Relating as Spiritual Path
To me, spirituality is about what we take to be the most sacred and significant in our lives. For many people on a spiritual path, these include Truth and Love.
Relationally, we can translate Truth as authenticity and honesty.
Am I betraying myself by saying “yes” to my partner’s request right now? Do I express what I truly want or need? Am I living my relationships with sincerity and authenticity? Am I true to myself and to others?
Love, on the other hand, can be expressed as deep respect and genuine care for our partner’s very being—a joy in celebrating their existence.
Do I genuinely care about my partner? In which moments do I lose touch with my heart? What seems to be blocking my deeper love? How can I express my love more fully and skillfully in my relationship?
Most people quickly realise how hard it is to be genuinely truthful and loving in our relationships. Authentic relating is definitely not a walk in the park.
I’ve never heard of a great relationship that didn’t require deep work. Establishing real trust and safety alone often takes significant inner work for both partners—let alone the flowering of deep, mutual love and appreciation.
Approaching our entire relationship as a path of healing and awakening can bring out the best in us.
We leave behind our fantasies about how relationships “should” or “are supposed” to be and get real. We become aware of the work we need to do to become ripe enough for truly deep mutual love and genuinely fulfilling relating, instead of settling for crumbs.
There is perhaps nothing more powerful than relating to show us where we are hiding—from ourselves and from Life. The closer we get to people, the more clearly we can see and feel our wounding, reactivity, and defence mechanisms.
Let us embrace the challenge of deep relating and see it as an invitation to live and love more fully. This is how we can allow our relating to help as awaken to the fulness of our humanity - both cracked open and empowered.
When both partners embrace the growth potential within their relationship and commit to working on themselves, the relationship becomes a truly safe and supportive container for the deepest healing and awakening.
They are not only in love, but also on the way to recognising themselves (and everything else) as Love.
A Love beyond love awaits our undreaming eyes.
In great relationships, our desire for autonomy and our desire for closeness are not seen as oppositional or contradictory, but as dance partners.
The more fully you are yourself, the more your partner can rise in their sovereignty—and vice versa.
Practising the art of closeness without fusion and distance without disconnection, we can find joy in the spaces between us and freedom through our intimacy.
This is the dance of awakened partnerships, whose steps bring us closer not only to each other but also to different aspects of ourselves. Without intimacy with who and what we truly are, there is no real intimacy with our beloved in flesh.
The more deeply I get to know myself, the more deeply I can relate to and feel my partner. The more deeply she knows herself, the richer our love together—again, and again, and again.
The challenges and pain inherent in such closeness and authenticity are not problems, but beautiful gifts—gifts that kick our butts so fiercely and lovingly that we cannot help but heal, grow, and awaken.
This is not freedom from relational hassles or suffering, but freedom through challenges and pain. Transformation through intimacy. This is the mud of our becoming, walked both individually and together. What a blessing.