#28: If You're Not Worshipping Your Partner, What Are You Doing?

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On today's episode, we return to the controversial topic of worship within romantic relationships. We dive into the historical roots of the word “worship” to reveal the misunderstanding that exists, especially in religious contexts. We also identify the three prerequisites to giving and receiving worship in your relationship, and the difference between love, devotion, and worship. To offer true worship to a partner, there is one skill you must have, and we’ll tell you exactly how to develop it. If you want to bring your current or next relationship onto a level of intimacy beyond anything you’ve experienced, this episode is required listening.

There’s no way to offer worship without the capacity to hold and channel your life force. We’ll teach you how in our upcoming course. Learn more here: https://www.sovereignunion.co/reclamation

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People forget that the Bible is translated. Once Christianity starts to spread and come in, this word changed.

SPEAKER_06 0:08

It's the word worship. I want to be clear that worship is not something that I am trying to get out of Jessica or something that I'm trying to earn. You don't just get respect because you're a man. I actually can't walk up to God and worship him.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

What if the person I'm talking to is actually God speaking to me?

SPEAKER_06 0:31

For me to receive that and then not worship you, that seems like heresy.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

As you're talking, I'm just like, I couldn't have a bigger smile on my face. It's not worship. Welcome to the Well Worship Man podcast, where men come to build unshakable presence, become the rock in their relationships, and build a legacy that lasts beyond their years. Here we explore the path to mature masculinity through humble power, daily devotion, and unwavering integrity.

SPEAKER_06 1:02

Thanks, baby. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave us a rating. And also make sure you grab the free guide that's in the show notes or description. It is a free video guide as well as a conversation script to help you step courageously into the one conversation that you've been avoiding that is also the one conversation that can create the biggest shift in your relational field. What are we talking about today, baby?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Today on our podcast, we are talking about worship and not only worship, but what it means to worship a partner.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

Yeah, and so this is the title of the podcast, The Well-Worshiped Man. We talked about worship on the very first episode, but we haven't talked about it since. But the reason why we decided to talk about it today is that you recently posted something online sharing what a day of Isaac worship looks like. And what happened when you posted that?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

When I posted it, people who got it got it, and people who didn't get it didn't get it. And so there were some comments that came through of just, you know, people really not understanding this essence of worship and partnership. And the comments that have backlash or the people that have backlash about this rhetoric in this specific piece of content were people that fall mostly into like religious context, which is something that we expect. You know, when we put out this podcast initially, the expectation was that there would be one camp of people that maybe understood it. There would be another camp of people that were in this realm of like, oh my gosh, more men thinking that they need to be like put above people, like I roll. And then there would be this camp of people that are like deeply rooted in their religious beliefs and believe that the term worship should only be used for God. And that's essentially the some of the comments we got. So one of the comments said, Only God is worthy of worship, repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you commented on it saying, God's always first. And I had a little bit of back and forth with this person. But I think maybe before we go on, I'd love for you to reshare and double tap, you know, our prioritization of relationships so that there's no confusion in audience or in what we're saying, because that feels important.

SPEAKER_06 3:52

Yeah. And when that comment came through, one thing that I thought was you know, God gets worshipped every day, morning and night, and in between, if we can return our attention to God, to spirit, that's always the goal. And I get a day of worship every couple weeks, you know. But when we talk about the hierarchy of relationship that we work with here in our work and in our teachings, first is our relationship to great spirit. That's the number one priority. You can use the word God or source or universe. Number two is for me, my relationship to myself. And number three is our relationship.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yeah, and for me, number two is my relationship with myself, and three is our relationship, and like that is something that we teach over and over again. It's something that we make sure we embody every morning. We sit in our own practices with spirit and self. Every evening we sit in our own practices of spirit and self. And just like you mentioned, you know, the goal is that I'm actually connected to God in every single moment, no matter what. So we have many moments throughout the day where we're praying over this podcast or our work together or our food or each other. And in our embodiment of the way we live life, it's very, very, very clear that neither of us thinks that each other comes before ourselves nor before great spirit. And that feels really important to just ensure that that's what we teach, it's what we embody, it's what we believe. And none of the things that we say on this podcast are going to counter that in any way. I also wanted to say, you know, I think this is something we can talk about in a bit, but it's like you get worshipped once every two weeks, but there is also like devotion often, and there's also love often, and we can get into like the difference of those things once we keep talking.

