How to Co-Create a Conscious Relationship: 3 Spiritual Practices
If you type conscious relationships or conscious love into Google, you’ll find an almost universal agreement that the current paradigm of relationships isn’t working anymore.
38% of Canadian and up to 50% of American partnerships end up in divorce or separation and many more are currently feeling dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and generally unsure about how to create better relationships.
How would it feel to have the mindset, heart space and skills to create a more thriving relationship?
In comes the new paradigm: conscious relationships.
What does a conscious relationship mean? Are you in one? Are we in one? And how the heck do you co-create a conscious relationship?
These are questions we often get as conscious relationship coaches, but it’s also something that’s very personal to us. If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know that we struggled in our own relationship earlier on because of our own experiences growing up in divorced families.
Our unconscious thought patterns which were leading to a stressful relationship! That’s why we’re excited to share with you how to co-create a conscious relationship, not one dominated by snap judgments, reactions, and the toxic patterns that are so common.
What’s a Conscious Relationship?
For us, a conscious relationship is accessed any moment we decide to exist as two wholes sharing a path.
It’s a state we feel when we:
are responsible for own happiness and “stuff”;
see each other through compassionate eyes;
create space for honesty, accountability, and vulnerability; and,
accept and appreciate one another for who we are (without trying to change each other).
The predominant feeling generated by this state of consciousness is joy, peace, love, and empowerment.
In researching conscious relationships and through our own experience, there is no eureka moment that brings about a conscious relationship. It’s just a conscious choice created together (hence, co-created).
And it gets easier to access over time and with practice. As we become more aware, we find we’re better able to connect.
Note: a conscious relationship is not an end. For us, it’s a journey of healing and learning to love with ups, downs, twists, and turns. Every moment is an opportunity to become more aware of ourselves, one another, and how we intersect.
If you're like us, you can be conscious in one moment, then act from subconscious conditioning in another moment (e.g. feeling fearful or triggered and acting out on it; blaming or judging each other, etc.).
Our main point is that being conscious in a relationship isn’t about perfection.
In fact, it’s about accepting what is (including imperfections!) and gradually bringing more awareness to the experience. We believe this creates more space for love.
For example, during a conflict, we might ask ourselves:
"Should I get worked up like last time or should I assess my thoughts, feelings, and actions before I respond?"
That’s the beauty of relationships. They are, without a doubt, one of top and most commonly available human experiences for becoming for more self-aware, grounded and mindful.
“Relationships are laboratories of the spirit, they are hospitals of the soul, they are the places where the wounds that we hold will be brought up because that’s the only way they can be healed.”
In order to co-create a conscious relationship, we must first elevate ourselves on an individual basis.
Which is why we want to share the spiritual practices we’ve been using over the last several years to co-create a more conscious relationship.
Elevate Your Relationship With These 3 Spiritual Practices
Practicing any one of these can raise your relationship’s consciousness to the next level.
1. Consciously invite stillness into your life
We live in an age of distraction: people, devices, and media are competing for our attention at all times. It’s no wonder why it’s so easy to lose ourselves, to feel disconnected from our loved ones, and to feel stressed or anxious!
In our experience, learning to sense the present moment through stillness is the foundation for happiness and a drama-free relationship with self, our reality, and with others.
Practicing stillness is about noticing whatever is going on around and within you. It could be your thoughts and inner sensations, your ego, your breath, nature, and who/whatever you’re currently experiencing. For us, it’s about feeling the power of presence and acceptance.
What does this have to do with relationships? Well… everything!
“A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”
A common way to practice stillness is to find small moments in your day to notice inner and outer sensations.
Lindsey invokes stillness in the midst of daily routines, like when she’s walking and commuting. She’ll notice the trees, the colours, the sky, people, and more without judging, resisting, labelling, or attaching to expectations.
Another way to build stillness specifically within the body is to practice meditation.
Over the last few decades, David has experimented with meditation through breath-work, visualizations, and movement. Recently, David’s been using a loving-kindness meditation from Sharon Salzberg.
Practicing stillness in moments of focused attention or meditation brings mindfulness into our lives and relationships. It enables us to be more emotionally intelligent and spiritually grounded so that we can relate to each other from a place of love, rather than react from a place of fear, anger, or judgment.
Stillness is a game changer.
2. Consciously co-create a life together (rather than apart)
Ever been on a sports team, musical group, or school/work team without a sense of direction? It may seem manageable at first, but eventually leads to frustration.
Partners start to drift and end up just going through the motions when they don’t see themselves as moving towards something meaningful and significant — a common goal.
Don’t let that happen to your relationship! Ignite that spark!
For us, the journey of consciously creating a life together makes the relationship exciting, novel, and adventurous. We do this by intentionally creating a relationship vision statement supported by relationship goals, habits and practices, like so:
Goals: Once a year, we reflect on the last 12 months and set our relationship goals for the coming year. Setting personal and relationship goals prepares us to form the habits that are in-service of our best selves and the relationship.
Practices: From there, we support that plan with a monthly practice that we call Tea(m) Time. This check-in keeps us accountable through honest and supportive dialogue. Start your very own Tea(m) Time, here.
Creating a shared sense of purpose in the relationship is energizing and fills the soul with love.
Habits: We’ve actually set up a free email challenge so you can receive one conscious communication activity per day for the next 5 days, to level-up your communication in your relationship. Check it out!
3. Join a (our) conscious community
You and your relationship are not alone in this journey. Our conscious community is an important pillar in our relationship.
Surrounding yourself with conscious people is one of the easier ways to exponentially grow your own conscious vibes. Awareness is contagious!
We both nourish and are nourished by a circle of friends, family, and acquaintances who invest in themselves, their relationships, and the people around them.
Whether it’s a get together to have down-to-earth conversations or a night out on the town, being with others who support or even share your concsious relationship goals, who are emotionally mature enough to be aware of boundaries, and who safely challenge and celebrate you really helps to keep the conscious energy flowing!
Have you joined our conscious community of Relationship Nerds on Facebook? ;)
Reflect & Take Action
In our view, individuals in conscious relationships do the inner and outer work to align with their higher selves through stillness, purpose, and community.
To help you, we’ve drafted some questions if you want to chart the conscious path:
What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of yourself (or your future self) in a conscious relationship?
Do you want to be in a conscious relationship? Why or why not? Are your reasons fuelled by your awareness or by conditioning/messages from society/parents and external expectations?
Close your eyes. What does your version of a conscious relationship look like and feel like?
What is one thing that you can do within yourself today to bring more stillness, purpose and community, in service of your conscious relationship (or future relationship)?
We recommend that you write your responses in your journal and add it as a reflection in your daily meditation or stillness practice.
Connect for even more relationship advice for couples
Having relationship problems? Want to crush those relationship goals with less stress and more ease so you can achieve more, feel more and experience more as a team?
If so, join fellow relationship nerds on our mailing list (at the bottom of this page) so you don’t miss out on advice and exclusive offers.
We’re not two halves, we’re two wholes sharing a path and we’re inviting you to join the movement!
David and Lindsey
Your trusted conscious relationship coaches
P.S. If you loved this article, please share it with a friend who needs it. Your shares help inspire one thriving relationship at a time. Or, read on. Thank you!
