Relationship Resilience: Finding Your Edge When Love and Fear Collide with Geoff Laughton (part 2)

Relationship resilience is not built in the easy seasons, it is forged in the moments where everything is falling apart and you choose each other anyway. In this second segment of Reignite Resilience's conversation with internationally bestselling author and relationship coach Geoff Laughton, cohosts Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass go deep into the chapter of Geoff's life that transformed him from a burned-out corporate executive into the coach, speaker, and men's work leader he is today.

This segment picks up right where the love story with Sarah gets tested. After a brief breakup driven by parental pressure, his mother had a lot to say about Sarah's age and her divorce history. Geoff licks his wounds, sends a card, makes a dinner he had no business cooking, opens the door, and forty-four years begin. But the path from that dinner table to becoming a relationship architect was anything but linear. An early commitment to not having more children gets upended at 39 when Sarah becomes unexpectedly pregnant. A back injury at 34 forces Geoff out of his workaholic patterns. Anxiety attacks, a bedridden month, and finally a three-day transformational workshop called Emptying Into Intimacy crack him open. Beginning with a blindfolded rock climb and culminating in a moment on a 175-foot cliff that would become the story he uses in his coaching to this day.

This segment is about what it really looks like to face your edge, the place where your story about yourself runs out and something truer is waiting on the other side. Geoff spent four and a half hours lying on the ground, trembling, while everyone else in the workshop repelled down the cliff. He never made it down that day. And it became one of the most important experiences of his life.

Natalie and Pamela draw the throughline between Geoff's personal story and the work he now does helping couples, individuals, and men find their own version of that edge and choose to keep going.

In This Episode:

The unexpected pregnancy at 39 that changed the plan and what Geoff and Sarah chose to do with it

What a blindfolded rock climb taught Geoff about getting out of his head and trusting his body

The 175-foot cliff, the fetal position, and the four-and-a-half hours that became a coaching cornerstone

How a week-long leadership retreat in Durango, Colorado finally unlocked Geoff's calling as a coach

Why Sarah told Geoff she was proud of his coaching work and then asked him to start charging for it

The inner child workshop that woke Geoff up the next morning with a crystal-clear sense of purpose

Why asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it is actually a sign of resilience

This is the segment for anyone who has ever been lying on the metaphorical ground, trembling, while it feels like everyone else is moving forward without them. Your edge is not a failure. It is your starting point.

 

Connect with Geoff Laughton: 🌐 https://yourrelationshiparchitect.com/ 🌐 https://theundauntedman.com/ 📚 Instant Insights on Building a Conflict-Proof Relationship. Available now 📚 Built to Last: Designing and Maintaining a Loving, Lasting, and Passionate Relationship. Available now 

Connect with Reignite Resilience: 🌐https://reigniteresilience.com/📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram 🗓️   

Reignite Live 2027- January 22, 2027 | Casa Sagrata, Loveland, Colorado. Geoff Laughton is a featured speaker. Tickets available now.  

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who is ready to do the work. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 3:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Jeff, wow, what a story. I would love to go back to your little hiatus when you said 21 to 24.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Because I mean, we all know we're we all are very much into self-improvement and all of this.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