SPEAKER_06 6:03

Yeah. I think the number one thing that makes people stop listening when they hear hear worship. And if you are somebody who almost stopped listening, but you're still here, we appreciate you. It's the word worship. And there's this religious context that uh don't worship any idols, only God is worthy of worship. Anything else is heresy. And it's also some some a comment that we got online that this was heresy. And so before we go any further, I think it's a great time for you to share the etymology of the actual word worship.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Well, I hadn't even thought about this, but the first thing I'll say is, you know, this quote that you're talking about of don't worship any idols. It's like people forget that the Bible is translated. Like no one is reading the Bible in its original language. And so literally everything is like up for interpretation because the words that one language has are almost never a direct translation of the words another language has. You can see this by like, we're in Guatemala right now, trying to use Google Translate, and like people are laughing at us because the words don't directly translate. There's so much context and like nuance to the way a language flows. And so, even that quote that we have now of like, don't worship any idols is not what the actual word said. I don't know what the actual word said. I'm sure someone does. Maybe we can have like a biblical specialist on here at some point. But that's not what the word, that's not what the original teaching was, because it was written in Hebrew. And so if anyone does actually know that original, you know, context, I'm sure it's not a direct translation into, you know, the word worship as people are interpreting it now. And I know that it's not because we have this etymology of the word worship. So the etymology is basically telling us where a word comes from based on its root words and how these root words got put together to make up the initial definition of the word. And then culture kind of takes over, and we think that words mean different things over time, but the etymology is the origin of the word. So the word worship originally comes from a combination of the word warp, W-E-O-R-P, and SIP, S-C-I-P-E. The word warp means worth, and the suffix cype is simply meaning indicating the condition of. So when we take those two things together, the actual original definition of worship meant signifying the act of ascribing worth or high honor to a person or deity, which means that, you know, it's just literally saying this person or deity before me deserves honor, deserves respect, has high value. Like that the essence that's coming through for me is like an avatar when they're like, I see you. It's like, I see like how beautiful you are and how much respect you deserve in all of these things. And so when I was looking this up, I was looking up the actual historical evolution, like what changed this from meaning just deserving worthiness and respect to actually it's a word completely devoted to God. And this is what I found. So originally it meant to show honor or respect, often to people of high status. So they would say things like your worship to like a king.

SPEAKER_06 9:44

Instead of your highness.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Exactly. And then by late, by the time old English came around, so this language is developing, it began to be used specifically for the reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being. And so when I read that, I looked up, okay, historically, when Old English was developing, what's going on? And what we found was Christianity was taking over Anglo-Saxon England. So before this, basically all of Europe was pagan and they were connected to nature and they had these different gods and goddesses that were a bit more human-like, that had, you know, different traits. And once Christianity starts to spread and come in, this word changed. So what I was feeling when we were talking about this is like you can change the way that a word is being used, but its origin is still the original frequency of the word. And so people over time decided, took it upon themselves through their religion to kind of like claim this word as only to be used for God. But that's not the real definition of the word. It's not the origin of the word. And so when we look to the origin of the word, we see the frequency of it, which far surpasses what culture has decided. And the frequency and original beingness of this word says, you have honor. In my eyes, you deserve honor and respect and like something greater from me than I'm giving to the average person.

