Each one explains the other to you, and you end up as the judge.
Relationship Mastery · Facilitator Immersion
Learn to guide couples from rupture to repair.
A seven-day residential training in facilitating the difficult conversations that move couples from rupture towards repair and secure connection. Learn to decode defence, track triggers and guide the practices with real people, while doing the work in your own relationships too.
Led by Christian Pankhurst with Stephanie Fabela and Sumir Brown, supported by experienced Heart iQ facilitators
7–14 February 2027 · New Eden, the Netherlands2–8 August 2027 · The Hideaway, ColoradoApplication onlyFrom €2,500 / $2,995 early bird · All-inclusive
Two doors. One room.
How are you coming?
01I’m coming for professional trainingFor coaches, therapists, counsellors and facilitators learning to guide couples through rupture and repair towards secure connection.02I’m coming to master my own relationshipsFor anyone who wants to practise relational mastery in their own life. Come on your own or with a partner, and bring the learning into your friendships, family and intimate relationships.
7Days in residence
Training and practice
Training and practice
4Areas of facilitation
From rupture to repair
From rupture to repair
3Coaching settings
Couple, circle & group
Couple, circle & group
Application
onlyEvery place reviewed
Personally by our team
onlyEvery place reviewed
Personally by our team
Sound familiar?
The hardest thing to holdis what moves between two people.
One of them says they feel alone. The other hears that they have failed. Before you have said a word, the old argument has started again, and each of them is quietly waiting for you to agree with them.
Whether you work with individuals, couples or groups, facilitating intimacy asks something specific of you: holding two nervous systems at once, translating between them, and leaving them with something they can use at home on a hard evening.
You never say it out loud, and both of them feel it anyway.
One "because" and the apology becomes another dig.
"I love you" does not reach someone who has just said "I don't feel important".
It worked in the room, and a week later they are back in the old pattern.
“What was wounded in relationship needs relationship to heal.”Christian Pankhurst
A couple can tell you every detail of their last argument and still struggle to repair it. You learn to work with what is happening between them now: the defence that rises, the hurt it protects, and the response that might finally reach it.
A couple who learns to say the real thing, and to have it received, can find their way back to each other again and again.
Relationship Mastery trains you to guide rupture and repair, and to teach couples practices they can use without you.
Learn to stay with the conversation
where repair becomes possible.
A withhold comes out as blame. A request for reassurance is heard as criticism. One partner tries to explain while the other needs to be felt.
You learn to recognise these moments and guide the practice they call for, while keeping both people in view.
What you learn to facilitate
- Decoding defence and tracking the trigger beneath a reaction.
- Nervous system regulation when a conversation becomes charged.
- Sharing withholds and unmet needs without making a partner wrong.
- Listening deeply without giving up a different perspective.
- Going uncontained without turning expression into projection.
- Repair that helps a couple experience secure connection.
There is another way
Help couples have the conversations they keep getting stuck inside.
This immersion takes the relationship practices of Heart iQ into the work of coaching others. You experience the processes yourself and watch Christian facilitate real couples through rupture and repair. You study how he recognises a defence, makes room for what has been withheld, and helps a partner listen when their own experience is different. In circle, the group field brings further wisdom and support into that work.
“Since using Heart iQ with my clients, I’m having amazing results. It’s changing people’s lives! They’re sharing, expressing, and feeling without holding back.”Marc Adams · Graduated in 2013
Training and transformation
Inside the
immersion week.
You practise the difficult conversations in your own relationships and study Christian facilitating them with couples in the room. You see where a repair attempt gets lost, how he responds to defence, and what helps two people find contact again. There is time to ask about the choices he makes.
The work
Four bodies of relational facilitation.
Christian teaches each body of work from whatever is alive in the room, so you see it meet real relationships rather than a script, with time to study it closely and ask your questions.
01
Understanding what happens when connection breaks
Decoding Defence & Trigger Tracking
A partner withdraws, explains themselves or goes on the attack. You learn to recognise the defence and track the hurt beneath it, without making either person wrong. The moment a couple loses contact becomes something you can work with together.
