Shifting from apathy to awe

Yesterday at Jubilee! Community the message was about shifting from apathy to awe in our lives. It was powerful and timely in many ways, and it got me to thinking about how this idea applies to our marriages–in fact it applies to all our relationships, yet I’m going to focus on our primary committed relationship.

We generally begin our married lives in awe of our partner. We’re enraptured, mesmerized, adoring of him/her and this creates a light, ebullient, connecting energy in our relationship. In this atmosphere, when problems arise, we can often flow right through them like a kayaker shimmies through a river’s turbulent rapids.

It seems, however, that many couples, lose that sense of appreciation, admiration, and awe for their partner once they’ve been together for awhile (whether after a long dating period or after a few years of marriage). We start to take our partners for granted and likely notice more of the things they do which we don’t appreciate or love. So our energy begins to shift from awe and connection to apathy, annoyance, and disconnection. In this space we create an entirely different sort of relationship–not the loving, peaceful, blissful partnership that we intended to build with our mate. Problems encountered in this space seem harder to navigate and we can sometimes come through these events feeling emotionally bruised.

So, for me I was reminded of the power of appreciation and finding that place where I am in awe of the wonderful man I married. For us, one way we help hold this space in our partnership is a nightly gratitude ritual. We take time to say what things we’re grateful for in the past day and also to acknowledge at least one thing about our partner (some quality they exhibited or something they did). This makes being in awe of each other (and of life, by the way) much more likely and keeps us from forgetting how special and precious our “other half” is to us.

Peace,
Shonnie