SPEAKER_06 11:26

What the church did from my eyes when they removed the word worship from context like your worship, which used to mean your highness or your honor, is that they removed the inherent divinity that exists within so that humans had to look to the church as the only avenue to communion with God. And so we're really creating in this reclamation of the word worship is that God is not separate from me, God is not separate from you. And as an act of devotion and reverence and living prayer to the divine, to great spirit, I can actually worship the divine through you. And if you look into Eastern traditions, I believe that all these religions sprang forth from a same common seed. If you believe that we all were sparked by the same source of creation, then it's impossible to argue that all religions didn't come from the same seed. But in Eastern traditions, what they teach is that everything that exists here is an expression of God, of spirit, and that you were created, I was created so that spirit could experience itself. And I actually can't walk up to God and worship him. I can't just approach spirit and worship. We don't have the multidimensional awareness that's required for us to have a direct experience of spirit. And so what's required is for us to find these divine expressions that exist on this realm and to offer our praise, to offer our worship through those so that they can reach great spirit. And one of the best churches to do that in is your romantic union. I can't think of a better church to offer your praise and your gratitude and your devotion through as an act of worship through you to spirit.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah. And you know, what you're saying actually isn't very different from something that gets said in Christianity. It's like I was reading the Bhagavad Gita recently, andor a translation of it, and the author is talking about like, I can't be holy spirit, like it requires all of the parts, you know? And so that's what places us in the correct orientation. It's like great spirit first and then me. It's not Jessica as great spirit and then everything else. It's great spirit first and then me because I am an expression of spirit on this planet. And there is a teaching in the New Testament where Jesus is saying something similar of like many parts all one body. It's like the hand can't, the hand is not a body, the hand can't do everything a body can do. But through being connected to the body, it is part of it. And it can make things happen that like other parts of the body can't, and it also has the same blood flowing through it. It's like a single source of life. And so, like, I actually think that Christianity teaches the same thing, it's just mist. And in the origin story of Christianity at the very beginning of the Bible, they say, like, God created Adam like in his own image, you know? And so I think people kind of like think that God looks like us because of poor translation of the actual words. But it's like, no, like God is a Adam is a piece of God. Like you are a piece of God, I am a piece of God. And so in understanding that great spirit is running through us at all times, we would be amiss if we are not honoring each other as if that were true. You know, if I'm not seeing that in you and I'm not taking time to pause and be like, oh my gosh, like God's sitting in front of me. Like that's powerful.

SPEAKER_06 15:41

Yeah, there's a a teaching from Plato, early Greek philosopher. It's called the Great Chain of Being. And at the top is God, and then there's angels, and then there's humans, and then there's animals, and it's like, yeah, as close as you can get to God, as higher up that chain as you can offer your praise and your worship, it's like the better. And so actually, humans are one of the greatest expressions for you to offer your praise and devotion to God. And when you live that way, when you can recognize the divinity in every human in front of you, you can really walk through your life as a practice of worship. Not to say that you're gonna worship every human that you come in contact with, but you can have that level of recognition and honor for them.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Totally. This like sacred honor that comes through. It's like, what if the person I'm talking to is actually God speaking to me? How differently would I listen to what they're saying? Like, what if the words being spoken are for me and for my evolution to understand Great Spirit that much more deeply and that much more specifically and in such a more attuned, loving way? And if I don't walk around the world as this, we end up with a world quite like ours where people are killing people all the time, where people don't respect the animals that are like creating the food for us. So they're not honoring like how much life goes into consumption. Mother Earth isn't cared for, like all of these things. And it's like that shift from God and like divinity is within us to outside of us really harmed human evolution, honestly.

SPEAKER_06 17:38

Yeah, there's a Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist. I'm forgetting his name right now, but he says that the probability of any one of us existing is the same as a tornado ripping through a junkyard and leaving behind a Boeing 747. The chance of us being here is so minuscule that I know there's something greater at play. And that's the same case for every person that you encounter.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah. So as we talk about this, it's like hopefully clear as we're speaking, you know, how much esteem we hold Great Spirit in, and that the way we move through the world is not separate from that. Like the way we move through the world is because of that. And so I always think these comments are interesting because I am very devoted to showing up in the comments in a way that has a chance of bringing people into more love. But we all have our like little responses, you know? And so before I do that, I like have to shake out some humanness. And when people respond in a way that isn't love or that sh demonstrates that they very obviously don't have this embodiment where they see that great spirit is all around us, there is this immature part of me that wants to say, Well, how are your relationships? Because our relationship, it's not like I have a good relationship with spirit, and separately I have a good relationship with myself. And then we also have one. Like it's not happenstance. Everything is a downstream effect. And so the beauty of my relationship with you is because of my relationship with Great Spirit, and because I see Great Spirit all around me, and because I have so much honor and devotion and reverence to the way that like everything in life is God.