When we recognize a pattern that's happening, we're like, okay, I gotta change this. It's not that easy. It's so you said you went right back to working, which I mean, it's easy. I'm a workaholic. I think Natalie is a recovering workaholic. And I think it's one of those things that we just, it's easy to just get right back into that pattern. So what was it that happened during that period of time that changed who you were attracting into your life? Because obviously you attracted Sarah and you were attracted to Sarah, which was a different type of woman that you had been attracted to before.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, really great question. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Well, I mean, I did work a lot. I definitely kind of initially had to recover some of my self-respect after that last relationship. And I had to learn how to re-I mean, that woman was probably the most masterful gaslighter I've ever known in my life. I mean, she could really get me to believe what I had physical proof of that I was wrong. So in that hiatus, I had to relearn how to trust myself and retrust my instinct. So that was one thing. And I think in a lot of ways, I mean, I got into therapy and I did one-on-one therapy for a while, and then I got involved in group therapy. So there was a little bit of a reconnection to what I had studied anyway. And you know, what really helped me was I remember my first therapist at the time was probably my age now, late 60s, early 70s, and really, really wise. And then she referred me to one of her clients who was also a therapist who had a group, and the group was oriented around transactional analysis. And for whatever reason, I vibed with that modality. But really, what I needed that I had never had up to that point was I needed reflection. I needed people to mirror back to me how they saw me, what they saw in me, how they experienced me in where there was no ulterior motive, no, you know, well, you're my mom, you're supposed to tell me things like that. Or you're my girlfriend, you're supposed to tell me things. Both of those women were complete straight shooters and couldn't have bullshit anybody if their life depended on it. And they really helped me build myself back in a lot of ways. And the woman with the group had a husband, because I didn't grow up until I was 16. I didn't have a dad around. I didn't have a strong male model to go by. And my mom had horrific taste in men. So men would be in and out, and they'd never hang around long. So there wasn't really anything to hang my hat on as a guy. Like, how do you be a good man? What does that even mean? So getting to meet some men in the group, the TA group, I began to get to know a little bit. Well, who am I as a male? Because I always identified with women much more easily because I was raised by women. And I didn't have any brothers. I had one sister. All our dogs were female. So I grew up in estrogenville, and I had no idea what the hell to do with being a guy. So a lot of it, when I think back, was a combination of those two things and really learning how to be okay being alone, being with myself, and I eventually began making friends at work and getting invited over to people's houses for dinner, meeting people, and I started noticing, you know, I was getting more comfortable in my own skin. So I think those were the key things. And I'm so glad you asked, because if I think about where I was then and how Sarah was then, and that she was attracted to me, I think I I wouldn't have put it this way all those years ago. I think I began finding my mojo.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Yeah. You built the relationship with yourself. I love that. And for somebody that's 21 years old to have the foresight, I'm thinking about my son who just turned 21. And I'm just like, I cannot see him getting going to counseling or doing group counseling, but you had enough of that wisdom to say, you know what, I can't do this on myself on my own. Because I think most of us think, oh, I'm just not gonna do that anymore. And we don't realize that we're just gonna go right back to those same patterns. And sometimes it takes until, okay, wait a minute. The comma denominator is me. I gotta, I gotta change something about me. That took me until I was like 50. So you are way, way, way more ahead of the game than than I was, but how amazing. What an amazing story. I love that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, well, you're welcome. And thinking back on it now, yeah, there were definitely not many people in my friend group that were doing that.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

And so it helps to put it into context that I grew up in San Francisco through the late 60s, through the mid-70s, free love, lots of droughts, though I never got high until I was in college. And as messed up as my mom could be, because she was in hindsight, I think she had bipolar disorder. Yeah. But she was really well read. And she gave me for my 13th birthday a copy of everything you always wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask. Okay. So I was lucky both my mom and her mom loved reading, very well educated people. And so I was really a lot of my curiosity really got stoked between their love of reading, and my grandmother loved music, and she taught me a lot about music, and I love music to this day. So, you know, right time, right place. And divine help, which back then I was what how do you spell divine? But I can look at my whole life and see that spirits had my back my whole life.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Yeah. The fingerprints were along the path the entire way. All the divine fingerprints were with you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:55

I love that. And and so, Jeff, you've left us where you are in the space of being an engineer. Not really, but you're in this space. Tell us a little bit about the transition because then you are able to uncover the personal development space and the life coaching space and continuing this journey that you had a little bit of like a taste of because of the curiosity that was woven in through your upbringing. So talk to us a little bit about this next season. What did that look like and what was you know included in that transition?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Oh my God. Um just say with all due respect, yeah. Shut up.

SPEAKER_05 11:42

We want to hear it all, Jeff. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Okay. Um, like I mentioned earlier, I had had, you know, the back injury, then the anxiety attacks. And so one of my best friends that I have known since we were five years old, we connected and we're visiting, and he said, So how have things been? And I tell him, My life is a shit show right now. My marriage is amazing, but the rest of my life is really not going great. Oh, and by the way, I should add in one other important detail. When we really realized that we were probably going to get married, Sarah asked me, if you want to get married, I'm willing to take the chance, but I don't want another child. So if you really need to be a dad, I'm not the one for you. A good example of why you want to be with maybe a more mature person. And I really thought about it for a couple of days, and I got really clear in my body, nope, you're more important to me. I knew my sister would have kids. I'll be their favorite uncle. You know, that'll be the next substitute, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So we got married, not planning on new kids. She said, you know, when my son goes to college, I just want to hang out with my boy toy. I don't want another kid. You can see why I love her, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:16

So I was gonna say she sounds like a lot of fun. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

