The Spiritual Purpose Of Relationships

This is a talk about the spiritual purpose of a relationship - which is, essentially, to wake us up to who we really are and help us evolve as human beings. So, instead of looking at a relationship breakup as a failure, understand that it's just that a particular lesson/teaching with that person has ended. This can be very sad and very painful, but it could be even more painful to hold on or stay in a relationship that is not nourishing for you, or which is actively harming you.

If we can see all relationships through this lens of teaching and learning, then we can slowly become more at peace when they end. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this process.

Note: This track has some rain noise in the background as it started raining during the recording.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to my channel Akasha Love.

So today I wanted to talk about the spiritual purpose of relationships.

So I have recently been through quite a difficult relationship breakup and it's been extremely painful.

I've been through a massive roller coaster of emotions from really huge grief to anger to sadness to rage all the whole gamut of the emotional experience of a human being.

And I really thought given my age I am just turned 50 that somehow it would not be so painful at this age going through a relationship breakup that I would have learnt enough by now in order to have that blow emotional blow softened let's say.

But I've learned that that is not the case.

So today I just wanted to talk to you about what is the real purpose of relationships.

So it is growth and whether that relationship is a short relationship,

Whether it's a few months,

Whether it's a few years,

Whether it's many years,

The purpose of the relationship is growth,

Spiritual growth of each person in the relationship.

So if for the full flowering development of each person that that relationship has to actually stop and those two people have to actually feel the pain of that break and feel and really get the download on all of the lessons that they learned from that person they're in relationship with then that relationship has fulfilled its purpose.

And if for example that relationship was going to continue in my case it had become an abusive relationship and it had become abusive and toxic and if that was actually going to continue it would have just got worse.

Definitely for me and I could only speak from my perspective I was not doing the abuse but yeah for me it definitely would have got worse even though I was still trying to hold on to that relationship because I was living in this vain hope that it would change,

That he would change,

That he would start treating me better and treating me with love.

But it was not happening and because my eyes were closed to this because I was basically in denial then in the end I have to actually be grateful that he had the courage to to end that relationship I guess because he also saw that he was becoming very destructive and he wanted to save me from that energy.

So that's also part of my really complicated feelings because in part I was so angry and so rageful that this abuse had happened at all but then I also recognized that I could also be a little bit thankful to him that he actually took the step to stop it because I recognized that I was not taking that step.

So what did I learn from this relationship?

Really what I learned was that I have to come back into my own energy,

I have to focus on myself,

I have to focus on building the life that I want to live,

I have to focus on developing my dreams,

My talents and I have to pull back all my energy that I had given to him and I have to also realize I think that I was in some way looking for kind of a savior in him in the relationship.

I was looking for somebody to give me the love that somehow I never had received in this lifetime,

That I had not fully received from my own parents who are the ones who teach us what love is in our early childhood.

So I don't blame my parents for this,

I know that they were doing their best,

I do believe that all people are always doing their best,

Whether that is good enough or not is another question but I do believe that my parents were doing their best so there is not blame there but there is a recognition that I have spent a lot of my life seeking love externally and I thought that that phase was over,

I was no longer doing that but I recognize now that this relationship has finished that I really was looking to receive that love and that validation and that affirmation for myself from him and I recognize that that is an unhealthy way to enter into a relationship because nobody can actually give me that and nobody can give you that,

Like you are the only one that can validate yourself in your own self-worth,

That can love yourself in the way that you need to be loved,

In the way that perhaps you never were loved as a child.

You cannot subcontract that job out to somebody which is what I think I was doing and this is also a reason why that relationship inevitably has to fail because nobody can actually do that for me,

Nobody can actually love you or love me the way that I needed to be loved in childhood in order that I now as a 50 year old woman feel my own worth,

Feel my own value,

Stand in my own,

Stand on my own two feet as my grandma used to say it has to be me that does that validation of myself,

It has to be me that owns my self-worth,

It has to be me that loves myself,

That loves myself unconditionally and from that place I can come into healthy relationship.