SPEAKER_06 19:39

Right. And the love that you share with me is God's love. Right. It's like the degree of benevolence and love and forgiveness and grace that you offer me is an expression of God's love. And that's why romantic union is so special because it is so intimate when done correctly, all the breaks on truth are removed, and that channel is completely cleared, and God's love can flow through. And so for me, living that for me to receive that and then not worship you, that seems like heresy to me.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, I totally agree. And we talk often about how our relationships are a mirror, and the reason marriage is honored with such like sacredness is because it is the closest type of human connection in which we will see God in purest form. Like I can see spirit in all of my relationships, but you are my direct mirror, the closest, the clearest mirror I'll ever have, and the closest thing to spirit I'll ever experience. And this is true for sure in Christianity, but definitely in many different religions, maybe all of them. I'm just not like sure enough of my information to say that, but it might be all of them. Yeah. And so through that, it's like the way in which we show up here must be different and more special and more sacred than the ways in which we show up to, like every other relationship, simply by way of like the position that it's in and the orientation that it's in. And where I feel like a lot of partnerships fail is they just become roommates, you know, and admin buddies. And like we have to do a lot, like you have to keep a lot, do a lot to keep my admin at bay. Something I'm actively working on right now. But having these mobile. Moments of no at lunchtime today, like we are partners, you know. And at night when we sit at our altar, like there's nothing else but this partnership in spirit. And on Sundays, whoever's turn it is, you know, we are devoted to spirit by way of also being devoted to rest and to each other. And I really deeply in every cell in my body believe that if people got on board to this idea of partner worship and had also this correct orientation, that like every single partnership would be better without fail.

SPEAKER_06 22:46

Absolutely. And I think there should be more worship of nature and beauty and of each other. And also, you know, we've mentioned the biggest arena is within romantic partnership. If we go back to the root of the word worship, it's actually living and behaving in a way that offers honor, reverence, and respect. And the last thing that I'll say here before maybe we talk about what worship actually looks like, because it's a conversation we've been having a lot recently, is that you know, there are like this guy online, you know, only God is worthy of worship. Well, I'm God, you are God, you are God. We're also human, but we all have that spark of the divine within. If you believe that, you know, Adam was created in God's image or that you know God breathed the first breath of life into man, we all contain that. We are truly miraculous beings. Uh, we are not just clods of dirt walking around and to walk through this life and receive the reverence that that presumes it only brings us closer to God. It's like people want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Well, what if someone actually like saw you as a follower of Jesus, not just through your words or what you profess, but through the way that you live? What if someone actually saw you as the living embodiment of God's love and offered that acknowledgement to you?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

I love that. Yeah, it's like we've mentioned this before, but like humans respond to positive reinforcement, you know, like if I can prove your worthiness to you, not that you need me to, but if I can through my actions and my care and my life, reinforce it. And yeah, or reinforce it through this essence of worship. It's like because I'm speaking to the great spirit within you, because you're speaking to the great spirit within me, it's like there's no mistake, like you're not perceiving this type of care as like I'm not speaking to your ego, your ego isn't growing. You know, if anything, it's trans shrinking, you know. So yeah, I really like that imagery of just like it makes a difference. Like, if someone sees you as a good person, those voices about how you're not a good person really get softer. If someone honors you as someone worthy of respect, then you naturally start doing things that are respectful.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

Yeah. So moving on a little bit, there are three prerequisites to worship. And I want to be clear that worship is not something that I am trying to get out of Jessica or something that I'm trying to earn. It is simply a downstream effect of the environment and the relationship that I've created. So the first prerequisite to worship, and without this, Jessica would never worship me, it would be impossible, is trust. Jessica has to trust me to be able to worship me. You have to know that I'm gonna do what I say I'm gonna do, that I'm living my values, not just professing them, that I'm going to speak truth urgently. And then the second prerequisite for worship is respect. You have to respect me. So can you speak to what respect means in your relationship to me?

