Women's Healing & Spirituality

In the couple weeks leading to Valentine’s Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships, particularly how the Divine emerges in our relationships. What does a conscious and spiritual relationship look like or even really mean? ( I’ve focused these contemplations on marriage type relationships but this can really translate to any relationship. )

As a trained therapist, I know that relationships ultimately trigger what is unhealed in ourselves, usually from our families of origin or even past relationships or experiences. But there’s got to be more. What does a spiritual partnership look like? What are the spiritual gifts of commitment and long-term relationships?

I’m going to share with you that my husband and I have had a hard few years. I remember someone saying, the first ten years are the worst! Hahaha, I kind of agree. I think the mix of kids, careers, pandemic, etc. and not a lot of help has resulted in a long rough patch.

For me…I admit, I struggle in relationships. I like my independence and at times lose my sense of balance because I can feel suffocated or trapped in them. I’ve developed “super independence” as a coping mechanism and reaction to past hurts. I had a long held belief that I couldn’t let myself rely on others because I’d just end up let down or disappointed so I became super independent instead. I told myself that I really didn’t “need” anyone. And in a relationship…a marriage…that doesn’t quite bode well. That is not true partnership, that is not Truth & Vulnerability. It’s protection and a blocked heart. I definitely have a wound when it comes to trusting men..their follow through and their willingness to do the deep healing work.

If you have not read the book called Conscious Relationship by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks you should!! For me it helped me understand that relationships are really about healing and growth. There are essentially three phases in romantic relationships. The first is the giddy, hearts- in- the- eyes romance that feels amazing, like a high on a drug. It’s exciting and feels intoxicating. The second is where our “stuff” emerges after some time together. All of the parts of us that were never healed begin to play out and get triggered in our relationships. Usually we start wondering what the heck happened and where the intoxicating romance went. We may start fighting or finding we get stuck in the same arguments over and over. This is where the opportunity to heal and to allow more love in, emerges if we allow it and do the work. Both parties are called to heal what has not been healed. Harville Hendrix has named for us that we even unconsciously pick partners that will ultimately be the perfect mates that will bring about the “stuff” and our unhealed parts to the surface. Imagine that! We pick the partners that will trigger us the most..so we can do the most amount of healing and invite in more depth, more awareness, more love. Now that’s a new take on marriage!

Now some couples call it quits at stage two because they are not aware of the Divine purpose of Love and ultimately healing in marriage. They don’t know it’s about our deep healing , our own shedding of long held protective armour wrapping the heart. It’s easy to get caught thinking its about rainbows and romance only. Some couples stay stuck and trapped in a perpetual fight or loveless marriage for years and years, never really moving out of stage two as the inner work is not tackled or acknowledged.

If we do the work, we move to third stage where we find transcended love. We heal the unhealed wounds (sometimes more than once)together and honour our relationship as a sacred container for deep healing. We know the gift of these conscious relationships. We honour them as containers for deep healing, a place for Spirit and Love to enter and expand our heart space and bring love to the parts of us that need more love and healing. A sacred trust, love and honour emerges in our relationships that is really what it’s all about.

My husband and I are still in the pockets of stage 2, still doing the healing work. It’s hard. We have both wanted to throw in the towel at different points but have both committed to keep doing the inner work on ourselves. I myself have struggled this last year with Covid lockdown and the impacts on our marriage. I was struggling to find the love. I bought us workbooks and tried to do weekly questions to help us reconnect but nothing seemed to shift my inner block.

I was guided to a meditation that really shifted me, ….I imagined him sitting across from me and all I did was say over and over, “All I see is your light”, ” All I see if your light,” “I see you”, “I love you.” I just kept repeating it over and over until I felt it and he felt it. I imagined golden healing light moving through my husband, from above him and all around him. I imagined placing my hands in his heart and on his shoulders and sending him golden, pure, radiant light. I hugged him and kept repeating I love you, I love you, I love you. In my meditation he became tearful because that’s all he has really wanted from me was to feel love. I have been shut down and withholding. It’s in love that healing and change can happen, not withholding, not scolding, not expectations, but love. I became tearful in this realization.

I needed an inner shift, I had to go within to feel the change, nothing outside of me could create the shift. It moved me to compassion and more gentleness…ultimately I found more love and it softened my armour.

I hope in my sharing it inspired you to find the gentleness, the love, the softening, the shifting, the light in your relationships, these are deep, fulfilling, healing, difficult, amazing journeys that will teach us the most about ourselves and our depths. Our relationships are the ultimately reflections of our own self and what how we are moving through them…with love? With anger? With expectation? With disappointment? What parts of our pasts are clouding the present?

I leave you with this….what would love say or do?

xo Crystal

***DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A MONTHLY WOMENS HEALING & SPIRITUALITY GROUP? EMAIL ME AT jgccdt@hotmail.com if you want to join and i’ll send you the zoom link. ****