Real Connections Counseling

10/11/2025

When money feels like a battleground. Most often a couple’s love is there … but connection & intimacy isn’t.

Join the powerhouse collaboration of Real Connections Counseling & Coaching and Knapper Financial Coaching for “Let’s Talk About U$ & Money” seminar, part of the bold new FFlames: For Love and Money Enrichment Series
This one-of-a-kind masterclass helps couples turn tension into teamwork, replace stress with strategy, and create a financial plan that honors both your story and your strengths.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025
6:30–8:00 p.m. | Urbandale, IA

Seats are limited, and this conversation could change everything.

Know someone who would benefit from a system that unites financial mastery and relational connection?

Share this post and pass it forward.

Register now: http://realconnectionscounseling.com/for-love-and-money.../

10/10/2025

Love doesn’t survive through keeping score. Grace protects what comparison destroys. Every relationship faces tension, but love only grows when it’s guarded more fiercely than pride.

Don’t let hurt or frustration become your scoreboard.
Guard love with grace. Forgive faster. Stay curious longer. Remember why you chose each other in the first place.

“Love that keeps score loses count fast. Guard love with grace, not scorekeeping.” - Rick Elgersma, LMFT

Love doesn’t survive through keeping score. Grace protects what comparison destroys. Every relationship faces tension, but love only grows when it’s guarded more fiercely than pride.

Don’t let hurt or frustration become your scoreboard.
Guard love with grace. Forgive faster. Stay curious longer. Remember why you chose each other in the first place.

“Love that keeps score loses count fast. Guard love with grace, not scorekeeping.” - Rick Elgersma, LMFT

Love does not survive as a transaction. Conflict often turns affection into a form of currency. One person begins to withhold, and the other begins to measu ...

10/09/2025

Money doesn’t divide relationships. Silence does.

Every couple talks about money, just not always to each other.

That’s why we created “Let’s Talk About U$ & Money”, a live Couples & Cash Flow Masterclass from Real Connections Counseling & Coaching and Knapper Financial Coaching.

Learn how to turn financial tension into shared strategy and your story into legacy.

This is where conversations shift from stress to purpose, and partners start leading together.

October 24 | 6:30–8 p.m.

Real Connections Counseling, 2540 106th St., Suite 202, Urbandale, IA

$75 per couple | Seats Limited

Register: realconnectionscounseling.com/for-love-and-money-enrichment-series

Strong relationships don’t avoid hard conversations.
They master them.

10/07/2025

Leg day did not go as planned. Spina Bifida happened. I felt mortified, frustrated, and alone. I kept going until I could not go anymore. Stopping was ok. That choice was wise, not quitting.

When frustration hits, use BRACE.

Breathe: In 4. Hold 4. Out 4. Do two to three rounds.

Reset reality: This is a chronic condition, not a character flaw.

Adjust: Scale the weight, change the movement, or switch to mobility. Choose one small win.

Connect: Tell one person. “I hit a wall. I am taking care of my body and I will be back.”

Exit and Evaluate: If your body says stop, stop. Later write three lines. What happened. One thing you did right. One change for next time.

If you train with a chronic condition, you are not alone. Save this for your next hard day. Share it with someone who needs it. Comment with the small win you will take today.

10/05/2025

When Marriage Becomes a Badge

What if we began to see singles, couples, and families as parts of one great body—each with equal value?

Marriage carries weight in our culture: applause, legal perks, social standing. But single people carry pressure. Questions rise in halls, at dinner tables, in offices:
“Why are you single?” “When will you settle down?”

Those questions sting. They leave a mark, guilt, embarrassment, shame.

This article explores how society and systems favor marriage, often without kindness or nuance. It steps into singlism, the bias that ranks people by relationship status. And it reminds us that single lives hold dignity, strength, and purpose.

Marriage carries weight in our culture. Marriage brings applause, legal benefits, and social standing. Single people feel the pressure. Questions rise at we ...

10/01/2025

A friend of the owner brought her huskies to the gym last night for “puppy yoga…”. Not much yoga happening… But it sure was a lot of fun and really cute!

09/26/2025

This is an important video to watch. Our own Rick Elgersma lives this message

09/25/2025

When we hear the word transformation we often picture the physical. We lift weights, run on the elliptical, or push through another set of pushups. But real transformation does not stop on the outside.

True lasting transformation starts within.

Nine powerful traits shape us on the inside and unite us with ourselves and with others. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

No law stands against these virtues. They transform us individually, create community, and build unity. They form internal congruence and teach us to love ourselves and to love others in ways that last.

I also want to give kudos to my friend Denise at Farrell’s Extreme Fitness in Urbandale for sparking this idea. Denise, thank you for the inspiration and for championing transformation that starts from the inside out.

This week I challenge you to see transformation not only in the gym but also in how you live from the inside out.

09/22/2025

I hope you read this, and take note of who Real Connections Counseling & Coaching is. This isn’t the “new us.” We’ve always been this way and been very successful at helping couple after couple, family after family turn from the "evil side eye,” turn from conflict, turn from betrayal, turn from miscommunication, turn from mediocre to greatness.

Our teams have always been unity minded as the method for healing. But we felt the need to bring our identity out of the treasure box. The method behind our unity system we’ll call the Real Connections “Unity9” relationship system. A system that when you put the pieces together, you’ll succeed.

The system is based upon our true identity. Faith. We’re coming out of the dark. We’re not preachers. We won’t stand at the corner and thump on Main Street.

But everything we are as faith-driven people has always been brought to you, and you have brought your relational success to your community, no matter who you are, what you do, how you live, your own identity.

We love and respect all of you.

Welcome to the RCC Unity9 System! You’ll learn how to love with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We use all kinds of unity-based mechanisms to help you build into each of these components whether you’re in business, live with roommates, single, married, or like some of you in your own way, all live together and support each other.

Each type of person, group, and situation will benefit from the RCC Unity9. You can’t afford to miss this.

What is Courage? Courage does not mean the absence of fear. Courage means we step forward even while fear presses in. It shows itself not in noise or bravad ...