Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Message Transforms

That's what we've been hearing lately. The message of our books has been transforming the way people view their relationships. Yahoo! For instance, a few weeks ago Carol and I gave a speech in honor of domestic violence awareness month. The organizers of AnnaMarie's Women's Shelter in St. Cloud, MN, thought it'd be helpful to promote healthy relationships rather than speaking about the dark side of violence with which most of us are, fortunately, rather familiar. While we focused primarily on romantic relationships in our talk, many audience members have been telling us how our book's message is altering the way they view all kinds of relationships. We've had audience members say things like: "I have applied your message to my relationships with colleagues!" and "I was thinking about how that speech relates to the relationship I have with my grandma." Another gracious audience member (err...my husband) even quotes our talk back to me in conversations about work, family, and friends (now that's gratifying!). Then, today I received this message in my inbox from a long-lost high school friend:

Anna- How are you?!?!?!...its been soo long!!! So I was at [a friend]'s house the other day and she was showing me your book, What Happy Couples Do..... I loved it and bought a couple copies for family and friends! I also bought a copy of your new book as well! [She] was telling me that you had a book signing a few months ago here in town and I was just curious if you plan on having another one here anytime soon? I would love to come and see you! Anyway, I hope all is well with you!

Indeed these quotes and messages make our day. Our week. Ok, our month! And they also remind us that we need to do more speaking events so we can talk to you. And to get the word out about healthy relationships. Because if you're going to have them, you might as well know how, eh?

If your school, church, parenting group or community would like us to speak on healthy relationships, communication, happy marriage, family rituals and/or related 'happy' topics, we'd love to do so. No charge! Our mission is simply to get the word out there. We're educators at heart. Feel free to pass along our contact info to any groups who might enjoy an engaging lecture/discussion. They can contact us at: carol@whathappycouplesdo.com and/or anna@whathappycouplesdo.com

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