The space you inhabit as a couple is like a room. It is around you, in between you and beyond you. We easily forget to nurture our awareness of the space inside and outside of that room.
As an exercise take a few deep calming breaths, and come to an awareness of the space around you as a couple. Imagine the air around each of your bodies, sense an envelope of energy, or light or even just your partner’s body temperature. Then expand your awareness beyond those immediate confines, outside of the room or garden, the building or the park you are in, and out into the world as far you can reach. Enjoy that for a while. Letting go of me and mine. And then come back to the space around you as a couple and notice if you can breathe more easily there now. It can be a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room. Here’s more on that idea:
The space in a room is peaceful. The objects (the people) in the room can excite, repel, or attract, but the space has no such quality. However, even though the space does not attract our attention, we can be fully aware of it, and we become aware of it when we are no longer absorbed by the objects in the room. When we reflect on the space in the room, we feel a sense of calm because all space is the same; the space around you and the space around me is no different. It is not mine. I can’t say “This space belongs to me” or “That space belongs to you.”
Space is always present. It makes it possible for us to be together, contained within a room, in a space that is limited by walls. Space is also outside the room; it contains the whole building, the whole world. So space is not bound by objects in any way; it is not bound by anything. If we wish, we can view space as limited in a room, but really, space is unlimited.
Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, there is room for only a few things. Everything has to be manipulated and controlled; the rest is just to be pushed out.”