You practise distinguishing present-day upset from a reaction carrying an earlier hurt. The strength of a feeling tells you something needs attention; it does not settle what another person intended. You help curiosity return without dismissing what genuinely happened between the couple. Your own nervous system is part of the session too, so you learn to notice when you are being pulled into their argument.
- Decoding defence without shaming the person protecting themselves
- Trigger tracking through the body and the live exchange
- Nervous system regulation when one partner escalates or shuts down
- Helping both partners stay in contact with their own experience
- Recognising your own reactions while facilitating a couple
02
Withholds, unmet needs and different perspectives
Facilitating the Difficult Conversation
What has been left unsaid often shapes the whole relationship. You learn to help a couple share withholds and unmet needs in a way that brings them into contact, rather than giving the old argument new material.
The listener does not have to agree with everything to listen deeply. You practise helping someone receive their partner’s experience while keeping their own perspective, and guiding the speaker to own what they feel rather than explain what is wrong with the other person.
- Sharing withholds before resentment takes over the conversation
- Turning a complaint into a clear expression of an unmet need
- Listening deeply while holding a different perspective
- Acknowledging your part without adding a justification
- Teaching couples a practice they can use when you are not there
03
Making room for intensity without projection
Uncontained Expression & Repair
Some feelings need more room than a carefully managed conversation allows. You learn how to facilitate going uncontained while keeping responsibility with the person expressing. Intensity needs agreements and clear boundaries so that expression does not become an attack on a partner.
Repair asks you to notice what can actually be received. Within Heart iQ, a corrective experience means meeting something familiar with a different response: a boundary is respected, a need is heard, or someone stays present through a difficult feeling. You learn to slow down enough for that response to land, rather than pushing a couple towards an apology or a breakthrough.
- Setting agreements before facilitating uncontained expression
- Distinguishing owned expression from projection onto a partner
- Tracking the receiving partner and knowing when to pause
- Guiding acknowledgement and reassurance that can be received
- Helping a couple return to connection after a difficult exchange
04
With a couple, in circle or through group practices
Bringing Rupture & Repair into Your Work
You study how Christian guides these conversations with real couples, following the choices he makes as the exchange unfolds. The relationship teachings from Love, Relationships & You become a facilitation practice: recognising what is happening and helping two people move through it.
In a circle, you can draw on the group field and the wisdom of the tribe to deepen the coaching. You study how agreed roles can help someone experience support or a boundary being respected, and how to release those roles afterwards. The aim is to help people recognise capacities of their own, with the group supporting that learning. You also explore how to lead relationship practices with several couples in a workshop.
- Guiding a private session from rupture towards repair
- Drawing on the group field to deepen a couple’s process
- Leading relationship practices with a group
- Studying the facilitation choices in a live demonstration
- Closing with something the couple can practise at home
Where the practice continues after the week.
The seven days are where you receive the full transmission, practise each process yourself, and study the facilitation up close as Christian works with the relationships in the room.
The optional twelve-week online practicum is where you practise the processes in small groups and receive detailed feedback on your facilitation. Together with the immersion and the separate online course, it forms the pathway to your Relationship Mastery badge.
The container
The spaces you will learn to hold.
A couple can be met in more than one kind of space, and each asks something different of you. Learning to move between them is what turns a couples coach into a facilitator of relationship.
One-to-one with a couple
Track the rupture as it unfolds, help each partner speak and listen, and guide a repair they can continue practising at home.
Coaching a couple in a circle
Draw on the group field and the wisdom of the tribe to deepen the coaching, bringing perspectives and support that a private session alone cannot offer.
Leading relationship practices in a group
Guide several couples through the practices in a workshop, with clear agreements and time to explore what happens when they share and listen differently.
“The healthiest relationships are relationships that open and receive
support from tribe and from brothers and sisters.”Christian Pankhurst, Founder of Heart iQ
A day in the immersion
The rhythm of
the week.