SPEAKER_00 26:58

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SPEAKER_00 28:11

I think that the difference in the way that respect is embodied is like true respect means that I value what you say and what you do. Like I value your opinions about things and the knowledge that you share. Because when I don't respect someone, I don't really care what they have to say. You know, like I am doing this practice of like listening to what anyone has to say because everyone actually deserves respect. But when I when someone doesn't respect someone, there's kind of this like brushing off of their experience or the words that they have to share or whatever that may be. And so when I think of what it looks like in my respect for you and also in your respect for me, it's like when you speak, I listen. You know, it's like when you speak, I value what you have to say, whether it be about your own experience or about a perspective on my experience or the world at large, you know, like there's a valuing of what's coming from you. And I think that it's birthed from what comes from you. You know, like I value what comes from you because of the man that you are. And this was one of the conversations that came up initially. We might have even talked about this in this exact language in the very first podcast about, you know, what who is the well-worship man? It's like, you don't just get respect because you're a man, you know. In in our parents' generation, it's like, no, you respect me because I'm the parent. It's like, no, I respect someone because they're in integrity. I respect someone because I can trust them. I respect someone because I know that they show up as who they say they're gonna be and also who they desire to be. You know, there's this like yearning for better.

SPEAKER_06 30:09

Yeah, and I think another big piece of respect is how somebody treats others. Yeah. And all of these prerequisites are two-way street. Like for you to trust me, I must trust you. For you to respect me, I must respect you. And then the third prerequisite is what we'll term as reverence or admiration, even adoration. I like reverence the most. Admiration, it illustrates the point, but it's kind of creates this hierarchical separation. So when I think about reverence in respect to you, it's like, wow, it's almost like an awe. You know, I watch you do a 40-day fast, I'm like, wow. Or I hear you on the phone with a client, and I'm like, wow, they're so lucky to have you in their life. Or I see you two days after your fast doing jump squats, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like it is admiration. It is like, I don't see anybody in my life, obviously I'm closest to you, but anybody in my life measuring up to the level of excellence and commitment and love that you do. So that creates reverence from me to you.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Thank you. I think that this, these points of what must exist before worship are really important because yeah, you don't get to like demand worship in relationships that do, they're highly dysfunctional and toxic. And usually someone is only offering this type of care because they feel like if they don't, they'll lose it. And that has nothing to do with this conversation about the way that we show up for each other. We show up for each other in the ways that we show up because we want to nurture each other in the ways that we do. Because I want you to feel like this relationship is everything that you've ever dreamed of and more. And because I want you to feel like the God within you, you know, for all the reasons that we've already shared.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

Yeah. Well, I want to share one more thing about reverence. Okay. And this is an indicator that you share, and I think is really beautiful, and something that we teach that the partner you attract is your mirror. It's a reflection of how you feel about yourself. And so already like tune into that and see if your partner is a reflection of how much you love yourself, like how much do you really love yourself? Um, but it's like when I look at you, I'm like, oh my gosh, if you're a reflection of me and the work that I've done on myself, wow, I've done some really awesome work to have created the man that attracted you into my life. And that means absolutely there's reverence.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, this is like one of my favorite codes. And I love when we have a conversation where like you're just talking about your own experience, and I'm witnessing your own experience and honoring you, but I'm also having this internal experience of like, whoa, like I can't believe the man that's sitting in front of me compared to the boys that I used to call in. And that in of itself, that journey is amazing. But when you think about it as the mirror, it's like, whoa, that like turns on the reverence for the God within me. And it really is like understanding that this level, though I'm not tapped into my reverence for myself like as frequently, it's like that must be the baseline in order for this expression to exist. Otherwise, it will just feel like checking off a box. And this visual of worship being a downstream effect really is quite beautiful because it really shows that it can't be something that's requested. It can't be something that's forced. Obviously, we put intention into it and it's like a constantly developing practice. But without this connection to spirit and self, and without my love for myself being like so embodied and my integrity being so embodied, and you know, the level of bullshit I don't tolerate because of the respect I have for myself. You know, it would be hard to experience those things for someone else in a truly authentic way without anything like kind of slimy in the background. If I don't even hard slash impossible if you don't have those things for yourself.

SPEAKER_06 34:59

Yeah. I love what you said about reverence for a partner connects us to reverence for self. And both of those connect us to reverence to spirit. Like, yeah, I did some work to bring into my life, and it was divinely orchestrated.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

For sure. Yeah. I know you said we wanted to talk about, you know, what does worship look like as a bridge to get to there? I think it's important to talk about like what's love, what's devotion, and what's worship.