Otherwise if I'm coming from that need for somebody else to be my hero,

To be my savior,

To be my prince charming,

To be my validator,

I'm coming from a place of lack,

I'm coming from a place where there's some kind of hole inside of me that I want this other person to feel and that is basically codependent behavior.

So a really healthy relationship is two whole people that have got themselves,

That are holding on to themselves,

That love themselves,

That take ownership of their own value,

Their own worth,

That walk side by side in life.

That are not enmeshed,

Whereas a codependent partnership,

Relationship is where one or both people are not really whole and complete and they are looking to feel part of their inner self whole with the other person.

They're looking,

They want the other person to meet these needs that they're unable to meet by themselves,

That need for example to feel loved,

That need to be validated,

That need for for you to feel your own self-worth.

So this then becomes like an enmeshed relationship,

So rather than two people walking side by side in life,

That's two people that kind of get stuck together and then it's a kind of a push-and-pull dynamic because it's unhealthy,

Because that's the codependent person or both people,

If they're both codependent in some way,

That need that they have for the validation from the other person can never really happen.

So they keep looking for it but the other person can't give it,

So it's this push and pull dynamic which is going on which eventually will have to self-destruct because it just does not work.

We cannot get those needs met which are only able to be met by ourselves.

So if you're in this kind of a codependent dynamic and it comes apart,

Recognize that this is the lesson from that relationship and if you're able to then go forward in your life as a stronger person,

Learn that lesson,

Work on your own self-love,

Work on your own growth,

Work on staying in your frame as I've got from the YouTuber Aaron Doherty,

Stay in your frame,

Work on maintaining and growing your own energy,

Work on your own dreams,

Then you have really learned and grown from that relationship which means that was a success.

So I also absolutely do not believe in this idea of failed relationships.

Every relationship,

If you learn from the relationship,

Is a success because it has given you a lesson,

You have received the lesson and that is what makes the relationship a success.

It's not how long it was,

It's did you get the download?

Are you a new and changed and different person as a result of the learnings that you've received from this relationship?

So yeah,

I really encourage you to let go of the idea of relationship failure.

I don't think there is such a thing as relationship,

A failed relationship.

Every relationship,

Whatever length it is,

Whether it's a week,

Two weeks,

A month,

Three months,

Six months,

Two years,

Ten years,

Fifteen years,

Twenty years,

Is a learning process between two people.

Each partner in the relationship is the teacher of the other partner and the lesson lasts as long as it's meant to last and that's only spirit,

The universe that knows how long it will take for that exchange to happen between those people,

For those people to give and receive that lesson.

And in a really long-term relationship,

If it's a functioning and healthy long-term relationship,

Which is a question in itself,

But if it is a healthy and functioning long-term relationship,

Then those lessons just continue on.

Those two people are the right teacher for each other for a long time and maybe for a lifetime and that is a beautiful thing,

Absolutely,

Because that relationship can then deepen,

That growth can happen,

Both people can grow side-by-side and also together and they grow that third thing,

The relationship is the third thing in between the two people,

They grow that over time,

Over many years,

Into a beautiful,

Sustaining,

Loving energy which sustains both of those two people who are in that relationship.

So that's an amazing lifelong learning and growth process but it just it does not mean that it's any better than your learning if your relationship was a short or a brief one.

If you got the download,

If you are growing into the next iteration,

The next version of yourself,

Thanks to this learning,

Then I consider that relationship to be a success.

So now in my own situation,

Now it's been more than a month since this relationship dissolved,

I really understand all of the lessons,

I really understand why this had to happen for me and I am looking forward to really diving deeper into my own process of loving myself and owning my own worth and moving forward in ahead with my own dreams,

Thanks to everything that I've learned from that person.

So that's what I just wanted to share with you today,

Relationships are for our spiritual growth,

That's it,

That's what they're for.

