When we look at our partners, we primarily see the past–a mixture of problems and successes we’ve accumulated and experienced over time.
There’s a profoundly subtle distortion produced when we bring the past into the present moment, or when we project into the future from our past experiences.
This is something normal that all humans do, but as soon as we do it, we’ve disconnected from the present moment which is always unknown. We’ve lulled ourselves into believing we understand something mentally—which we do not. It’s in this act of disconnection and retreat into thinking that we cause our greatest heart suffering. This is where that depressing sense of separation takes root.
There are different ways this will show up.
Avoidance
You find yourselves avoiding each other. You run around not talking about the energetic elephant in the room, and you sense there’s a tangible rip in the fabric of the relationship. It feels distractingly painful to be disconnected from someone you love. When this disconnection first becomes noticeable, it can quickly grow in our awareness until it overwhelms our awareness of everything else.
It’s a lie to carry on a polite conversation with your partner when you feel disconnection and pain in this way. It’s pain that causes us to withdraw and seek ways of avoiding it. We know it’s not the most efficient, effective, or even the easiest way to handle the pain, and we intuit there are other, healthier ways to bridge that gap.
But for some reason, we’re holding back. We can’t allow ourselves to look at the situation from a rational perspective, because we’re so determined to avoid any emotional pain. We can’t see any reason or value in feeling the pain, so we seek to escape from it.
Resignation
Another way separation commonly shows up in relationships is when we surrender our authenticity on the altar of “just getting along”. This leads to a wasteland, a dead expanse of barren communication wherein neither partner is happy, neither partner feels fulfilled, and neither partner is willing to submit to the uncomfortable uncertainty involved with working through the disconnection. It seems like it’s just too much work.
We think, “it won’t work anyway”, so why bother subjecting ourselves to the disagreements, the fights, and the coldness that we anticipate?
As I’m sure you know, politeness and caution are not the atmospheres that lovers grow in. Mundane things like your household chores should never overtake the reason why you’re together and what is unique about your partnership.
We're so often running on autopilot—not present in our lives, and we miss out on a lot. We become powerless to invite and sustain more uplifting energies. We want things to be better, but we're exhausted. We've surrendered, and given up on change. We believe the situation is more powerful than we are. We lose our ability to nurture ourselves without being dependent on others’ opinions. The yoga of compassionate self-care and soul nourishment is a profound one. It holds the clue to happiness and fulfillment in this lifetime. Without this, we have nothing to offer others.
We get to a level of emotional overload and we push this onto our partner. We blame them for our unhappiness and our inability to stay present with gratitude. We focus on what’s wrong, and we miss that our self-care, acceptance, and self-love may have been kicked to the curb in the process, leaving us an empty, needy shell.
Blame
If our relationship is struggling, we may feel a shift in ourselves when we’re away from our partners. This says something about us and how we feel within our relationships.
But as soon as we start assigning blame, we pull ourselves into crisis mode–and we drag our partners down with us.
There’s a lot of fear around experiencing hard conversations, or that which we have been trying to avoid, postponing them until later, more “perfect” moments. But those moments don’t exist. We can’t expect to find moments of perfect harmony in which to bring up problems. Even if we have a rare moment of respite, we don’t want to ruin them by bringing up problems.
Feminine beings tend to blame themselves for problems in a relationship. They search for the answers in their own behavior–what can I do to change this. This can lead to toxic patterns of self-introspection that cycle on and on without resolution.
More masculine-oriented individuals tend to look for external circumstances to place blame or seek to find the source of the problem.
We mistakenly view the world through our internal lenses of how we view ourselves.
Relationships fall apart when we do this avoidance, resignation, and blame. The stakes are high when we’re running into stuck patterns in relationships. Without the playful spark of sexual polarity, there’s no real reason to keep going through the hard stuff.
What do you get from your relationship that is so valuable you’ve decided to merge your life with theirs? Why are both of you alive? What are we doing with our lives and why are we spending it with this person?
If you want to be known, and you want to be free within your intimacy, this comes from within the crucible of love and sexual expression.
If sex is important to you and you don’t have it, your relationship is likely unsustainable in the long term.
It takes skill and practice to realize this. It’s an art to be a masterful lover. No one is naturally born expert in making intimacy work.
It is our differences that create a spark of energy between us. This arc of polarized sexual energy is fuel to maintain our relationships and deepen our attraction to each other.
The bottom line: Sex matters.
Most of us want sex. We have ideas about the things we want to explore and experience in our lives. It’s healthy and edgy at the same time. It can make or break relationships. Sex is not insignificant—although your experiences may sometimes lead you to think it is. It’s deeply connected to your spiritual realization and life expression.
The challenge is to find the embers of your own turn-ons.
We all intuitively know what it would look and feel like to be happy in our intimate lives. We know how good intimacy and sex could be. In fact, the mind doesn’t know the difference between a thought that is fully believed and a real experience. Believing in our desires and in the possibility for them to come true is not “faking it”—it’s owning the fact that you have a huge potential for erotic energy.
You can experience this both solo and in your relationship.
We have to know that we have the capacity. We need to know this bodily; otherwise, we’ll never make it happen.
If you want to go deeper into this work, I invite you to check out my upcoming intensive Awakening Into intimacy Retreat. I also offer one-on-one coaching if that is more your style. I look forward to hearing from you soon.