Spiritual Partnerships

I was skimming through the pages of “The Seat of the Soul” by Gary Sukav and had a few thoughts I wanted to share. Reading through the pages and understanding the concepts, I felt like someone had worded the essence of what I believe in when it comes to relationships. Let me share.

Two concepts marked me. Firstly, the idea of a SPIRTUAL PARTNERSHIP as a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. This could be a husband, friends, colleagues and so on. The idea here is that you create these connections with others for the purpose of growing emotionally to become a healthy and wholesome being. Spiritual growth requires healing and overcoming those parts in our personalities that are based in fear (anger, jealousy, feelings of superiority/inferiority and unworthiness for instance). Fear of course, it the root of all evil.

The concept of spiritual partnership coincides to exactly what I am looking for in my friendships and inshaAllah in my future partner. I am not interested in the traditional model of marriage, which involves my husband providing for the family and me giving birth and raising our children. A model based on survival. I want something deeper. I want a relationship where we work together to reach deeper more purposeful goals – coming closer to Allah and to being the best person we each can be – independently yet together.

The second idea that he eloquently presented is the idea that every unexpected sorrow and pain is the OPPORTUNITY to grow spirituality. Pain as an opportunity. How interesting. When you think of it, as we are exposed to painful situations such as death, divorce, failure in business or school etc or even those difficult situations of others, we can react in one of two ways: become the victim or the creator. If we decide to be the latter, we can use these moments to learn about ourselves and grow in the most positive of ways, to learn how we are creating now and how we can CHOOSE to CREATE DIFFERENTLY.

Growth both spiritually and emotionally is very important to me. I find myself often reflecting and trying to understand why I react in certain ways and how I can perceive things in ways that are more constructive and better for my soul. Having said that, I am still a very strong realist and very well grounded (not a hippy I promise!) but I am constantly striving for betterment, for a stronger connection and closeness to my creator… In many ways the relationships I seek are with people looking for this same growth with an eye on the big picture of this life and a conscious knowledge of our mortality. And my partner… I hope he will support me in working towards spiritual growth with an attitude that will make us both enjoy the journey.