She is. So at 39 years old, on birth control, she got pregnant. And not having the child, if that's what she had chosen, I would have supported it. And that just for her, with her religious upbringing, that was a non-starter. So when all this stuff happens in my early 30s, I'm also a dad. And I'm a dad of a son, and that's a little intimidating because again, I didn't have a great bunch of male role models for how you be a father. Right. Anyway, we'll loop back to that down the road a little bit. But I I'm with my friend, I tell him, he says, okay, I've got just the thing for you. I've partnered up with this couple in Santa Cruz, which is, you know, still South Bay area, and we have created this three-day workshop. And I want to treat you to our workshop. Come do it, and it'll be just what you need. And, you know, the three of us again, we've been in these spaces for a long, long time. When we are in enough pain, we'll do just about anything. And I was in a lot of pain. And so I go and I do this three-day weekend. It was called Emptying Into Intimacy.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

All right, that's interesting title. And what I didn't know was on day one, they were going to take us to this wilderness area, and I'm a city boy. I had only gone camping once in my entire life up to this point. And we go to this nature area in the Bay Area, and we're hiking, and then we come to these rocks, and they say, Okay, we're gonna do some rock climbing. And I had a huge fear of heights. So I'm sweating bullets, and I but I'm game, and I had not lost all the weight yet, so I'm still pretty pretty hefty. And the first time they had us do it, eyes open, and I was so terrified, I can't even begin to tell you. And then they had us do it again. So I'm like, again, what the fuck? But they blindfold us.

unknown 15:48

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

But here's the thing, it was so I mean, even talking about it now with you two, it's like if I could have put all the breadcrumbs together a little faster, I had so much easier a time doing it blind than I did being able because I couldn't get in my head. Yeah. I literally could only trust my feet and my hands. Yep. And by the way, we were roped, it's not like it was freak swammy.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

So I do great. I'm feeling all of a sudden really full of piss and vinegar. Look at me. And and Sarah's with me in this weekend, and then we go on another little hike, and they say we're gonna just scramble up this little boulder. And I'm all right, fine. And we we go up, and when we get to the top of the boulder, there was a hundred and seventy-five foot drop on the other side that you could you you would never known that was there from where they took us up.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

So I get up there and I look, an amazing view, and I kind of go a little towards the edge, and I hit the pavement. I mean, it's like my knees buckled.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I'm in a fetal position, literally in a fetal position, yeah. Trembling with terror, sweating bullets, and they tell everybody we're gonna tie you from the back of your climbing harness, and they show this how secure the other side of the rope was to trees and boulders, and you're each gonna go to the edge of the cliff, and you're gonna hold your arms out, and you're gonna lean over as far as you can, right? And no. Don't go.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

And then we're not someone might I wanna know.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

And then after you do that, then we're gonna tie the rope to the front of your harness, and you're gonna repel down the 175 or so feet. Wow. Okay, so God put Sarah in my life for so many, so many things. The first person to do it is Sarah. Of course. Oh, wow. So here I am, Mr. C O O. And I'm in a fetal position, feeling like the biggest weenie on earth. Yep. And my wife's the first one to go down. And I she go really, like it's a no thing to her.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

So to make a long story short, I could never get up. I spent about four and a half hours lying, trembling, shaking, while everybody else in the workshop did it. And the two leaders, one of whom is my old friend, says, You want to try? We promise you you're not gonna fall, you're not gonna get hurt, couldn't do it. And they taught me a lesson I've used in my coaching to this day. All of us have an inner edge. And that event, by the way, was called the edge.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And they said, Your edge is lying on the ground for four hours, terrified, and that you didn't crawl, you know, here's your edge. Yeah. So we honor you for where you are. We'll carry you down the short side of the rock that we came up on. And they were so kind about the whole thing, never made me feel embarrassed. And when I got back down and with the group, I was still embarrassed. But I made a commitment to myself that I'm gonna volunteer to work their events. And I'm gonna ask them, after all your paid participants have done the whole thing, would you be willing, if there's time, to let me try again?

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

And the commitment was I don't care how many times I have to do it, if I only go, you know, like standing up would be a win. Yeah. Yeah. So I worked about, I think, another half dozen of their events. And every time I went farther than the time before.

