Your Significant Other and Your Enlightenment Journey

One question that I am frequently asked by students is about their significant other, spouse or partner and moving forward on the path of enlightened living. Wondering if they can move forward with their healing and learning if their spouse does not is a question that always has fear attached to it.  Related to this, I’m also often asked if a person can date someone who is not on the spiritual path.

Whenever this question comes up, I flash back to a time in my life around 12 years ago where I struggled with this question in my own relationship.  I was experiencing a time of rapid expansion and moving from fifth to six dimensional consciousness and felt like my whole life was being shaken up. (Now I know that the experience of ‘the rug being pulled out from under you’ actually heralds a time of great opening and learning). My panic at that time was being with my husband for 12 years, with two young children and believing that for me to be who I really am that he needed to go there with me. Holding onto this created sleepless nights for me, incredible stress and many, many tears.

I know that some divine intervention planted the idea in my (often stubborn) head, to stop having this belief and its subsequent thoughts and to focus on what works in my relationship with him. Though I struggled with this, I pushed myself to be vigilant about my thoughts and saw our life with new eyes. In a very miraculous way, I realized that he was put on my path not to take the same journey, but rather to help ground me on the earth. I also began to see that in his own way he was, and is, a wizard each and every day. He really does not have to learn what I learn or do what I do. There were and are times, where ‘I wish’ we both speak this same language, yet unwaveringly know that for a much higher purpose that this is the relationship I am meant to be.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve addressed this question of needing your partner to be on the same spiritual path innumerable times in groups and with individuals. Here is a set of guidelines have developed to assist you (or a friend) pondering this in your own life:

1.       No one can be on an active seeking path 100% of the time. Our bodies, and particularly our endocrine system, are not built for it. Does your significant other provide you with grounding, nurturing, laughter, activity and a break from the intensity at this journey can often be?

 

2.       Search yourself, and ask from your heart (not your mind) how important it is for you that your partner be on the active spiritual path?

 

3.       Does your significant other support you in your soul expansion, even if they are not actively engaged in the process themselves? Know that support can have many different faces, from being very clear and direct (e.g., taking the children to the park so you can meditate), to being very subtle (e.g.  turning down the volume so you can read).

 

4.       If you have a significant other that demeans or shames or judges you personally on your soul path on a regular basis, this is indicative of a serious relationship issue and needs to be addressed.

 

5.       If this shaming or judging occurs rarely, it may simply be your partner’s inability to ask you about your journey, or their reaction to your process of healing. Whenever you heal an aspect of yourself, or align with a higher vibration, it shifts the balance of your relationship. This does not mean that you should ignore it, but address it in a responsive way with love and compassion - while not allowing their fear to infiltrate you.

 

6.       Is there anything else in your relationship that is toxic or blocks you being in an enlightened life space? This can include anything that undermines the strength of your lower three chakras – the root of foundation in your life, your creative expression or intuitive side or your sense of being in your power and meeting the requirements of life. Avoid sticking your head in the sand, and respond with communication and action to shift and heal what else may be getting in the way for you.

Please feel free to pass the link to this blog on to others – my sense is that this information will help many with their struggle with their most personal, earthly relationship while being on the path of enlightened living. (By the way, we will be celebrating our 25th anniversary next October and laugh every day).

~ Love and Light, Kathy