So there as long as you're learning and growing,

There's no such thing as a failed relationship.

And I also just wanted to comment,

There are so many videos on narcissism now on YouTube and that is not a bad thing,

I think it's very useful learning process but I think it's really also very important not to demonize people.

So even though it seems like some narcissistic people may be possessed by the devil or demons as is suggested in many YouTube videos,

I think it's really important not to dehumanize people.

Everybody is the way they are because they have developed in that particular way as a result of all of their life circumstances and that does not justify the bad behavior of narcissistic people.

I'm absolutely not saying that,

I'm just saying that dehumanizing these people does not really help us.

Othering them,

The other way of talking about dehumanization is an othering process.

We other this person,

This narcissist,

We put them into the other box and then we can kind of get rid of them because they're other and different and less human than us.

I don't think this is a helpful process.

More helpful I think is recognizing yes they have very damaging character traits which are very damaging to their partners,

Partners that they are in relationship with.

Those character traits come from an unevolved person,

An emotionally immature person.

The people who are narcissistic are responsible for their lack of emotional maturity,

For their lack of insight,

For their lack of any kind of self-awareness.

But we also have to see that these people are also playing their parts in the drama of life and they are also teachers for us.

So if you do find yourself in a relationship with a narcissistic person you can either go down the road of demonizing them and othering them and making them the bad guy in your life.

Which in part is true,

Most probably is true.

But the more healthy way of looking at this person is they were your teacher and they delivered maybe a really harsh lesson to you.

And somehow if you are going to go through this healing process in a healthy and successful way I think that it's beneficial for you to look at this person as your teacher.

And if you really get that download and learn that lesson probably the lesson of being in a relationship with a narcissistic person is that you were trying to also subcontract out your self-worth to another person.

You were probably trying to gain something from that person's self-worth.

So that person,

If we talk about this frame again that Aaron Doherty talks about,

Being in your own frame.

A narcissistic person is really strongly in their own frame.

They have an amplified self-worth.

It's coming usually from a fragile ego which is actually insecure.

But on first impression it looks like they have a really strong self-worth.

So perhaps this is the lesson for you in this relationship.

You have kind of attached yourself to that person because you were attracted to their strong sense of themselves.

To their really strong ability to stay in their own frame.

And their strong ability to look after themselves.

To stand up for themselves.

To ask for their needs to be met.

To go into battle for themselves in their life.

In all the different arenas of their life.

So if this is the case then this is a way that we can look at this relationship positively and really understand okay they were our teachers for us to stand up and own our self-worth.

To stay in our frame.

To look after our own self.

To fight our own battles.

To ask for what we need and want in life.

So that is perhaps why subconsciously we chose this otherwise quite destructive,

Selfish,

Self-absorbed,

Unempathetic narcissistic person.

Because they had some key lessons that we need to learn.

And if we do really learn those lessons and elevate our self-worth.

Stay in our own frame.

Recognize that we cannot subcontract out our need for validation to another person.

Then we have really benefited and learned and grown from that relationship.

And with any luck we will not have to repeat the lesson.

So if we really get the lesson we don't have to repeat the lesson.

And we can hopefully attract a healthy relationship in our next relationship.

If we don't get the download.

We haven't really learned the lesson.

We might have to go through that lesson again.

I know for me I have been in other relationships with narcissistic people.

So this has not been my only one.

So I just understand that I did not really learn the lesson in the previous relationships.

What I hope for myself now is that this is the last one that I have to be in.

And I hope to really fully get this download.

Really fully learn this lesson.

So that I can attract a really healthy relationship in my next relationship.

Where I am walking along beside a person.

And not being in this kind of enmeshed codependent dynamic anymore.

And that can only happen if I stop subcontracting out that self-love and self-worth.

And I take that all back inside of me.

I stay in my own frame.

And I am a fully boundaried and sovereign human being.

So thank you for listening.

I would really like to hear from you in the comments.

Lots of love from me here in Bali.

And take care.