By The Spiritual Explorer
Many times when people think of marrying, they feel they have met someone to whom they can be married forever. However, spiraling divorce rates do not support that way of thinking. If you are lucky enough to feel that strong spiritual connection, you naturally feel it is going to be forever. What some ignore however is the hard work that it takes to keep a spiritual connection vital and working. It is not a given.
Spiritual connection challenges
After sometime has passed from the marriage ceremony, there comes that inevitable time where you think this person to whom you committed to for a lifetime may not be as special as you had once thought. And for some that means a slow decline. That is when you must remember what a true spiritual connection is. You must foster it to regain that spark and appreciation for the person living with you.
How do we develop that spiritual connection into a lifelong commitment to spiritual values? Ancient teachings of Buddhism suggest that we can do so by transforming our relationships into spiritual partnerships. A spiritual partnership can take any projection, disappointment and quarrel and use it as material for spiritual growth and enlightenment. If one can distill any of those occurrences into adventures of insight into the self, a marriage can be rewarding.
Agreement necessary in spiritual connection
I like this concept of marriage anyway. This concept is called a marrying of the ways. It doesn’t mean that you both have to have the same jobs or hobbies. It means that you must agree on the most important thing in your life, and that has to be the fostering, creating and sustaining of your spiritual connection. You must both commit to work together to become the highest and most loving beings to each other and those around you.
Here are tips for fostering a spiritual connection:
- Speak of this agreement before your marriage. Be clear that what you are looking for is spiritual evolution. This means that the two of you will actually support each other in promoting this ideal, no matter the challenges that occur.
- Be clear and honest about some of your flaws, perhaps if you are inclined to jealousy, stinginess, raising children, discomfort about affection in public and your true views on what a spiritual life is about. Tell your partner that these are things you wish to work on in your marriage.
- Take responsibility when choosing to point out some flaw in your partner that you do not have the same flaw in a different cloak than his. Do this with as little reactivity as possible.
- Be upfront about your past relationships and see clearly how you might project some of those disappointments in love with your present partner. Those times are good times to think about forgiveness for past slights and hurts.
- Be able to tell your partner in a very kind, non-confronting way about how your partner might have inadvertently hurt your feelings. Be very careful about holding things back and shoving stuff down. It will come out anyway in some sort of resentment.
- If necessary, consult some kind of therapist or mediator if you feel you have reached some kind of impasse in your relationship.
- Cultivate a daily meditation practice that you can do for yourself and perhaps share one with your partner. Try to do it in the early morning or in the evening before going to bed; it will inspire you for the day or settle you for the night.
- Don’t be afraid of the change that sometimes arises as relationships evolve. That is a necessary happening; be sure to speak about it and make it real for each other.
- Commit to a daily exercise or yoga practice to make you feel happy in your body. A happy body truly does produce a happy mind and vice versa.
We Don’t Go to God Holding Hands
Finally, a wise person once said to me that we don’t go to God holding hands. What that means is that you yourself are ultimately responsible for seeking your spiritual source. We’d like our mates to go to the same church, meditation course or yoga studio that we frequent, but we are all different in our preferences. All these difference can expand your universe by appreciating differences in your partner, which can make them even more interesting to you.
Just as we cannot expect our partner to be the source of everything, we cannot expect them to grow at the same rate we do or see similarly the way we do. We can only hope that we can develop tolerance for each other’s differences. In so doing, we will extend compassion and tolerance to others in the world.
If you have a question about “spiritual connection,” or anything else, you can write me at Ask The Spiritual Explorer
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