Conscious love requires skill — and when done well, it becomes a path of mutual uplift and shared coherence.

Conscious relationships are hard. They are the hardest kind to sustain and be continuously nourished by. The old model of relationship — which doesn’t involve continuous growth in many ways — is simpler to navigate. Those of us who are here for awakening, integration, and internal evolution are choosing a different path.

The gifts are numerous. Ideally, you receive a continuous mirror reflecting both your divinity and your shadow. You are held and witnessed through your unfolding and return. You go deeper — finding union that becomes richer and more attuned as you integrate your parts together. Pleasure expands. Inspiration is shared. You grow erotically within safety. And you have a partner to buffer and hold you through life’s challenges.

To do this well requires leadership. A boatload of inner leadership and many skills under your belt.

I want to share some essential inner leadership that is needed for mutually supportive and cooperative long-term relationships:

1 — Being clear about the kind of relationship you are co-creating.

I don’t just mean containers, boundaries, and agreements. Each person comes in with history — history of past relationships, history of wounds from early relationships as teens, pre-verbal history, and ancestral history. And each person comes from a culture that has its own modeling for how a relationship is supposed to go and what it’s for. Talking about each of these layers of history and defining together how you want it to be is essential. Why? Because if you don’t have clear intentions about what you are doing, history will take over. This is part of being conscious.

2 — An agreement to stay conscious throughout the process and return to what you are co-creating.

Life will challenge you. History will surface. Trauma and body memories will arise. Projections and transference will insist on being seen.

Staying conscious means remembering what you are co-creating and calling each other gently back to the present moment — back to the beauty and the magic of your relationship. Even when it feels really heavy and you are so committed to being right. 

3 — Differentiation is not optional.

Differentiation is the essential component that allows us to dis-identify from history or the little one. Differentiating past from present, sociocultural patterns from your co-created culture, and the little one from the Adult. This is one of the hardest skills to learn and practice regularly.

Attraction in conscious relationships will always carry some quality of matching wounds and blessings around early attachment history. Attraction will also have a shadow around how you unconsciously agree to run masculine and feminine polarities with each other. And, as we are being shown collectively in the USA right now, there is a lot of shadow trying to come to the light.

It’s important to anchor present-moment truth clearly:

“I am not your father/mother.”

“I am not your past partner.”

“I am not the man/woman who wounded you or the men/women before you.”

“I am not the mother/father who abandoned you.”

I am here. I am loving you. I am caring. I am showing up in the ways we agreed. I am here being with you as you unwind the harmful past. I am here to be on the same team with you in life. I see what you are going through. I am with you — and I also know you are bigger than what you are experiencing. 

4 — Once we can dis-identify, we can move toward mutual uplift.

I share with couples and in my Womb Surround workshops that we are primarily here to welcome each other and mutually uplift one another. Most of us did not grow up with modeling that carried the energy of mutual uplift. Many of us had parents who never learned how to do that and were raised in a society anchored in the idea of battle between genders.

Yet beneath all those imprints, there is a blueprint that knows another way. The blueprint in each of us knows that the relationship and family we want to create can be more than what was passed down.

5 — We cannot move forward alone. Support is essential.

Support is wired into our social nervous systems. Each person in a conscious relationship needs reflection, understanding, and holding outside their partner. Community and friendships matter. Having spaces where you can metabolize your process without placing the full weight of it on your partner protects the polarity and longevity of the relationship. (I’m also speaking from past-me, who learned this the hard way.)

Couples, too, need support together. Whether through community or a skilled couples therapist, outside containment allows the essential blueprint underneath the triggers to emerge. When two activated inner children meet at the same time, it is one of the hardest places to unwind alone. They benefit immensely from a skilled practitioner who can slow it down and allow that essential blueprint to unwind history so the couple can land back in present time and re-anchor their relationship vision.

6 — Trusting Coherence. Trusting the third presence.

When we are on track, life provides feedback. It shows up differently for each person and at different stages of life. For some, it is simple pleasure in the body. For others, an effortless fuller breath. Some women feel their womb relax and open. Sometimes there is a moment of peace or nervous system settling. Sometimes we feel our feet on the earth more clearly or our center comes forward in awareness.

And with kindness, there are seasons when we cannot access these cues.

Either way, life offers coherence — a feeling that there is a third presence holding us when we are aligned. When two people commit to coherence — to staying present, differentiated, and aligned with what they are consciously creating — something emerges between them.

It is not either person.

It is not fantasy.

It is not projection.

It is a field.

A shared intelligence that becomes accessible when both people are regulated enough to perceive it.

Some traditions call this God. Some call it Love. Some call it the relational field. I (and my teachers) often refer to it as the third presence.

Couples who cultivate connection based on shared coherence receive the gift of feeling that third presence enter and guide their relationship. Most of us were not taught this by our parents, but many of us have experienced it in unexpected moments. This third presence can enter lovemaking, can support challenge, and can simply become part of the uplift in a relationship where each partner knows how to land and trust this energy.

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Let’s summarize the skills/practices in slightly different language:

1 — Intentional Relationship Vision Co-Creation

2 — A Shared Commitment to Staying Conscious and Present

3 — Differentiating Past from Present and Inner Parts from Present-Day Adult

4 — Relating from Mutual Uplift

5 — Leaning on Support Outside the Relationship

6 — Cultivating Shared Coherence and Inviting the Third Presence to Guide Your Love

These skills and practices are foundational for Same Team Relationships. They require learning skills that support us to grow and change toward a secure relationship with life and love.

I hope the words above inspire you to see what is possible in your relationships and in your life.

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If you’d like to stop here, you can. What follows is an invitation into an upcoming container connected to what I’ve shared above.

One of the unique characteristics of a Womb Surround Process Workshop is that it is based on principles that help us create coherence and integrate ourselves toward the best versions of the humans we want to be. It allows us to integrate all the way “home.” Yes, one can work on many things in this container, and I especially love inviting couples — or those who want a palpable foundation for vibrant conscious relationships and secure attachment.