The days follow a titrated arc. They open into depth and then settle into integration, rather than escalating without rest.
Morning Small sharing circles and open space, practised each day at increasing depthMidday The large field with Christian: transmission, and relational work shown liveAfternoon Couples coaching demonstrations and close study of the facilitationEvening Integration and rest, so the day has room to land
This is the usual arc, not a rigid timetable. The sequence can shift in response to what is alive in the room, while preserving enough time for practice, completion and integration.
Roughly half of the immersion is professional training and half is your own deep work. The work you receive is part of the training, because you cannot facilitate a depth of intimacy you have never let yourself feel.
Application only
Serious work asks
for the right room.
Relationship Mastery is a professional immersion held by application.It is not for everyone, and it is not meant to be.
This is for you if
- You are a coach, therapist, counsellor or facilitator who works with couples, or wants to, and wants to work deeper than talk
- You want to guide couples through rupture and repair, privately or in a circle
- You want to help couples share unmet needs, listen through disagreement and practise repair at home
- You are ready to do your own deep relational work, as well as learn to facilitate
- You can be in residence for the full seven days, at New Eden in February or in Colorado in August
This may not be the right fit if
- You mainly want to deepen your own relationships. The personal door on this page is written for you
- You are looking for a quick certificate to add to a website
- You want the practice without being in your own process
- You are in acute crisis and need personal therapy rather than a professional training right now
- You are not willing to receive direct feedback on how you work with couples
Applying does not commit you to book.
Stories from the Field: Coco
Hear Coco share her experience of Relationship Mastery
Meet Christian
Christian Pankhurst
Before I could train others to facilitate intimacy, I had to learn to stay open inside it myself.
I’m Christian Pankhurst, founder of Heart iQ and author of Insights to Intimacy: Why Relationships Fail & How to Make Them Work, and I will be leading this immersion.
I trained first in the sciences, graduating as a chiropractor in 2002, and then as a facilitator in Neale Donald Walsch’s Leadership Education Program, where I was mentored as his protégé. In 2009 I was awarded the title of Britain’s Next Top Coach, winning a national competition with votes from 92 countries. In 2011 I opened the Heart iQ Academy, and I have led hundreds of retreats and trainings since 2002, with people travelling from more than thirty countries to be in the room.
Through direct observation of thousands of group interactions at my deep dive relationship retreats, I began to see the hidden patterns of connection and conflict that show up in every kind of relationship, and translated them into a practical, embodied language that anyone can learn. In 2016 we bought New Eden, our own retreat centre on its own land in the Frisian countryside, and it is where the February edition is held.
Relationship Mastery is where I hand you the part of this work that sits closest to my own life: how two people find their way back to each other, and how a facilitator holds that journey.
I look forward to meeting you in the work.
“Christian Pankhurst knows how to articulate these messages as well as, if not better than I can. He is a profound source of wisdom and depth.”Neale Donald WalschNew York Times best-selling author of Conversations with God
Academy Director and senior faculty
Stephanie Fabela
Stephanie will teach alongside Christian throughout the immersion. She co-taught the original Relationship Mastery training with him, and her voice runs all through its recordings: co-coaching couples, walking the room during practices, and adding the distinction that makes a process land.
She reads what is moving underneath a room, and finds the direction and the charge that is asking to be met. Her particular art as a teacher is translating what she senses into something another facilitator can see, practise and eventually hold for themselves.
Faculty
Sumir Brown
Sumir has been immersed in Heart iQ since 2014. She helped build New Eden, co-created the Heart iQ Academy 90-Day Challenge with Christian, and has spent years co-facilitating the men’s and women’s work.
Her own thread lives deeply in the feminine, and she created Feminine Rising as a place for women to access this work through embodied experience. In the immersion she brings a fierce, tender quality of holding, so when the work deepens nobody is left alone inside it.
Never held alone
How this work is held.
Christian, Stephanie and Sumir lead this immersion with a carefully selected team of experienced Heart iQ facilitators and trainers.