SPEAKER_06 35:28

Well, let's just create a little path for people to re-enter the conversation if they've drifted. So the three prerequisites to worship are trust, respect, and reverence. And so we've talked a lot recently about the differences between love, devotion, and worship. And to tease this out a little bit, worship, more and more I'm realizing is a practice. It requires so much intentionality, so much forethought, and so much presence that it is truly a lifelong practice to bring worship into your relationship. Love and devotion are a little bit easier to maintain. If you are doing relationship with honesty and vulnerability and courage, there can be an ever-present flow of love in your relationship. Um, it can be a baseline for you. And sure, love is a fire and it takes feeding and it takes soaking, but life can creep in, right? You can get busy in these things and love still be there.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Yeah, I agree. Love is, I think there are ways that maybe these words definitely not worship, but love and devotion sometimes get interchanged and other words of expression of care. But same thing when you feel into the frequency of these words and in the place that we've gotten to, and our dissection of them and the embodiment of them, they really are much different. And love is the first thing to come on board. You know, love says that I like the person that you are, and also I care deeply about you. That's kind of the extent of love is I like you and I care deeply about you more than a lot of other people. And I want you in my life. So we will say sometimes like love really isn't enough for the level of partnership that most people want, and it's the only thing that a lot of people have. But there is this truth that you're talking about where love can exist constantly, like no matter what is going on with life, if you ask someone if they love their partner, they'll say yes, usually. And they might not be able to feel it in that moment. Like even love gets to this place of default mode. But devotion and worship can't really get to a place of default mode. Like they're either there intentionally or they're not.

SPEAKER_06 38:13

Yeah. Like, you know, I could ask you, do you feel loved? You could say yes. And I could ask you, do you feel my devotion or my worship? And you could say no to those things. It's not, you know, mutually exclusive that if there's love there, there's also devotion there and there's also worship there. For there to be devotion, there must be love. For there to be worship, there must be devotion and love. So that's how the progression goes.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah. And so I'm guessing that most people who are listening to this podcast have experienced love in some type of way, maybe not the love that they're seeking, but love in some capacity for some amount of time before maybe things didn't feel that way, or maybe they do still have love, but things aren't quite landing. Like they're not getting that extra. And I feel like devotion comes in with that extra piece where it's like, we talked about this on the fasting podcast. And like, if I couldn't get out of bed, you even if I couldn't get out of bed, you're like constantly filling my water. You know, like there's this extra piece of care that when we were talking about it in our relationship check-in the other day, I mentioned devotion really is something that you're going out of your way for. Like you are doing this extra actionable, objectively measurable thing for a partner that if they didn't exist, you wouldn't be doing for yourself.

SPEAKER_06 39:49

Yeah, I'm seeing a bit of a paradox here in that devotion really is in action, but task orientation drains devotion from it. Like if it's just a box to check off, it loses the spiritual component of devotion. Like, you know, if I'm like, I'm gonna make you dinner tonight, there's two vastly different ways that I could do it. I could just get it done, and it could be something that's kind of nipping at my heels, and I'll make you dinner, I'll have done it. Or I could bring a level of presence and love to the crafting of that meal, the selection of the ingredients. Maybe I needed to do some planning the day before. Daddy fries, daddy fries, that's a secret recipe. Maybe I went to the farmer's market instead of to the grocery store. And while I'm cooking, I have music playing, right? And I've shaken my workday off of me and I haven't brought that energy into it, right? And I serve you, like I played it beautifully. That's a very different experience and expression of love and devotion than just getting something on a plate and giving it to you. And that's cool too. Like that, that's awesome. And life gets busy, but like we've said, devotion requires a level of intentionality that is a stretch from what most of us bring into our walking lives.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yeah. Um, as you're describing this, I'm seeing it as like the difference between I love you, so I'm gonna provide some care for you versus infusing every moment with love. Like the action is occurring because there is this essence of both love and devotion and desiring to create an experience for the partner. Whereas just cooking the dinner is maybe making their life easier, which is lovely. That is an act of love, an act of service, but it is definitely different than this like artistry of devotion. And you can feel it. It's like like this morning, I was rushing around a lot and I still made you breakfast, but I would say that was an act of love. You know, that wasn't really like the devotion of me like looking up keto recipes and like like wanting to make sure that you could eat different things, you know, or even trying now to balance cooking for both of us at the same time so that it's well timed, like that feels like this essence of something I'm trying to create experientially for our partnership. And like cooking you eggs this morning was still nice. It was still something you didn't have to do. But the essence around the it's like I didn't eat with you because I had other things going on. If I'm like creating a meal of devotion for you, I'm sitting with you for sure.

