Spiritual Dating, Part 1

By CC Treadway
www.treadwayesoteric.com

Ah yes, we get to a certain level of evolution of our selves and we say, “No more of this 3-D stuff, I want a SOULMATE, or better yet a TWIN FLAME!!!” The quest for the ideal mate becomes a soul mission.

If you have been doing your spiritual work, and you are over 30, you probably don’t want to go to bars. You probably don’t ever want to go on another date. You just want to meet the right person and meditate together….forever (sigh). The idea of a soulmate sounds really good. So you begin your quest to find your spiritual partner.

Some of the lucky ones meet someone right away. Good karma. Others find a whole new set of problems that repeat themselves in the “spiritual dating scene” or lack of one. First off, for the women, “Where are all the freakin’ men??” They are not at yoga, healing class, or your “feel your feelings” group. For the few men that do go to these events, “Look at all these open women, and I am their only option!! Why choose just one, when I can sample them all!” Or, and I see this a lot, the monogamous and ready ones find someone very fast. And just like that they are gone.

All the same, embarking on spiritual dating journey can be very fun. It’s exciting to think of the possibilities, and bringing in a true partner to share your life is a worthwhile endeavor. It also can be a huge motivator for growth. But the more intense the connection, the more mature you have to be to create a sustained relationship. That means the more practical and down to earth you must be to deal with life’s challenges together. At the end of the day a spiritual relationship is really just a relationship.

Pitfall #1
OVER-SPIRITUALIZING RELATIONSHIP

I once went out on a date with a very spiritual man. He took me to get falafel at the cheapest restaurant on the block. He didn’t pay for me. Then afterwards he took me to the corner store to go get a lottery ticket for himself, claiming he had almost become psychic enough to win the lottery. My spiritual ideals told me it was totally possible that he could develop this skill, but I kid you not my ovaries retracted. I had a real biological rejection happen in that moment. This illustrates the basic problem with the first phase of spiritual dating….over-spiritualizing life while ignoring basic needs.

Lets face it, those of us that are connected to spirit really believe in it and feel it. In some ways the ecstasy of connecting in this way does make the physical seem mundane and unimportant. After all, spirit provides. I do believe that, but there’s a thin line between letting spirit provide and being caught in a delusional fantasy.

Here’s the classic setup of our time: Spiritual woman meets spiritual guy. He has no money, she does. She tries not to let this bother her, it does. He tries to make believe it doesn’t bother him, it does. He won’t work because he is exploring spirituality and he’d rather stick it to “the Man” than be the man. She admires his spiritual fire, independent thinking and openness, but becomes stressed out because her body is telling her she cannot bring a child into the world without some security. She doesn’t want to admit that. He has a hard time committing to her, because deep down he feels no purpose, is emasculated by the fact that she is the provider and he’d like someone more feminine. He doesn’t want to admit that.

Instead of breaking up and bitching that he was a scrub, and that you have to find someone who has their shit together, or for the man, instead of concluding that you just aren’t ready for a monogamous relationship because you have to find yourself, acknowledge that this situation is a potential evolutionary step. By getting in touch with your primal needs and working with them to integrate with your spiritual work, you can enter a true bliss state only possible in the physical. The truth is, if you were actually at the vibratory level of bringing in a wealthy, evolved spiritual man, or an open, surrendered feminine woman, you would have. So work with what you got if at all possible. There is room for a lot of growth here. This leads us to number two.


Pitfall#2
CONFUSING GENDER ROLES/FEMINIZING SPIRITUALITY

When I signed up for healing school many years ago, I was convinced I would meet my soulmate there. But when I arrived, there were 10 women to every man. Can you feel me ladies? If you took out the gay ones, it pushed it to like 20:1. That really depressed me. I thought, “Why on earth is all the marketing for this school done in shades of purple? Are they purposely trying to alienate men?” After four years in that school, brilliant as it was, I was convinced they didn’t see this imbalanced ratio as a problem and were fine with alienating men. I understand that at the time of the school’s inception, it was more important to make a space for women, but I wanted to meet my partner! All that purple and all those emotions constantly being expressed drove them away. I left the school soulmate-less and single.

I think this is a shadow issue with new age spirituality in general: over-feminizing the spiritual. This means that spiritual men are expected to act more feminine when exploring spiritual territory, and the masculine is considered unevolved. It is a reaction to the patriarchal system, not an evolved spiritual state for men. The more they feminize, the less we want them and the less they want us! And many of us have ceased to recognize what is truly masculine. Even many men have forgotten. Men don’t want to work or commit and women keep attracting these spiritual/feminine types because they are looking for a spiritual relationship and feminism has taught them that the masculine is wrong. Feminism has also taught them that they need to be the man. It’s very confusing. I wouldn’t trade feminism, but like all things, it’s a step, not a destination. Luckily, brilliant work has been done on this subject. I won’t repeat what these experts have said, only that a harmonious relationship requires an agreement of masculine/feminine roles that will blow our post-feminist beliefs out of the water.