The team is chosen for depth in the Heart iQ method and particular experience with intimacy, polarity and relational repair. In the full room and in smaller groups they guide the work alongside the three faculty, so the space can travel into real depth while staying safe, and your own growth is held by more than one pair of eyes.
Stories from the Field: Geoff
Hear Geoff share his experience
Stories from the field
People who came to this work and were changed by it
Some of them now hold it for others.
“If you want to coach couples from the Heart, then this training is an absolute must.”
JacquiRelationship coach · 2015 graduate
“I’ve been a therapist for 30 years and if others like me want to shed the therapist paradigm and move into real heart centered, transformative work, THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE!”
Joyce LynnGraduated in 2013
“This training is heart-centered, heart-led and heart-opening. You will laugh. You will cry. But most of all you will deepen in an experience of what it is to truly feel loved and to love others authentically from your innermost heart.”
Priya MahtaniGraduated in 2014
Respected by peers
What leaders in the field say about Christian’s work.
“When I launched the Field Facilitator Training, I knew I wanted Christian as one of our lead faculty. His sessions were consistently among the most highly rated and impactful parts of the course, and many participants described his workshops as life-changing.”
Rachel RickardsFounder, The Field Facilitator Training · Co-Founder, Embodied Intimacy
“Many facilitators rely on personal charisma and intuition. Christian has gone significantly further, turning what is often viewed as intuitive into a repeatable method that others can learn and apply.”
John ThompsonCo-Founder, Transformational Connection · Master NARM Facilitator, trained 1,500+ facilitators across 25 countries
“Christian is part of a very small group at the very top of the profession. I would place him in the top one percent of practitioners in trauma-informed group facilitation, and I am not aware of anyone else who combines his level of scale, structure, and impact.”
Catherine HaleFounder, Culture of Care Certified Trauma-Informed Training
“Much of what I teach today emerged from what I learned from Christian’s work. His ability to read a room and guide large groups through profound emotional processes, with safety and clarity, is truly exceptional. He is one of the few facilitators I trust unequivocally.”
Suzanne BeukemaFeminine Leadership Mentor · Founder, Unshakable Feminine Leadership
Stories from the Field: Suzanne Beukema
Hear Suzanne share her experience
Part of the Heart iQ Academy
The immersion stands alone.Continue into the Heart iQ Academy.
These seven days are complete in themselves. They are also one specialisation within the Heart iQ Academy, a school for somatic-relational facilitators, alongside Healing in Tribe and Somatic Shadow & Circle Work.
01
The immersion
These seven days in residence. The live training, the transmission, and the deep work you do yourself. Complete and valuable on its own.
02
The practicum
An optional twelve weeks of online practice afterwards, where you facilitate the work in small groups and refine your facilitation with feedback.
03
Your badge
Complete the online course, this immersion and the twelve-week practicum to earn the Relationship Mastery specialisation badge.
04
Certification
There are three Academy specialisation badges. Complete all three, in any order, to become a certified Heart iQ facilitator.
Certification is always opt-in. You can come for the immersion alone and take everything it gives you. The Relationship Mastery online training is purchased separately and is one of the three parts required for this specialisation badge.
Immersion and practicum
What the full pathway trains you to do.
- Decode defence and track the trigger beneath a couple’s argument
- Support nervous system regulation when a partner escalates or withdraws
- Guide the sharing of withholds and unmet needs without blame
- Help someone listen deeply while keeping their own perspective
- Facilitate uncontained expression with ownership, agreements and clear boundaries
- Guide acknowledgement and repair that can be received
- Draw on the group field to deepen a couple’s process
- Teach couples practices that support secure connection at home
And you leave with your own relational range expanded, because you cannot facilitate a depth of intimacy you have never let yourself feel.
February · The Netherlands
New Eden.
The February edition is held at New Eden, a private retreat centre in the Frisian countryside in the north of the Netherlands, created specifically for immersive group work.
We chose it because it can hold stillness and intensity for a whole week without interruption. You are not navigating a hotel or a public venue with the world carrying on outside the door.
