When Your Partner Isn't Into The Spiritual Stuff

“We need to learn to find our own sense of safety within ourselves, so that we can still feel like we matter, even if we are around others who have a different view of the world..” - Lilli Badcock

Introduction:

So here’s a question I was asked recently:  What can you do when your partner isn’t into the same spiritual stuff as you?

I feel incredibly qualified to answer this question given that my husband would rather shit in his hands and clap than meditate or talk about his feeeeeelings!  And yes, please do read feeeeeeelings in the whiney voice that was intended!

To truly paint the picture, allow me to tell you about a conversation we had recently.  I was heading out for an evening of Cacao and Ecstatic Dance.  I had already told him several time that that’s where I was going, and yet there he was asking me again where I was going and what I was doing…

Me:  It’s an evening of Ecstatic Dance with Cacao…

Him:  Blank look…

Me:  So…Ecstatic Dance is just dancing, like when you’re in a club but no one is drinking.

Him:  Riiiiiight…and what the F is Cacao??

Me:  I mean, it’s kind of like hot chocolate… ;-)

Him:  So…you’re going out to dance in a hall with a bunch of people you don’t know whilst drinking hot chocolate?

Me:  Erm…yeah!

Him:  I don’t get it.  You’re weird!

Ha ha!  And these conversations are FREQUENT in our house!  Don’t even get me started on the day he walked in whilst I was chanting along with Deva Premal and the Tibetan Monks…he looked genuinely terrified that time!

So anyway…yeah…I get it!

To answer the question, what do you do about it?  You just do you, Boo!

Oh don’t get me wrong…I have DEFINITELY tried to rope him into stuff over the years.  In fact, at one point I was genuinely worried we wouldn’t be able to be together because he just seemed to see life so differently to me.  It didn’t help that so many posts and articles I was reading were about people who finally cut themselves free of their relationships and only THEN did their life really take off!  Insert eye roll!  But here’s the truth…I don’t believe in echo chambers.  I love the diversity that life has to offer and I truly believe we all have so much to learn from each other.

My need for him to think and feel the same way as me was always about me and my own insecurities.  When we are insecure in our own beliefs, we desperately need everyone else around us to agree with what we are saying because if they don’t, we don’t feel validated.  We feel pushed out and unsafe.  And THAT my friends, is where the work needs to begin for us!

We need to learn to find our own sense of safety within ourselves, so that we can still feel like we matter, even if we are around others who have a different view of the world.

I feel I should say this at this point…  My husband has always been incredibly supportive of me!  He is as real as they come and he has frequently admitted he has no titty clue what i’m on about or why I do what I do.  But he has never tried to stop me and he has always let me know I am loved.

When I qualified in Sound Reiki, he was my first guinea pig.  When I started hosting sound baths, he came along.  In fact, he actually had quite a profound experience, but that’s another story.  And when I began chanting…well…actually he twerked!  ;-)  But he also let me do my thing!

Here’s the important part.  I felt the most frustrated and alone when I believed he had to be totally on board with everything I was doing.  The moment I realised that it was ok for him to have his own beliefs and for me to have mine, I was set free!  The moment I stopped trying to shove this stuff down his throat, he became genuinely curious about it.

Is my husband now all in when it comes to spirituality?  Not at all!  But have I caught him meditating to the sound of the ocean a few times?  Does he ask to hear my Sound Reiki when he can’t sleep?  And is he still super supportive of this journey I am on?  Yes, yes and hell yes!

So what do you do when your partner isn’t into the spiritual stuff?  You commit to your own journey whilst giving grace for others who are walking their own path.  You acknowledge that your truth may not be their truth.  And you continue to celebrate the things that set you apart as much as the things that bring you together.

Oh…and you also find a community to be part of that can support you as you navigate your experience and where you can share openly about your experiences without feeling the need to explain yourself constantly.

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