unknown 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Until the day came on a rock that made that one look like child's play. And I was finally able to do it. Yeah. So that really taught me, one, we all have our own speed. Yeah. Two, commitment is a really powerful thing. Three, that as long as I don't go backwards prolonged, I have gone backwards, but as long as I don't make a habit out of it, that I have nothing to be ashamed of. And it also showed me, which I really needed to know, that it really began to show me the difference between who we think we are and you know the identifications that we have and the patterns. And it showed me that we're more than that. And that whole part of doing that batch of work really showed me that I had balls bearing, Texas, and that did not fit my picture of how I saw myself. So from there, my friend left that company and met up with a woman who Pam has heard me reference in my signature talk, a woman named Shakti. And I went and did a week-long leadership retreat with him and her in Durango, Colorado. And fell in love with Durango that week, totally got me. I need to be helping people. This is what I'm really supposed to be doing, not what I'm doing in corporate. So as I've had a habit of doing, I find I would find a piece of work that really rang for me, and I would volunteer and wash dishes, set up like whatever, let me be in the rope and train me. And so I signed up to train with them, and they taught me how to do their work. And I was in one of the weekends, and it was another edge event that they were doing with their corporate clients, and I just had an epiphany one day. I need to be a coach. This is this is my path. So I then took about, I think probably about another year of alternating. You know, I still kept my day job. I had a wife and two kids to feed, but I weekends and nights, I started coaching people in their program. And God love her, Sarah comes up to me one night after I've been doing this about a year and says, honey, I'm so proud of you for how much you help people. I love that you love it. But would you mind charging for it? What microcontinent? I mean, you know that saying, when you you do what you love, you're never working a day in your life, right? That's right. Yeah. And I loved it. I would have never occurred to me to charge for it. Yeah. So bing, the light bulb goes up. And while I'm still working, I decide to set up a coaching practice. And I get back then, there was only the yellow pages and the newspaper to put an ad in. Yep. So I'm beginning to, you know, feel my way into that. And then Sarah and I did a year-long mastery program with Shakti and my friend. And in that, one of the weekends, there was a guy in it who did inner child work. And they really encouraged everybody in the program, you should do this guy's workshop. Yeah. So Sarah and I put a group of friends together and brought him to our home and we did his three-day inner child weekend. This was 93, I think. And I literally woke up the next morning. My first waking thought, this is mine to do. This is really my work, is to do this work. Because who better than somebody who grows up in a really fucked up family to how people heal from growing up in fucked up families?

SPEAKER_04 24:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

It's true.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

It's absolutely true. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

And I really, you know, I asked him if he'd train me. So I trained with him for about a year and a half, and then he kicked me out and said, You're ready, go do your own thing. And so that led to, well, I think I did 16 years of those workshops. So I did about 350 of those. Wow. Oh my gosh. And it began to be hard to get people to do them. Yeah. And by this point, Shakti had become one of our dearest friends, would coach me once in a while, but was much more of a friend. And I'm kind of, I don't get it. I'm not, these aren't filling. I've never had trouble filling it. And she said, Well, did it ever occur to you that you're not supposed to be doing it anymore? Ooh. Uh, no. Wow. But boy, that rang. I mean, my whole body went, Oh, okay. So I got out of doing that work. And when I really decided to like really go for coaching, my very first paying client. So you're gonna see the spiritual through line here. My very first client calls me up. Hi, I've heard about you. I'd like to come do a coaching session with you. And so she comes over. I say, How'd you find out about me? My psychic told me I needed to see you. What? I didn't know her psychic. Oh, wow. I've never even been to a psychic.

unknown 26:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I'm like, all right, this is Twilight Zone stuff here.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

And so she became a client, and then she was an amazing word of mouth referrer. Yeah. So within, you know, a few months, I've got a few clients.

SPEAKER_05 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

And so it builds and it builds, and the workshops fed the one-on-one clientele. And vice versa. So then the last stage up until now, because I'm in a whole nother rebirth of whatever's next for me. Speaking is the bigger part of it. But one of my clients asked me if I would be willing to work with her mom and dad, who at that point were 34 years into their marriage, and it was a mess. And they came out to Durango and spent four days with me. And I had never done it like with balls bigger than Texas. I'd never done anything like that. Yeah, come on out. We'll spend four days together. I'll figure something out. And at the end, they had their relationship back with a new possibility. And when the husband paid me, he overpaid me. And I said, I'm sorry, I need to give you some money back. You overpaid me. He said, No, I didn't. This was worth ten times what you're charging. And a divorce would have cost me ten times what you're charging. Yeah. So thank you and shut up and take the money.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

Take it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

So that really got the light bulb around, well, I should do relationship coaching.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Because I knew even then Sarah and I had a very unicorn marriage. Yeah. Flawed, bumpy, lots of pain and suffering we both have gone through. Most of it not with each other or, you know, because of each other, but things we've dealt with. And I want other people to be able to have that, if that's what's meant for them. And having done all that inner child work for all those years, I really, you know, I knew I didn't want to work with kids. That was outside my pay grade. But if I could help people heal their wounds enough to be able to be healthier parents when they have kids, then there's the way I can make a difference for the future.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.