The purpose of romantic relationships is to encourage you to grow spiritually.
GZ: The purpose of romantic relationships is to encourage you to grow spiritually. Romantic relationships can do this because they are interactions in which you come to see those parts of yourself that are constructive, healthy, and creative. You see them because you project them onto someone else. When someone new comes into your life and suddenly you feel more alive, more beautiful, more sexual, more creative, more desirable, and more engaged, you feel that this new person is the key to those feelings. So this person becomes very important to you. But actually, you have these qualities too. What you don’t see and don’t acknowledge in yourself, you project onto someone else. Carl Jung explored this very well. He called it “projection.” Now, at the same time, when you’re with somebody that you’re putting the burden of continually wanting them to make you feel all of these exhilarating ways, you begin to see that this person is not all of what you thought the person was; actually, this person is a great deal more. He, or she, has quite a few characteristics that are going to surprise you, because you haven’t seen anything except what you’ve been projecting, and what you have seen you’ve been denying. After a while, you can’t deny anymore. That’s when the proverbial honeymoon comes to an end. This is a good thing because this is when real growth can begin. This is when you can begin to use your interactions consciously to grow spiritually, identifying in yourself the parts of your personality that are preventing you from loving and giving your gifts to the universe, gifts that you’re under contract with the universe to give. The vehicle that allows you to do this is spiritual partnership. Spiritual partnership is the partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth.
You don’t have to fear this amorphous thing called grief or loss or anger or jealousy. You define it for yourself in the intimacy of your own experience for exactly what it is, and then it comes. In other words, by experiencing your emotions somatically, there is no boogie man to scare you.
As you begin to feel this enormous shift of consciousness, called multisensory perception, emerging in your awareness, you begin to reorient yourself. It’s a reorientation that occurs toward yourself as more than a mind and a body; it’s a reorientation that occurs toward others, toward your life as meaningful, rather than predetermined. It’s a reorientation that occurs toward the universe as alive, wise, and compassionate, instead of inert (which means dead) and random. Authentic power is a new potential of this expanded perceptual system that we are all being given as a gift. As you begin to create authentic power with tools such as emotional awareness, responsible choice, and intuition, you begin to draw to yourself others who are doing the same thing. Those are your potential spiritual partners, because you are both committed to exploring the creation of authentic power in yourselves, and in supporting the creation of authentic power in each another. MP: Good grief, I have a lot to learn! [laughs] You’ve been on Oprah more than thirty-five times. She referenced The Seat of the Soul as the greatest book that has ever been in her life besides the Bible. What has your experience been like with her, whether it’s been on her show or Super Soul Sunday.
GZ: This is my experience of Oprah Winfrey—she makes decisions as frequently as she can to contribute with consciousness, with awareness, with love. And I believe—no, I know—this is the source of her joy, her vitality, her unending creativity and her connection to people.
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mindfulness
MP: What is the purpose of romantic relationships?