courtney had their own version of this exact rupture, and they walked through the entire thing — what was said, what was heard, where it went sideways, and how they repaired it. It’s an unfiltered look at how these ancient wounds show up in a real marriage, and what it actually takes to soften them.

If you’ve ever felt like you were "too much" for your partner, or like nothing you do is ever "enough," this conversation will change how you see that pattern — and your partner.

Connect With Us

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email: [email protected]  [email protected]

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeelliott.relating/    https://www.instagram.com/courtneywren.relating/

What if your relationship didn’t need one more insight — just a better dance? On this episode of The Sacred We, Mike and Courtney sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Dayna Mullen, who has spent 18 years studying under Stan Tatkin and building a marriage of her own around the same principle she teaches every couple who walks through her door: secure functioning.

Dayna unpacks what Stan Tatkin calls the "couple bubble" — the shared ecosystem a couple creates when they agree the relationship comes first, not one partner’s needs over the other’s. She walks through what secure functioning actually looks like in daily life: the rituals that hold a marriage together, the practice of sitting on the floor to co-regulate instead of trying to talk through a fight, and the golden rule she and her husband Dennis live by — moving at the pace of connection, not the pace of being right.

The conversation goes deep on what secure functioning asks of each attachment style. Dayna names the specific sacrifice for the avoidant, the anxious, and the disorganized — and why none of it is really a sacrifice once you feel what’s on the other side of it. She and Courtney also draw a clear line between secure functioning and codependence, two things that get confused constantly, and talk candidly about why couples build endless structures for their kids and almost none for their marriage.

This one is for anyone ready to stop doing relationships alone — even inside a relationship.

About Dayna Mullen:

Dayna Mullen is a Registered Psychologist, couples therapist, and international relationship coach with more than 25 years studying what makes relationships work, professionally and personally. She helps high-functioning couples go beyond communication tips to the attachment patterns and nervous system dynamics that create real safety and connection. Married 23 years and a mother of three, her mission is to change the culture of relationships.

Learn more about Dayna:

Website: https://www.alignmentpsychology.ca/dayna-mullen

Email: [email protected]

Connect with us:

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

[email protected] 

[email protected]

Instagram: @mikeelliott.relating  |  @courtneywren.relating

You already know something needs to change. The Initiated Man Program is where it starts. Join The Initiated Man Program today →https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

Do you have a partner who avoids hard conversations, avoids taking responsibility, and seems to get farther away the more you reach for connection? In this episode, Mike Elliott breaks down what avoidance really is, why it shows up in relationships, and how it quietly ends up running the show when it goes unaddressed.

Mike shares how avoidance affected his own first marriage, and what changed once he stopped fighting it and started meeting it with compassion. You'll hear the exact language that helped him and Courtney turn avoidance into vulnerability, why criticism makes it worse, and what to say instead when your partner feels far away.

Whether you're the one who pulls away or the one doing the reaching, this episode offers a real, practical path back to connection.

Connect with us: 

• 🔥 The Initiated Man — Mike's men's community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• 💚 The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• ✉️ Join Our Couples List: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• 🌹 Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• 🌀 Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• 🤝 Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

[email protected] 

[email protected]

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating 

@courtneywren.relating

To the mamas holding it all together while still longing to feel like you — Courtney's Holy Mama community is opening its doors soon. Join the waitlist to be the first to know:https://www.courtneywren.com/holy-mama-waitlist

Before she was ten, Courtney had been diagnosed with panic disorder, generalized anxiety, and ADHD — and put on the first of what would be over a decade of psychiatric medication. In this solo episode, she tells the real story behind those diagnoses: the night terrors that started in infancy, the panic attacks that felt like dying, the label of "problem child" that followed her through school, and the slow unraveling of her trust in her own body.

At 20, sitting at what she calls her rock bottom, Courtney chose to stop looking outside herself for a fix. What followed was years of somatic therapy and nervous system work that did what medication, energy healing, and a dozen specialists couldn’t: it healed her. By 29, her anxiety, panic attacks, ADHD symptoms, and PCOS were gone.

This isn’t a story about blame — Courtney is clear that everyone around her, from her parents to her doctors, was doing their best with what they knew. It’s an invitation to get curious about what a child’s nervous system is actually communicating, and to imagine what becomes possible when we stop treating a diagnosis as a life sentence. She also shares a first look at her upcoming course, Parenting the Nervous System, launching this fall.

If you or someone you love has ever been told a diagnosis is just "who they are," this episode offers a different way to see it.

Connect With Us

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email:

[email protected] 

[email protected]

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating 

@courtneywren.relating

Stay tuned for 2 upcoming offers!

To the mamas holding it all together while still longing to feel like you — Courtney's Holy Mama community is opening its doors soon. Join the waitlist to be the first to know:https://www.courtneywren.com/holy-mama-waitlist

There's a two-year-old standing at a breakfast table, methodically arranging every jelly packet on it into patterns—and a fifty-year veteran educator choosing to say nothing at all. That single moment holds the whole conversation. In this episode, Courtney sits down with Beth Sutton, founder and director of Enki Education, for a conversation about "inherent vitality"—the life force Beth believes exists in every child (and every adult) whether or not we ever learn to access it.

Beth has spent more than fifty years developing Enki, an education philosophy used in homeschools and classrooms around the world, built on the idea that children don’t need to be taught aliveness—they need adults who know how to stop getting in its way. She and Courtney talk about why "spicy" or big-feeling kids often carry the most vitality rather than the least, the real difference between harmonic resonance and co-regulation, and why so much well-meaning parenting quietly teaches kids to override what their bodies already know.

