Use your Relationship as a Spiritual Practice Part 2 (Embodied Love)

As I read through last week's blog, I realised if you practiced what's in there, it could literally be a mini workshop! I shared some of our insights and practice on how intimate relationship can be a spiritual practice. 

We took a look at how the reflections of our intimate partner can support us in becoming more aware of our unconscious habits, patterns and beliefs. How this creates the opportunity for awareness, sensitivity and love.  

If you missed it, you can read it here. 

Love plays a significant role in our healing and awakening journeys. It’s reflected to us in so many ways, there are even clues sprinkled throughout time in our culture. From ancient texts, poets, spiritual teachings, music, books, movies and more…

Sadly, what most people experience is the ways in which love is limited, dependent and conditional on being a particular way. These ways of being and experiencing love create limitations, closures and contractions around the embodiment, expression and display of love. 

This creates a transactional experience of love, which is not love at all.  

What do I mean when I say love? 

Love as a state of being, the qualities of openness, presence, sensitivity, devotion, and equanimity embodied and available in the present moment. Its measured purely by the experience of another, it is felt and palpable, recognised by another without the need for words. This is what I call Embodied Love. 

The embodiment of love does not mean everything feels good, there’s no masking in the embodiment, and there’s no hiding. It includes other feelings and emotions, and does not exclude other experiences. Love says yes to what is here in the present moment. 

It does not require us to be perfect or to get it all right

It’s about being transparent in the present moment, such that another can see and feel exactly what is happening within your body. 

Being loved, embraced and accepted by Rod just for being who I am, for being how I am, is medicine for the ways I habitually disconnect from myself or get swept away by limiting beliefs.

He reminds me of the love that I am. This gives me a pathway back to the embodiment of love. 

Example 1:  

I am lying in bed, and feeling messy. Very messy. My emotions have me in knots. I am not sure what is going on with me. I want to create distance and I want to be close. I feel chaotic and there’s some distress building as I resist the emotions that are present.

Rod is simply being present with me. Lying there holding me as I feel into my body, occasionally sharing what I feel. 

After some time passes, I say “I want you to touch me gently and lovingly”. 

I feel vulnerable, nervous, and unsure saying this, and all of that is present in my words. My words are spoken with spaciousness, they are an invitation. Rod is free to respond to my request or not respond. 

He begins to touch me, gently and lovingly. His hands are holding me, supporting me, his inner stillness is like solid ground underneath me, he’s got me. I can let go of the contraction that all of this is bundled up in. I can remind myself to breathe and feel and to display. 

As he touches me, the tears come. No particular reason. Simply tears, and more tears, and more tears. I allow the tears to flow. Surrendering to this moment. 

Rod has got me. I can melt into this puddle of tears.  

Some time passes, and with the movement of emotion, sexual desire arises, I feel so loved, so held, so grateful, I want to shower the man I love with the love that is now flowing through my body. 

In this way, the love I have received is now expressed through my body. Ultimately, Rod guided me back to the source of love within me. Helping me to release whatever was in the way of love being able to flow. 

Example 2: 

Rod recently went on a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. As we were talking prior to the retreat, he said to me, “I love you. And I will still love you after the retreat. In fact, I may love you even more.” 

And I allowed my heart to bathe in his words. 

I feel a fear that if he does some deep and transformational body of work, he will change so much that he will decide not to be in a relationship with me. Whilst this fear has no basis in reality, it is part of the nature of the Omega heart - the fear of losing love. 

So, even though I hadn’t said anything about my fear, Rod felt the fear rising in me, and met the moment. He offered so much love and generosity through his words and energy, that I could hold and feel all of that whilst he was in silence for 10 days!  

This is the medicine of unconditional love, Rod knowing what I needed, without me even knowing and him offering that to me. 

Example 3: 

On Rod’s way to the retreat, he experienced a series of setbacks and challenges. Too many to go into here, but in the course of 24 hours, he was abused by reckless drivers, his phone broke, his GPS took him the wrong way through Sydney traffic, and a lot more chaos. 

As we spoke about these experiences on the phone, I simply held space for him. I didn’t try to make him feel better. I listened. I was curious about his feelings, his experience, his challenges. 

I said to him “I see what a nightmare of a time you are having. I feel how frustrating and challenging it’s been for you. I wish I could take it away from you and I know I can’t. Something tells me this is all preparing you for your 10 days of meditation.” 

In that moment, I loved him by acknowledging the discomfort he was going through, but I didn’t try and gloss over it, or problem solve it for him, or change any of what was going on. I simply loved and accepted him exactly how he was in that moment, and reflected back to him what I saw and felt. 

We give you these examples, so that you can see some of the ways unconditional love in action works in an intimate relationship.  

Unconditional love is a medicine that creates healing, growth and awakening in our relationships. We can show our partners their beauty, their love, their true nature through the way that we offer love. 

For more of these teachings, join us in the Foundations of Intimacy Training Program. 

Foundations of Intimacy is our love letter to humanity, our gift to women and men to love each other unconditionally.