Why We Need a Relationship Retreat More Than Ever

By Dr. Asha Dullabh, Clinical Psychologist & Founder of Well At Life

We often think relationships begin and end with the people we love most. But long before romance, family, or even close friendships, we are already living inside multiple SHIPS.

We are citizens before we are partners. We are companions before we are lovers. We are mentees long before we become mentors. We are stewards of spaces, roles, values, and responsibilities before we are anything else.

And every one of these SHIPS shapes how we relate, quietly, invisibly, powerfully.

This is why the SHIPS Retreat exists. Not to fix one relationship. But to understand the entire relational ecosystem we live in.

What Do We Mean by SHIPS?

At Well At Life, SHIPS are the relational structures that hold our lives together.

Not just who we love, but how we belong, contribute, lead, follow, attach, distance, and repair.

Some of the most defining SHIPS include:

We don’t have relationship problems. We have relational patterns.

Citizenship: How we belong to society. How safe or unsafe the world feels. How we show up in communities, cultures, and shared spaces.

Friendship: How we trust. How we attach. How we maintain closeness, distance, loyalty, and repair.

Companionship: How we sit with others. How we share space, silence, presence, and everyday life.

Mentorship: How we learn from others. How we receive guidance. How we tolerate vulnerability and growth.

Stewardship: How we care for what is entrusted to us, people, roles, environments, responsibilities, and values.

Leadership: How we hold influence. How we relate to power, authority, responsibility, and decision-making.

Each SHIP teaches us something about ourselves. And when one SHIP is strained, it often affects all the others.

Why a Relationship Retreat and Why Now?

There’s a saying I often return to: “We don’t see the world as it is. We see it as we are.”

We communicate constantly, but connect less deeply. We belong everywhere and nowhere. We are visible, but not always seen.

Technology has changed how we relate, faster than our nervous systems can adapt.

AI can simulate conversation. It can mirror empathy. But it cannot replace:

– belonging– trust– attunement– repair– shared meaning

What we are witnessing now is not a relationship crisis, it is a relational literacy crisis.

And that is what the SHIPS retreat addresses.

You don’t struggle in one relationship. You struggle in patterns.

Until you understand how you relate across contexts, as a citizen, a friend, a colleague, a leader, a partner, you keep repeating the same dynamics with different faces.

This retreat is for individuals who want to:

• understand their relational patterns

• improve all forms of connection

• strengthen emotional intelligence

• build relational resilience

• reconnect with their capacity for healthy attachment

  
  

You come alone. But you leave with a deeper understanding of every relationship in your life.

What Happens on a SHIPS Retreat?

On a SHIPS retreat, we explore:

• how early experiences shaped your relational blueprint

• why certain relationships drain you

• how boundaries really work (and why they’re hard)

• how safety, trust, and connection are built,

  not demanded

• why some people avoid closeness while others over-give

• how digital life has rewired attention and intimacy

• how to relate consciously in a distracted world

  
  

We slow things down. We bring relationships back into the body, not just the mind. We create space for reflection, insight, and integration.

Because relationships don’t heal through advice. They heal through experience.

Why This Retreat Is the Need of the Hour

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In a world where AI is learning to think like humans, humans are forgetting how to relate like humans.

We are productive, but disconnected. Efficient, but lonely. Capable, but relationally exhausted.

The SHIPS retreat is a pause, a place to reflect on how you belong, lead, care, guide, and connect.

Not to become better at relationships, but to become more aware, present, and grounded within them.

Join the Well At Live Ships Retreat and be well@relationships.