Hey friends, welcome back to the show! People are always asking me how I manage to be calm most of the time, and the answer is very clear to me. It’s my spiritual practice. Spirituality will do you good in all areas of life but let’s take a deep dive into how it could up-level your relationship…. Or even save it!
By the way, you can get the full transcript to this episode at partnershipaligned.com/7
Ok so let me start by making a very important distinction. Spirituality and religion are NOT the same thing. They can co-exist, but they are definitely not the same.
Religion is a specific set of organized beliefs and practices, usually shared by a community or group. Spirituality is more of an individual practice and has to do with having a sense of peace and purpose.
Also, religion tells you who and what God is while spirituality says, “go figure out what God is TO YOU.” Religion is an external practice while spirituality is an inside job. For this reason, we are talking about spirituality today, NOT religion.
I don’t have a problem with religion, I actually feel very connected to my faith. But it’s not where I get my calm. It’s not where my peace of mind and my faith that everything will be ok comes from. That, my friends, comes from spirituality.
Ok so how does all of this help your relationship? I’m going to give you four ways:
- When you have spirituality, you know that hard times are your best teachers.
So sometimes, when you go through a rough patch with your partner, it can be easy to fall into self-pity or to catastrophize.
When you have a strong spiritual aspect to your life, you understand that good times are to be enjoyed and hard times are to learn from. If you think of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about yourself and the biggest growth spurts, they always come from pain and hardship. This is the human way, this is how we evolve.
When you don’t have a spiritual basis, you forget that there is a bigger plan and it’s all too easy to believe that how things are right now is how it will always be. And there IS a bigger plan, my friends. If your relationship feels hard right now, what is the lesson within the hard? We are trained in this society to just solve for the hard but what if we’re looking at it all wrong? What if the hard is there to teach us the most important lessons?
I’ll use myself as an example. I went through a very difficult, toxic marriage a few years back. It’s one of the reasons I started my business, Partnership Aligned. I ended up learning my greatest lessons from that marriage and I love helping other women learn about themselves as well.
What I learned is that I abandon myself when I am not emotionally honest. When I say yes and mean no, I have turned my back on myself. When I put up with ridiculous behavior and emotional manipulation, I suffer. I’ve learned what my non-negotiables are.
While it was no fun learning these lessons, it was highly necessary. Now, after learning those lessons and getting some coaching and support, I have created a life where I always stay true to myself. And because of that, I feel inner peace.
And even more importantly, I now get to help other women be true to themselves and create more connection and intimacy with their partner. It was totally worth it.
2. The opposite of fear is faith. So why is this important? Because many of your relationship conflicts come from some kind of fear. Fear of being rejected, fear of getting into a fight with your partner, fear of them leaving, etc. When you have a practice that ignites faith within you, you begin to think things like “no matter what happens here, I will be taken care of.” That is such a powerful thought!
A big part of my 1:1 program is helping women learn how to have their own back while communicating with their partner. So many of you are stifling yourself because you are afraid. You don’t want to create waves and have conflict in your relationship. So, you settle for conflict within yourself instead.
A spiritual life teaches you not to tolerate this. I use my spirituality as a way to feel safe while communicating my needs and truths, even when I feel nervous about it. Because I do certain things every single day that anchor me, I have created a trust within myself, and I know I can rely on me to have my own back.
3. Having a spiritual practice makes you feel calmer, more peaceful, and helps you take that sacred pause. The sacred pause is when you stop in a heated moment to decide how you want to think, feel and respond. It’s a game changer. In fact, I’ll probably do a whole episode on it.
There are many ways to have a spiritual practice but in regard to having a calm state of mind, I find meditation to be the most helpful. Research shows that it takes 10 days of meditation in order to start feeling calmer. 10 days! Those 10 days will pass whether you try it or not so what do you have to lose?
And let’s just bust the myth right here that you need to meditate for long periods of time or go be with the monks in Nepal. You don’t. I meditate for 10 minutes every morning in my bedroom. And it totally does the trick. In fact, I am right in the middle of a big goal I’ve set for myself to meditate every day for one year. I think I’m somewhere around 200 days.
4. Spiritual principles. Developing a spiritual connection with your partner is all about being honest, open-minded, peaceful, and vulnerable. It’s not about changing yourself to be a better match; forming a spiritual connection is about being true to who you are, your partner doing the same, and coming together to deepen your emotional bond.
When two people show up as their true selves, that’s where real intimacy lives. That doesn’t mean it’s rainbows and daisies all the time, but it is truth. No one is hiding how they feel, trying to manipulate the other to be different, giving the silent treatment, or lashing out with intense aggression.
Connecting to a Higher Power leads you to connect with yourself. If you haven’t caught on to the theme of my work yet, I’ll just spell it out for you. Having a healthier relationship starts with a healthier you.
A healthy relationship is made up of healthy people. So go be the first one to get healthy! It’s contagious! You may think you need something in your relationship to change in order to feel more at peace, but I promise you, your peace comes from within.
So let’s talk about what a spiritual practice looks like. Well, it can take different forms. For me personally, it’s all about my morning routine. I have a toddler but I make sure to get up 30 mins before he does so that I have some alone time.
I use that time to pray, meditate, and write in my journal. When I start my day taking care of myself in this way, then by the time I need to take care of others, both personally and professionally, I am centered. I cannot pour into others if my cup is empty. I need to fill up my cup first. And for me, that means filling up my spiritual cup.
But back to the specific practices, journaling helps get all of the racing thoughts out of my head and onto paper. I always describe this as a bug stuck in a jar and I am opening the lid. I get it all out and then my brain feels clearer. It’s also helpful because I can then look at that paper and see what’s going on with me.
Prayer helps me connect with my Creator and feel closer to Him. When I talk to God, I feel that I am turning to the One that has the Power and I can then let go of trying to figure it all out myself. When I pray, I get a very strong sense that I am not in charge and it helps me release others from being who I think they should be.
And meditation just really lowers my baseline. If you find yourself getting agitated with your partner a lot, and you feel at unrest inside, this practice will help you. There are a lot of myths about meditation but I think the most harmful myth is the belief that you have to have a totally clear mind to meditate or that meditation totally clears your mind. Sometimes it does but sometimes it doesn’t.
Meditation is all about being present in the moment and making friends with your thoughts. You are the one who lives with your thoughts first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Your thoughts create your entire experience. So to learn how to make friends with them is paramount. It’s powerful and highly effective.
If you’ve never meditated before and you’re interested, I suggest you download an app called Insight timer. I love this meditation app because of the search bar. I like to search whatever emotion I’m feeling… I’ll type in sadness or anger or whatever… and all these meditation tracks and talks will come up. It’s all guided so I don’t’ need to figure out what to do, I just listen and go for the ride. You will be amazed at what it does for the nervous system.
Ok so I know I just threw some deep shit at you but I believe in having a spiritual practice so deeply, for your sake and for the sake of your relationship. So many of you are suffering with thoughts you can’t get rid of and painful emotions that go along with those thoughts. Spirituality might be that missing piece for you. If this interests you but you don’t know how to start, send me an email at Elana@nullPartnershipAligned.com and I’ll help you!
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could feel like everything was going to be ok even when you and your partner were fighting? Wouldn’t it be great if you were able to pause before reacting in a way you will later regret? Wouldn’t you LOVE to feel sure of yourself when you communicated with your partner? All of this is completely available to you! It takes some time and it takes some work. But anything worth it does.
So try your own spiritual practice! See what works for you! Creating a routine that helps calm your nervous system is the ultimate form of self-care. And when you care for yourself, you can care for your partner in the way you want to, creating the connection you always wanted to have.
