Conscious Partnering in an Unconscious World

I used to say that I was so lucky I didn’t pull the relationship card in this lifetime.

I believed that because my relationship contained “less drama” than what I perceived others to experience and I found my person relatively early in life (my husband and I have been together since college) that I didn’t pull that card to work on in this lifetime.

But the reality is that we ALL pull that card.

We all work on relationships in some form or fashion and we all need relationships of different types to help us grow, heal and awaken. For you that might be a parent/child relationship, for others it might be a romantic partnership.

Regardless, there are so few resources available for navigating the waters of Awakening to your divinity and true self while in a partnership.

Many of us who are on the path to awaken to the true depths of our souls are forced to walk that path alone or we have partners who are largely “uninvolved” in our day to day spiritual practices.

And yet there are the rare couples, my husband and I being lucky enough to be one of them, who choose to awaken together. They consciously make the choice to work on themselves as individuals so that they can create an even stronger bond as a couple.  

So how do we practice conscious partnering in such an unconscious world?

What does that look like and how can we support our partner in his or her growth without forcing them to go down the same spiritual path that we are on?

It’s not an easy question to answer.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many couples who are at varying stages of growth as individuals and partners. I often work with each of them separately and sometimes bring the two of them together for another session as well.

And besides the energetic dissonance I find that comes about from many lifetimes of being together with all our baggage showing up at the door of this lifetime, I am also finding that at the root of it the obstacles they face as a couple all come back to a lack of conscious communication and a whole heap of expectations and attachments.

It might go something like this: one person in the partnership (let’s say Partner A) is on the fast track to moving through their personal junk. They have found a spiritual practice or something that works for them and they want their partner (Partner B) to share in that joy with them.

Partner B sees their transformation and is amazed and terrified all at the same time about what Partner A is moving through.

Feelings of worry creep in, will they still love me when they heal their own personal wounds? Will they leave me behind?

Partner A continues to grow and expand and Partner B continues to be left further and further behind.

Sometimes that means that the partnership dissolves, but other times, like it was with my husband, the gap I created by doing my own work was so large that it caused significant friction in our relationship so much so that he found his own spiritual practice and started doing his own work.

And because I had done so much work on healing relationships and was teaching others how to do the same, I saw that we had a contract in this lifetime that was different from previous lifetimes.

This push and pull dance had been going on for so long that in this lifetime I decided I wasn’t having it anymore. I wasn’t going to leave him behind or be the one to prop him up and force him into growth.

I was going to do me, find myself and find my power and hold enough neutral space for him to do the same in his own way.  

Now, mind you this wasn’t easy.

We’ve had our rough patches, our dark times and I am sure we have more growth and healing to do as a couple.

But at some point I had to make a decision that I loved him enough to hold him in whole and complete perfection just as he was. I had to consciously communicate with him and tell him what I was going through and then ask/gently remind him that it wasn’t his job to fix me.

And he had to stand back and watch me spin, watch me move through difficult growth periods that even I wasn’t sure I would come out of. And guess what? I have to do the same thing for him.

He has to communicate with me and tell me what he’s feeling and I have to hold space and not try to fix him.

And both of us have to focus on letting go of attachment and expectations for what the other person is going to be or do for us.

We have to embrace the now, the present moments of our relationship and hold tight when the tough times come down on one or both of us.

We have to communicate and grow together in our own ways.

And most of all we have to see beyond the layers of bullshit and unconscious energy that was placed upon us as humans and see into one another’s soul. See each other for who we really are and understand that we are all humans having a human experience and trying to wake up to conscious partnering in a very unconscious world.  

So whatever you are moving through in your relationship, understand that you are not alone.

Being in a relationship is one of the most triggering and difficult things we can do as humans. It’s very different for our star brothers and sisters in other galaxies.

And yet when I work with those light beings I am reminded by them that we are blessed to have this human experience of duality.

It is that duality, that triggering separation, that is polishing us into our most divine selves.

We are learning and growing every day and its all going to be OK!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Sutton founded the Zen Within Academy after graduating from the Boulder Psychic Institute in 2017. She is also a certified professional wellness coach, sound healer, and intuitive channel with over 12 years of experience within the health and wellness industry.

Her personal experience with stress induced chronic illness led her to a path of awakening and self healing. She now takes the same techniques she has honed for her own wellness and shares those in 1:1 healing sessions, workshops, retreats, and in her Zen Within Academy programs.