ORGANIZATIONS & FACILITATORS
Bring Break the Loop to the couples you serve.
Break the Loop is a relationship education framework designed to help couples recognize recurring patterns of conflict, catch them earlier, respond with more choice, and repair more effectively when the pattern takes over.
For organizations that care about relationship health, BTL offers something between general marriage enrichment and clinical treatment:
A practical framework couples can learn, understand, and use in everyday life.
Break the Loop is currently in pilot development. Aaron Jarrels is personally leading initial programs while the curriculum, facilitator materials, participant experience, implementation model, and training pathway are being tested and refined.
WHY THIS EXISTS
Many Organizations Already Care About Relationships
Churches, first responder organizations, nonprofits, community groups, and other organizations often already provide meaningful support for couples.
That may include:
- marriage events,
- retreats,
- mentoring,
- pastoral care,
- peer support,
- counseling referrals,
- small groups,
- or educational programs.
Those resources matter.
But there can still be a practical gap.
Couples may know they need to communicate better without understanding what happens when communication begins breaking down.
- They may leave a retreat encouraged, then find themselves in the same argument two weeks later.
- They may receive good advice but struggle to use it once defensiveness, overload, shutdown, or pursuit has already taken over.
Break the Loop is designed to help fill that gap.
It gives couples a common language for understanding the recurring pattern underneath conflict and practical skills for responding differently when they begin to recognize it.
THE BTL SYSTEM
A Framework Couples Can Take Home With Them
BTL is not built around one memorable event.
The goal is to give couples a framework they can continue using after the class, workshop, or program ends.
At the center of Break the Loop is a simple four-part sequence:
LAUNCH → OVERLOAD → OLD STORY → PROTECTION MOVE
Couples learn to ask:
LAUNCH
What happened?
OVERLOAD
What started happening inside me?
OLD STORY
What did the moment begin to mean?
PROTECTION MOVE
What did I do next?
They then learn how one person's Protection Move can become the other person's next Launch, creating a relational pattern that begins feeding itself.
Instead of only asking:
“What are you fighting about?”
BTL also helps couples ask:
“What keeps happening between us once the fight begins?”
That distinction creates a different starting point for change.
HOW CHANGE DEVELOPS
See It. Catch It. Change It. Strengthen It.
The Break the Loop program follows a developmental pathway:
SEE
Learn to recognize the recurring pattern underneath the conflict.
CATCH
Notice the Loop earlier by becoming more aware of overload, familiar meanings, sensitive areas, and early warning signs.
CHANGE
Create enough space to stop automatically doing the next familiar thing.
The core BTL interruption skill is:
NAME IT → SLOW IT → CHECK IT → CHOOSE IT
STRENGTHEN
Practice more intentional responses, develop Different Moves, repair when the Loop is missed, and learn from what works.
The goal is not perfect communication.
It is increasing a couple's ability to recognize what is happening and have more choice about what happens next.
EDUCATION, NOT THERAPY
Designed to Be Teachable Without Becoming Therapy
This distinction is central to the way Break the Loop is being developed.
BTL is relationship education.
It is not intended to turn pastors, ministry leaders, chaplains, peer-support personnel, volunteers, or organizational staff into therapists.
The facilitator's role is intentionally limited and clear:
TEACH. GUIDE. PROTECT. REFER.
Teach the Break the Loop framework accurately.
Guide participants through structured learning and practice.
Protect privacy, scope, appropriate boundaries, and participant safety.
Refer when a couple's needs move beyond the educational role of the program.
Participants are taught publicly.
- They practice privately.
- They share selectively.
BTL does not require couples to disclose intimate relationship details to a facilitator or group in order to participate.
That allows organizations to provide meaningful relationship education while maintaining a clear distinction between education and counseling.
BUILT FOR CONSISTENCY
The setting can change. The system should not.
A relationship program becomes difficult to scale if every facilitator teaches a different version of it.
That is why Break the Loop is being built as a system rather than simply a set of discussion topics.
The program is being developed with:
- a defined framework,
- consistent terminology,
- structured participant materials,
- facilitator guidance,
- standard exercises,
- common examples,
- practice tools,
- scope boundaries,
- safety guidance,
- and implementation standards.
The goal is not to make every facilitator sound identical.
It is to make sure every participant receives the same underlying Break the Loop system.
A principle guiding facilitator development is:
Contextualize the examples. Preserve the system.
- The setting may change.
- The population may change.
- The examples may change.
- The core architecture should not.
WHAT AN ORGANIZATION COULD OFFER
A system designed to support different levels of engagement.
Introductory presentations and workshops
A practical introduction to recurring relationship patterns and the Break the Loop framework.
Guided multi-week programs
Structured learning that allows couples to understand their own Loop, recognize it earlier, practice interruption skills, develop Different Moves, and learn Repair.
Facilitator-led programs
Trained facilitators delivering the established BTL curriculum within their organization.
