Are you in a relationship? Wishing you were in a relationship? Just got out of one that you never want to repeat? Ready for something more meaningful, lasting, transformative but don’t know where to begin?
We’re social creatures. Like other primates, we like to be close, feel safe, have companionship, a mate. It’s a central aspect of human community. No wonder so many of us spend so much time thinking about this area of life, talking about it with our friends, writing songs about it…. But we don’t just want to couple. As self-aware creatures we also want to infuse our life with meaning and purpose. With direction and depth. With Spirit and a sense of the sacred. So why does it seem so hard, to have a meaningful and loving relationship and just to find good information on the subject overall? What makes a relationship last? What leads to fulfillment? What’s worth your time over months, years, or decades? How we think about relationships, what we value, and what we expect is far more a cultural matter than a personal one. What our social values, ethics, and mores are, shapes the contours of our coupling in very significant ways. So let’s look at a cultural perspective that can help make sense of this tricky area of life. In this class, we’re going to talk about the foundations of a spiritualized relationship. I’m going to show you an orientation that is both simple and profound. If you practice and internalize this, it can make all the difference in good times and in challenging ones. Here are the 10 key ideas of a spiritual and developmentally oriented relationship:
5 of the Top 10 Big Ideas
6
Pursue Potential
Just as Being has no end and no limit, the future of the Heart also has no end. Spend time setting your expectations of your shared life with your partner. But extend the outer edges of what you can see way far into the future. Let yourself dream of a utopia, an idealized world. Allow the pursuit of the possible to pull you forward, beyond what you can plan step by step. For inspiration, draw from the mystery of your inner life. Imagine how Spirit and our capacities to grow in empathy, Oneness, clarity of motive, and heart develop in ways we can’t predict. Contemplate together with your partner the developmental potential of realization and relatedness. You’ll start to create a context within which your relationship lives and breathes, and that context will be animated by the breath of the possible.
7
Leave Space Not to Know
While we become very familiar with each other. Growth, realization, and Spirit are also a mysterious and uncharted process. Leave room not to be sure, not to think you know everything about yourself or everything about the other. In loving and developmental relationships, we learn the art of supporting each others’—and our own—inner growth. That takes sensitivity, practice, and care. Hold your conclusions about how this process of personal transformation works loosely. We usually change in very different ways than we think we will.
Honor Big Moments
Marking important life transitions and key moments of our shared lives fosters respect and a sense of the sacred dimension. When we honor big moments, we spiritualize the container for our lives together. You can do this with formal rituals grounded in a tradition, or new rituals between you and your partner, or simply through moments of conscious acknowledgement and meditation. We often toast with a drink, but more importantly, toast with your awareness, gratitude, and intention. There are many occasions, large and sm
Respect Each Other
There will be times when familiarity and habit create friction. That’s natural. No one can be with another day in, day out without irritation arising. Even animals get irritated with each other. Don’t sweat the small stuff. When the foundation is deep, those moments will pass. Holding yourself with respect, and holding your partner with respect, will make all the difference.
If you find, after time, that you and your partner are growing in different directions, respect and honor what brought you together in the first place when you come to deciding how to proceed. Express gratitude for what you have shared and how you have grown. Make the effort to bring to the forefront that which was wholesome, and out of respect for yourself and your partner, make conscious agreements about how to proceed.
10
Be Trustworthy
In a universe that is fundamentally always in motion, always in process, in some sense we always experience some degree of insecurity. We, even unconsciously, are aware of that movement at the foundation of life. We often cling to each other to buffer ourselves against the stress of wanting there to be something we can rely on. We can be there for each other in a profound and steady way. Not by insisting that life be unchanging, but by being flexible, resilient, and transparent at the deeper levels of self. As we allow process, we become trustworthy, able to change and grow without insisting on holding on to how things were. We allow our Love for Spirit, the world, and each other to continue to grow and flower in new and unexpected ways.
Spiritualizing a relationship is not so much something we do or add, it’s who we are and who we intend to become. When we’re sharing that together, we are creating a very different possibility for relatedness in our world. And that’s a happy life.
Watch the entire class with a free 10-day pass here!