For seven nights in the heart of winter, this is home, and everything about the place is arranged around the work.
August · Colorado
The Hideaway.
The August edition is held at The Hideaway, a residential retreat venue in Colorado Springs. The whole group lives on site for the week, so sessions, meals, rest and the conversations between them all belong to the work.
Shared rooms hold two to five single beds, and you share with others of the same gender. A private room gives you a room to yourself.
If you would like to meet the work first, Love, Relationships & You runs at Casa Sagrada in Colorado from 29 July to 1 August 2027, just before the immersion. It is booked separately.
Dates and investment
Choose your immersion.
The same seven-day training runs twice, in the Netherlands and in Colorado. Each cohort is held by application, and each room is kept small on purpose.
The Netherlands
7–14 February 2027
New Eden · 7 nights, residential
Shared ensuite room€2,995€2,500
Private ensuite room€3,395€2,900
Early bird until 30 November 2026, save €495. From 1 December: €2,995 shared, €3,395 private.
Per person, training, accommodation and every meal included. A 20% deposit of €500 secures a shared room.
Apply for FebruaryColorado, USA
2–8 August 2027
The Hideaway, Colorado Springs · 6 nights, residential
Shared room$3,500$2,995
Private room$4,000$3,495
Early bird until 2 June 2027, save $505. From 3 June: $3,500 shared, $4,000 private.
Per person, training, accommodation and every meal included. A 20% deposit of $599 secures a shared room. Shared rooms hold two to five single beds, same gender.
Apply for AugustSeven days of training with Christian, Stephanie, Sumir and the teamAccommodation and every meal for the weekLive demonstration and study of the facilitationDaily small sharing circles alongside the full group
1Apply
Tell us about your experience and why you feel called.
2Acceptance
We review whether this is the right room for you.
3Choose
If accepted, you decide whether you want to book.
4Book
A 20% deposit secures your place.
Applying does not commit you to book.
The application process
Allow around 20 to 30 minutes. Once you enter your name and email, your progress saves automatically.
The application asks about your professional experience, current support, emotional readiness and relevant personal history. These questions help the team assess whether this is the right room and understand what support may be needed. Every exercise during the immersion remains optional.
Read how Heart iQ handles personal information.Applications stay open until the room is full. Places are offered in the order they are accepted, and private rooms tend to go first.
If you are accepted and choose to book
You can pay in full at any point before the immersion begins. If you would rather spread the cost, a 20% deposit secures your place and the balance is due thirty days before your immersion starts.
Your deposit commits you to the full fee. More than 90 days before the start, a cancellation is refunded in full less a 10% administrative fee; between 90 and 60 days, 50% of what you have paid is refunded; within 60 days the fee is non-refundable, though at our discretion we may offer a transferable credit valid for twelve months.
New to this work?
Start with Love, Relationships and You.
Love, Relationships & You is Heart iQ’s three-day live training in heart intelligent relating. You sit in it as a full participant: doing the practices, feeling the field, and watching Christian work with the real relationships in the room.
It is a separate event with its own booking, and it is not part of the immersion ticket. If you have not experienced Heart iQ’s relational work live before, it is the natural place to meet it first.
Explore Love, Relationships and YouQuestions before you apply
What you need to know.
Where does this take place?+
There are two editions. In February it is held at New Eden, a private retreat centre in the Frisian countryside in the north of the Netherlands, built specifically for immersive group work. In August it is held at The Hideaway, a residential retreat venue in Colorado Springs. Both are fully residential, so for the week the venue is home.
Do I need to be a trained facilitator?+
No particular certification is required. This is a facilitator training for coaches, therapists, counsellors and committed practitioners who work with couples, or want to, and who want to work deeper than talk. You need to feel the call and be willing to do your own deep work as well as learn to facilitate. Roughly half the immersion is professional training and half is your own transformation.
