Practicing meditation has brought abundant benefits into my life.

However, I believe one of the most beneficial outcomes that sprang from my practice was conscious relationship building—in the romantic sense in particular.

I remember when I first started practicing meditation, I was already in a relationship for one year. With a meditation practice in my routine, I started noticing that my behaviors, reactions and actions with my partner were taking a positive turn. Even when I ended that relationship two years later, my emotional and verbal responses were peaceful.

Throughout my years of practice, I have met couples in India and Nepal who meditate together and to be honest, I was astonished by the way they treat each other, especially right after their meditation classes.

These couples reminded me of my own self when I was in a relationship during my meditation courses. Witnessing their dynamic reinforced that meditation can be a pivotal and beneficial element of building a conscious relationship.

A conscious relationship is one that isn’t built on attachment, neediness and judgment.

In a conscious relationship, there are no patterns of blaming, hatred, criticism and drama. In other words, conscious partners act out of a place that is higher than their minds, as we all know that everything negative (such as fighting, blaming and judging) stems from the mind.

However, rarely do we act out of consciousness in our relationship with our partner. The reason is because we start confusing true love with attachment and we start seeking our other half through our partner. We become thoroughly oblivious to the fact that we are complete beings (with or without them).

And so, fights start to occur, jealousy starts taking place, and we start needing from them more than we are actually loving them.

The aim of meditation is to tame our minds. Its sole purpose is to teach us how to deal with thoughts and to realize our true nature—to bring the mind back home.

Couples who meditate will realize that they are complete human beings who don’t need another human being to complete them. When this realization takes place, a good deal of neediness will lessen as they realize their true nature, which is far from being a half person.

With time and with good practice, meditation creates gaps in the mind. We start becoming more aware of the thoughts instead of blindly going along with them. This, in return, will help couples to have conscious reactions instead of destructive ones that stem from a place of ego. Even if a fight was taking place, a couple who meditates is more likely to count to ten before blaming the other person or yelling at them. They will respond in a calmer and logical way because space is being created in their minds.

The most important factor of all—and it is something that I have personally experienced abundantly—is that we become attuned more to ourselves. Once connected to ourselves, we will connect better with our gut feelings (intuition), which is key to knowing how to respond and what to do in a relationship. We won’t operate from our thinking mind, or from my our emotional body. We will silently inspect what our intuition is telling us without the interference of thoughts and feelings.

With meditation, I also came to realize that relationships become our spiritual practice and a place to love rather than a place where you ask for love. Meditation decreases our expectations and allows us to open up an unconditional portal of understanding toward every human being.

Through meditation, we begin to better understand our partner and we refrain from judging them. When thoughts are no longer as intense as before, the sense of empathy inside of us opens up and so, we become more understanding and reflective.

Meditation simply improves our availability in the present moment, which I believe is highly important in a relationship. To be present means maintaining mindfulness in whatever is happening “now.” Through learning how to breathe in meditation, we will also learn how to breathe when we are with our partner.

Whenever we feel that we are ran by our thoughts when we’re present with our lover, we can swiftly attune to our breathing, which will allow us to create a conscious and enjoyable moment.

Partners will also notice improvement in their sexual life as they will learn how to watch their bodies and their sensations through meditation. In other words, they become meditators even when they are together and even if they’re making love. Their breath will become their gate to consciousness.

I highly recommend every couple to try meditation, even for a little while, as I’m sure it will work wonders for the dynamic of your relationship.

~

Author: Elyane Youssef

Editor: Caitlin Oriel

Photo: Natesh Ramasamy/Flickr