Read David Deida books or do some of his workshops. The information he presents is every spiritual persons relationship dream they don’t even know they are having. Then read books like “Getting to I Do” by Pat Allen and Sandra Harmon and a surprisingly practical ebook called “Catch Him and Keep Him,” by Christian Carter. Cheezy titles, uncomfortable information, but lets face it, spiritual couples and singles need help. You can throw out whatever doesn’t work for you in the books, but for me and for my clients, the information has been invaluable. All of these books say what ancient spiritual traditions say in western language. Native cultures understand the polarity of the sexes and work with them. This information alone could save a dying relationship.

The few guys that were at healing school loved to all hang out and do guy stuff. They had their men’s group, I was dying to know how it all worked for them, but it was forbidden. On the off hours, they did a lot of guy stuff, like compare penis sizes, look at Playboy and declare the evenings, “feelings-free.” “How barbaric!” I thought, as I did anything I could to hang out with them.

Pitfall #3
PAST-LIFE PROJECTION

I actually dated one of the few healing school guys. He was beautiful, deep, spiritual, indecisive, non-committal and confused. Intoxicating. Many women in the school were “in love” with him. One by one they would somehow manage to tell him they had had a past life together and that’s why their connection was so strong. This upset him. He didn’t know who was really his friend, or who was projecting. It didn’t feel real. My attitude about past life loves is that they are exes, like any other, not a green light to give it another go. Of course, he appreciated my practical attitude and pursued me. After a few weeks with him, we were both convinced we were soulmates, maybe even twinflames, the one we had been waiting for, just like all the psychics said! A passionate, spiritual and dramatic love affair followed.

After that ended in crushing heartbreak, I admitted that my spiritual ideals of what a relationship should like was a bunch of crap. I knew I was missing some basics. A good relationship can be made with a soulmate, a twinflame or someone you have absolutely no history with at all. I wouldn’t get stuck on the soulmate part, I would aim for the good relationship with the most compatible partner. I would take some tips from people in regular ol’ relationships who are making it work.

Pitfall#4
SPIRITUAL PERFECTIONISM AND IDEALS

If you keep attracting someone you consider under-evolved, then you are not meeting your own standards of evolution. Period. Either evolve more, or let up on yourself so you can bring in someone as imperfect as you, then grow together.

Spiritual people and perfection: it’s a killer!! You know these types. They preach love as their religon. It’s like the New Age Love Mafia. The pressure to say the right, loving thing at all times is as suffocating as Sunday school at a Pentecostal church. I can feel my inner bitch ready to shake down. No one can be loving and nice all the time, its just dishonest. There has to be room for the more ugly emotions and the willingness to work through them. If you don’t learn how to see in dark, you will be blind. This is a spiritual relationship killer. People who are trying so hard to be perfect will have no idea how to deal with the variables that combining your life with another human inevitably presents. Relationship is messy and imperfect. Your partner is going to mess up…a lot. And so will you. The other side of perfectionism is constantly feeling like you have to heal, grow, or work harder to become better so you attract a “healed man.” What does that even look like anyway?

Although I always had too much attitude to join the New Age Love Mafia, I really had the perfection bug. I spent years tirelessly working on myself so he would magically appear, totally healed and ready (so I would never be hurt again). He finally showed up one day…in the form of a woman and a man around my parent’s age. What the hell? Inadvertently, I had manifested my ideal parents. And I was head over heals in love!!! I absolutely adored my new parents. I was surprised, but recognized this was what I needed all along. And this was why every relationship prior had been a bust. I was forever mourning the loss of my parental unit (divorce). When I really let myself grieve that, I then brought in “ideal” parents who were still together to help me heal and mature so I could stop recreating the trauma. I learned so much from them, and they continue to be role models and dear friends.

Trying to heal parental wounds through relationships can be a slippery slope. If you still have a lot of healing to do, you will probably just recreate the trauma. Spiritual people are just as vulnerable to this as anyone else. The tricky part is that the intensity of these wounded relationships creates a connection that can be mistaken for a soulmate. Maybe they are, but this adds a whole new level of pressure and pain when things don’t go well. For a very spiritual person this can be a huge disillusionment into their humanity.

After meeting my spiritual parents, I soaked in a lot of care that I desperately needed. That inner child needed her parents back together so badly! I began to work with relationship therapist. He asked me to write down everything I wanted in a man and email it to him. After reading my list he said, “Are you looking for a 60 year old man?” (I was 32). I said, “Noooooooo, although that would explain the new parents.” He said, “Then your list is unrealistic.” That was a relief. My ideal man did feel unachievable, but the manifesting books all said to write everything down. However, with the love and care from my spiritual parents, I no longer needed my partner to be perfect (so I would never be hurt again). I was free to bring in a partner that was actually human, flawed and my age. This healer also nailed me on codependency and over-spiritualizing, and gave me real, practical, tools for creating and sustaining a relationship.

After that, it took me a little less than a year to bring in a great partner. In the next article I will share a little about that and give practical tips to assist in meeting and creating a good relationship.

(c) CC Treadway 2009-10. All rights reserved.