I mostly work one-to-one. Is this still for me?+
Yes. Much of what you learn is for the private session with a couple: trigger tracking, sharing unmet needs, and guiding rupture and repair. The circle and group-field work opens a second way of working that many practitioners find changes their one-to-one sessions as well.
Can I come if I am not a practitioner?+
Yes. The immersion also welcomes people who want facilitation as a life skill for their own relationships, and the personal door on this page describes the week from that side. You will share the room with them.
What is included in the price?+
Everything for the week: the full training with Christian, Stephanie, Sumir and the team, your accommodation and every meal. In the Netherlands a shared room is €2,500 and a private room €2,900, the early bird until 30 November 2026, then €2,995 and €3,395. In Colorado a shared room is $2,995 and a private room $3,495, the early bird until 2 June 2027, then $3,500 and $4,000.
What are the dates?+
The Netherlands: Sunday 7 to Sunday 14 February 2027 at New Eden, seven nights, opening on the Sunday evening and closing in the early afternoon of the following Sunday. Colorado: Monday 2 to Sunday 8 August 2027 at The Hideaway, six nights, arriving from 4pm with dinner and the opening session on the first evening. Both are fully residential.
Do I need to attend Love, Relationships & You first?+
No. The immersion is a seven-day training in its own right, and Love, Relationships & You is a separate event with its own booking. If you have not experienced Heart iQ’s relational work live before, the three-day training is a good way to meet it first.
Is the online training part of this?+
No. The Relationship Mastery online training is a separate, recorded home-study course with its own page. You can study it before or after the immersion, or on its own.
How do I secure my place?+
First, submit an application. If you are accepted, you choose whether to book. A 20% deposit secures your place, and the balance is due thirty days before we begin.
Is this couples therapy? Is it safe?+
No, this is a professional facilitator training in which you also do your own deep work. It is held by a trained team in a carefully titrated container, with regulation and care built into every day. Learning to recognise triggers never means treating present-day harm as something you should tolerate. Clear boundaries and practical safety come first. It is not a substitute for personal or couples therapy. If you are in acute crisis right now, this is not the right time, and we will gladly point you towards more suitable support.
Can I come with my partner?+
Yes. Each person applies and is considered in their own right. If one of you is coming to train and the other to deepen your relationship, you share the same room and the same week.
What does a day look like?+
Mornings open with small sharing circles and open space. Midday is the large group field with Christian: transmission, and relational work shown live. Afternoons are couples coaching demonstrations and close study of the facilitation. Evenings are for integration and rest. The arc is titrated, opening into depth and then settling, rather than escalating into the night.
What about the badge, the practicum and certification?+
The immersion is valuable on its own. The Relationship Mastery badge combines the separate online course, this week-long immersion and a twelve-week practicum with supervision and feedback. The badge is one of three Academy specialisations. Completing all three badges leads to certification as a Heart iQ facilitator.
How do I get to the venue?+
Once your place is confirmed we send full travel directions for your edition: for New Eden, the nearest airports and stations and the best way to reach the Frisian countryside; for The Hideaway, the best way to reach Colorado Springs.
What is your cancellation policy?+
Both editions run for seven days, so they fall under our cancellation terms for events of seven days or longer. A 20% deposit secures your place, and the deposit commits you to the full fee. If you need to cancel, write to connect@heartiq.org, and your refund depends on timing: more than 90 days before the start, a full refund less a 10% administrative fee; between 90 and 60 days, 50% of what you have paid; within 60 days of the start, the fee is non-refundable, though at our discretion we may offer a transferable credit valid for twelve months.
The final invitation
When a relationship needs more than two people can hold.
This is a professional training, and it asks something of you: seven days in residence, in a small and committed room, learning to hold the work that brings two people back to each other.
If you have sat with a couple whose understanding was complete and whose pattern still ran, you already know what this immersion is for.
You do not need to arrive certain. You need to be willing to step into the room and meet your own relational material, and to learn to support others by being held yourself.
Both circles are forming now, and each room is kept small on purpose. If something in you has already said yes, this is your invitation to follow it.
I look forward to meeting you in the work.
Begin the application