The conversation moves into the physiology of what Beth calls the "mama battery," why the first three years of a child’s life do so much of the work of building lifelong nervous system safety, and how to tell the difference between a child who is truly ready for separation and one who has simply gone quiet. Beth closes with one of Enki’s core teachings—the difference between falling and failing—and why learning to stay present with a fall, rather than rushing past it, is what actually builds resilience in children and the adults raising them.

Learn more about Enki Education: ⁠https://enkieducation.org/

Connect With Us:

• The Initiated Man — Mike’s men’s community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone. https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

• The 2:2 Couples Container — private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney. https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

• Sign up for our couples list: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

• Bringing the Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

• Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney: https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

• Work with Mike: https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching

Email: [email protected] 

[email protected]

Instagram:

@mikeelliott.relating 

@courtneywren.relating

🔥Dive deep with Mike and Courtney and learn about their 2:2 Work: https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

What if the desire you've been taught to suppress is actually your fastest path to awakening? This week, Mike and Courtney sit down with Justin Patrick Pierce and Londin Angel Winters -- co-founders of Yoga of Intimacy and life partners of 17 years -- for a raw conversation on sexual polarity, sacred intimacy, and how to alchemize desire into devotion.

Justin Patrick Pierce and Londin Angel Winters are authors, mentors, and internationally respected teachers of nondual spiritual intimacy. As co-founders of Yoga of Intimacy, they have spent over a decade guiding couples through relational depth, sexual polarity, and embodied spiritual practice. They are the co-authors of Playing With Fire and The Awakened Woman's Guide to Everlasting Love, helping thousands of readers move from disconnection into clarity, passion, and purpose.

Learn more about Londin and Justin:

Live Online Group Calls: https://www.patreon.com/c/yogaofintimacy 

Websites: Yoga of Intimacy: https://yogaofintimacy.co/join/?utm_source=sacredwe&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2026 

Londin Angel Winters:

https://www.londinagelwinters.com/?utm_source=sacredwe&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2026 

Justin Patrick Pierce:

https://www.justinpatrickpierce.com/?utm_source=sacredwe&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2026 

Books:

Playing With Fire: The Spiritual Path of

Intimate Relationship: https://a.co/d/0g8ovHdB 

The Awakened Woman’s Guide to Everlasting Love: https://a.co/d/0fGmJZAA Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/justinpatrickpierce

https://www.instagram.com/londinawinte

Work with Courtney and Mike

The Initiated Man -- Mike's men's community for doing this work in brotherhood, not alone. itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

The 2:2 Couples Container -- private, intensive couples work with Mike & Courtney. thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

👉Sign up for our couples list HERE: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

Bringing The Oracle to Him: https://www.courtneywren.com/bring-your-oracle-to-him

Rebirth 1:1 with Courtney:  https://www.courtneywren.com/containers

Work with Mike → ⁠https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching⁠

📺Subscribe to our YouTube Channel → ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thetogetherpodcast⁠

Email:

⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠

⁠[email protected]⁠

Website:

https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/

https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

⁠www.courtneywren.com⁠

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mikeelliott.relating/

https://www.instagram.com/courtneywren.relating/

🔥Turn your worst fights into connection! 

Listening before July 20th? Mike and Courtney are teaching their Rupture & Repair framework live: https://www.thesacredwe.com/rupture-and-repair

Can midlife be the most alive, connected season of your relationship — not the one where the spark fades? Kimberly and Roberto of Phoenix Rising Retreats join Mike and Courtney to reveal why couples lose intimacy in midlife, what menopause really does to eros, and how to rebuild playfulness and pleasure after 40.

Chapters:

0:00  Why This Conversation Matters Now

1:54  Free Masterclass: Rupture & Repair (Before July 20)

3:37  Meeting Kimberly & Roberto

7:14  How Vulnerability Became the Turning Point

12:47  The Breakup, the Ultimatum, and the Boundary That Changed Everything

16:30  The 3 Real Reasons Couples Lose Their Spark

18:24  From Lovers to Roommates: The Logistics Trap

23:26  Menopause, Eros, and the Lie About "Over the Hill"

28:42  Talking About Sex Without Shame

32:58  Two Practices to Bring Back the Juiciness

36:49  Healing Old Triggers Together

38:11  The Secret to Real Playfulness

46:15  Midlife Challenges: Ego, King Energy & Ritual

55:29  Inside Phoenix Rising Retreats

1:00:48  Final Reflections: Aging Is Not the Enemy

Ways to connect with Kimberely and Roberto: 

Website: www.phoenixrisingretreats.com

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=569755109

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phoenixrisingretreats_/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@phoenix.rising.retreats

Their podcast: Reignite: Love, Sex & Truth for Conscious Couples

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/reignite-love-sex-truth-for-conscious-couples/id1489475566

Connect with Courtney and Mike HERE:

👉Sign up for our couples list HERE: https://www.thesacredwe.com/thesacredwe

💛 Work with Mike & Courtney 2:2 →https://www.thesacredwe.com/2-2-container-details

Work with Mike → ⁠https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/coaching⁠

📺Subscribe to our YouTube Channel → ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thetogetherpodcast⁠

🏹Join the Initiated Man →https://www.itsmikeelliott.com/TIM

Email:

⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠

⁠[email protected]⁠

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mikeelliott.relating/

https://www.instagram.com/courtneywren.relating/