Why You Should Meditate With Your Partner
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
It’s helpful as a relationship coach and writer to have a muse. I would argue as is the same with life. Muse: a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.
My muse right now happens to be my boyfriend in New York City. We are quarantining long distance while I’m Upstate giving myself space to work. It’s a newer relationship, we met back in January and have been steadily dating since.
Besides the fact I possess an above-average amount of knowledge regarding relationship dynamics, we’re a completely ‘normal’ couple. Even though we aren’t physically on top of each other right now, I could argue that a lot of the same dynamics are at play just like everyone else who is trying to keep their relationship strong during this pandemic.
He’s a banker and normally works in Flatiron. I coach, write, do yoga, meditate, have a close group of girlfriends. He plays Tennis, has a group of friends from grad school he sees for dinner, nights out, when that was the norm. We’re your stereotypical New York City couple and we have challenges right now nonetheless.
For example, I feel like I want a lot more of his attention than normal.
I judge myself as “needy”.
I want to know what he’s doing. Why hasn’t he texted with me in the last 4 hours? That thing he said, really pissed me off and annoyed me. Why is he spending so much time playing video games and watching HBO? Why is he going outside for a run, can he not? How are his friends and family doing? Why isn’t he telling me about them? Why is he acting so cool, what’s going on in his head?
Why can’t I feel him?
All of these thoughts have come up at some point in the last month but today, I was reminded of something.
The importance of having a shared mindfulness practice with your partner.
When we are together and the city isn’t shut down he likes to come to yoga with me on the weekends. I send him meditation recordings. He humors me, admits they help quiet his mind. When he found out that NYS was offering a free Headspace subscription he wanted to try it out. He asked if we could meditate this weekend over Zoom I said, of course, let’s do it.
He called me, played the recording and we meditated together for 15 minutes. It was simple but I immediately felt some big shifts.
Here’s my plug for why you should meditate with your partner.
Limbic connection
We have an actual, biological need for intimacy. When these needs aren’t met, it’s hard to make progress in our lives. Any mindfulness practice: meditation, slow movement, breath work, they encourage limbic calming. They help slow down stress responses, quiet chatter, and can bring you into a space of response vs. reaction.
When you get into a relationship of any kind your limbic system becomes activated, the part of you that is connected to your physical survival and also your emotional wellbeing. This new person becomes tracked into this part of your brain. You can’t escape this bond, it’s happening whether you like it or not but you can strengthen, solidify and maintain this bond in a healthy way by participating in intimate activities such as the obvious: sex, hugging, kissing. Meditation and eye gazing are some other activities that can be added.
A healthy limbic bond is hugely important to the strength of your relationship.
It’s what has them pop up on your phone and realize oh, I was just thinking of them, that’s weird.
The more you invest in and strengthen this limbic connection — the deeper your connection becomes. You can feel each other more deeply, sense what’s going on. A steady and healthy limbic bond allows you to be more patient, a better listener, the ability to slow down and understand. Empathy. As a result there’s more at stake. When you hurt them, you hurt yourself too.A strong limbic connection has the ability to make you a more compassionate, loving partner.
Actual connection vs. a toxic mimic
Anything other than present moment, dropped in connection with our partner is just skating on the surface of what we’re really after. You can spend a lot of time with your partner but physical proximity or cohabitation doesn’t necessarily mean connection or intimacy. Which is ok, we can’t be expected to be fiercely, precisely engaged with each other 24/7.
If you’re experiencing a knawing sense of needing something, it’s likely your togetherness isn’t actually fulfilling your need for real, intimate connection.
The reason I had been pulling for information from him, obsessing over how he was feeling, wanting to maintain some sense of control, they were all in an attempt to actually feel him. To be present with him, still and together, no outside noise or thoughts. Our current realities were making that really challenging. When the need for intimacy gets met something settles inside of us and I can go about my life and he can go about his. These exquisite moments can be created in a sexual experience too.
A lot of voices come up in sex. Am I doing this right, does she like that, how does my body look? A sure-fire way to have better sex? Develop a mindfulness practice together.
Purpose-driven relating
The function of any relationship, I believe, is to bring out the best in one another. To come alive, to create something bigger than ourselves. When we get stuck in the mundane of “you did this to me, you did that, I’m annoyed at you, etc” that’s all misdirected energy. When we get stuck in those traps of resentment, score keeping, bitterness, we can’t see each other as people, as humans.
I call tell when my relationship is in proper order because I feel creative, I’m in flow, I have energy for myself, I’m managing my time well. When all my attention is on my partner, it’s an energy drain. After all, I can’t control him. A possible reason I have a lot of attention on my partner could be that we’re not actually connected in a way that feels good. It can be a frustrating cycle.
I was reminded after meditating together that we hadn’t actually been dropped into our connection. Afterwards I actually felt connected in a way I hadn’t felt in a weeks.
We are all on this planet to do great things. To teach, create, help others, leave a legacy, raise a family. A best self that wants to be utilized.
Relationships, in my opinion, help us get there faster.
When we feel connected and safe with others, we are able to take bolder risks. In our careers, in our community. We have richer, fuller, more vibrant lives vs. if we isolate ourselves and hide from the world. We can choose to make our partners our enemies or our biggest supporters helping more of us to come to life.
Which do you chose?
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