Participant tools and continued practice
Resources couples can use outside the program to reinforce what they have learned.
Implementation support
Guidance for organizations incorporating BTL into an existing marriage, family, wellness, care, or relationship-support structure.
Not every component is available for broad implementation yet.*
*That is the purpose of the current pilot stage.
WHERE BTL IS NOW
Break the Loop is currently in pilot development.
The core framework, curriculum architecture, participant materials, and facilitator model have been developed.
The next stage is validation.
Initial guided programs are being used to learn:
- Can couples understand and apply the framework?
- Which concepts are easiest and hardest to learn?
- Can participants identify their own Loop without being told what their partner is doing wrong?
- Do couples begin recognizing the pattern earlier?
- Are the interruption and Repair skills usable outside the program?
- Can facilitators teach the system consistently without drifting into counseling?
- What needs to be clarified, simplified, or strengthened before wider implementation?
During this stage, Aaron is personally leading initial programs and working closely with participating organizations.
The purpose is not simply to prove that couples enjoy the material.
It is to determine whether Break the Loop can become a reliable, teachable, repeatable relationship education system.
PILOT ORGANIZATIONS
Start with the need, not the program.
The current starting point for organizations is not purchasing a packaged program.
It is a conversation about fit.
If your organization serves couples, we can look together at:
- who you serve,
- what relationship support you already provide,
- where you see recurring gaps,
- what couples seem to need,
- what your staff or leaders are currently equipped to provide,
- what type of program would be realistic in your setting,
- and whether a Break the Loop pilot could be useful.
A pilot should solve a real organizational need.
It should not simply add another program to the calendar.
The first question is not:
“How can we bring BTL here?”
It is:
“What do the couples you serve actually need?”
If Break the Loop fits that need, we can determine what a responsible pilot might look like.
FACILITATOR PATHWAY
Teaching the Loop is only the beginning.
Break the Loop is also being developed with a future facilitator pathway in mind.
The goal is to prepare qualified people to deliver BTL consistently within appropriate educational settings without requiring Aaron to personally teach every program.
Facilitator preparation will need to include more than familiarity with the four-part Loop.
Facilitators will need to understand:
- the complete BTL architecture,
- the purpose of each program stage,
- how to teach without diagnosing,
- how to redirect blame toward first-person awareness,
- how to protect participant privacy,
- how to recognize when something exceeds educational scope,
- how to maintain fidelity while adapting examples,
- and how to refer appropriately when additional support is needed.
The standard is not:
“Can I explain the Loop?”
It is:
“Can I help participants learn to see their own Loop while preserving the BTL system and staying within my role?”
The facilitator pathway is still being developed and is not yet being offered as a broad certification program.
Organizations participating in pilot development may help inform what that eventual pathway needs to include.
FOR RELATIONSHIP PROFESSIONALS
Professional integration will be a separate pathway.
The educational Facilitator pathway and professional use of Break the Loop will not necessarily be the same thing.
Therapists and other qualified relationship professionals may eventually have a separate pathway for learning the deeper model and integrating BTL concepts into appropriate professional work.
That pathway is still in development.
The distinction matters.
A facilitator teaches the structured educational system.
A clinician or other qualified professional may work with complexity that belongs outside the role of a community or organizational facilitator.
BTL is being designed to preserve those boundaries rather than blur them.
CLEAR BOUNDARIES
A framework is only useful when its limits are clear.
Break the Loop is not designed to replace therapy.
- It is not a system for determining who is right.
- It is not a method for diagnosing a partner.
- It does not assume that every relationship problem is equally caused by both people.
And it does not treat fear, coercion, intimidation, violence, or other serious safety concerns as simply another shared communication pattern.
BTL provides a structured way to understand recurring relational patterns within an appropriate educational scope.
When a situation exceeds that scope, the appropriate response is not to push farther into the curriculum.
It is to recognize the boundary and refer appropriately.
BRING BTL TO YOUR ORGANIZATION
Build something couples can actually use.
Organizations do not necessarily need more relationship information.
Couples already have access to enormous amounts of advice.
The harder problem is helping people recognize what happens to that knowledge when they become overloaded, defensive, frightened, hurt, or disconnected.
Break the Loop is being built around that problem.
- A framework simple enough to remember.
- A system deep enough to explain recurring conflict.
- Skills couples can practice.
- Clear boundaries for the people teaching it.
- And a delivery model that can eventually be used consistently across different organizations and communities.
If your organization serves couples and sees a need that sounds familiar, the next step is a conversation.
Scope & Safety
Break the Loop provides relationship education about recurring patterns of conflict and disconnection. It is not therapy, crisis intervention, or a substitute for appropriate professional care.
BTL does not require equal responsibility for all relationship problems and should not be used to reframe fear, threats, coercion, intimidation, stalking, sexual coercion, violence, or fear of retaliation as a shared communication pattern.
Organizations and facilitators are expected to maintain appropriate scope and referral procedures when participant needs exceed the educational role of the program.