SPEAKER_06 43:02

Yeah. And breakfast was awesome this morning. You know, I enjoyed it, it was great. I didn't have to do it myself. I could finish my workout while you were doing it. It like created a lot of space for me. It was awesome. And while you were cooking that breakfast, you had, you know, your next call in mind. And okay, I'm not gonna eat because of this and that, and then I'm gonna get to this thing. And so what's also present in devotion is this reduction of self, right? I can plan a date and be like, I've actually been wanting to go to this restaurant, and like Jessica would actually enjoy it too. Or I could say, huh, what would be something that Jessica is deeply desiring? And I'll enjoy it, but what I'll enjoy more is this offering that I'm creating, right? And I'm opening the door, I'm pulling out the chair. So there's, yeah, really this reduction of self. I'm not thinking about what I need to do after this day. Or I'm not applying in any sort of acceleration to the moment to get me to what's next or to get what I want.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Yeah, there's like this this timelessness essence to devotion. And I think that really changes the experience that the person receiving has. But it also, in my experience, changes my my experience of life as a whole. Like I was happy to make those eggs for you. I love creating a household where I'm finished with my workout and I have a pocket of time so that when you're finished with your workout, just food appears. Like that just feels like such a beautiful image and experience to me that I want to create. And this level of devotion, it just hits differently for you. Like it would be different if I was sitting with you. But also I'm in a completely different headspace when I'm in like to-do mode and listening to client voice notes in my AirPods. And as soon as I tell you that dinner or that breakfast is ready, I'm like now in the shower to get ready for the next thing, you know? Versus I'm completely immersed in making this food for you, so much so that I have forgotten my to-do list. It's like a meditative practice. And we're using food because it's a really easy example, but there's many ways to like create devotion and partnership, you know. But the important aspect of it is I would be doing this differently if it was just for myself, probably, unless I was in a deep act of devotion to self, which would also be a beautiful thing. But if I was just living my casual day, this part of my day would be different.

SPEAKER_06 45:56

Yeah, there's a few characteristics that are described when people come into a direct experience with the divine through meditation or plant medicine or worship, right? And one of them is timelessness. And so to really create these experiences, we are living in a three-dimensional time-bound universe. For me, for anybody, really have to like put it on the calendar. And there's nothing after, right? You're blocking like three hours, four hours, and if it takes longer, fine. Like there's nothing that you need to keep a tab on as far as if this goes too long, I'll miss something. So really bringing in that element of timelessness is required to create experiences of devotion. It's like nothing else matters but you.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah. And I think that this is where devotion starts to bleed into worship. You know, so there can be acts of devotion where I know that there are other things occurring afterwards, but it it takes some type of skill to be fully present in anything during the day when there's anything after it. And I would say a devotional action probably takes less time, you know? And so we have these like devotional actions that ideally are popping up in our days every day in some capacity where like you making the bed every morning feels like devotion to me, even though I know you do that by yourself. But the fact that I'm out of bed earlier and I don't, I can come back into that room and it's clean feels like so nourishing to me. And I feel like it is this extra thing that like you might sometimes leave it unmade, or like you know that you're making it because I got out of bed earlier than you, even though sometimes I like steal that spot from you like this morning, you know?

SPEAKER_06 47:48

Yeah. Yeah. If you weren't around, I might leave the bed unmade like once or twice a month, but you're here and like the bed's made every morning.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah. And then when we get into worship, it's like this is why we have Sundays devoted. It's like we still are connecting with spirit. We have this day of rest that I think pretty soon into when we started dating, we started talking about the importance of a day of rest. And that's also in a lot of different practices and a lot of different spiritual and religious lines.

SPEAKER_06 48:21

I just want to say, like, traditionally, the day of rest is the day of worship. Right. It's Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Sunday for Christians, it's Saturday, actually, for people that say Judaism. I don't know if what other days other religions are because I'm not as familiar, but but but whatever day rest is, it's also the day of celebrating spirit for sure. Yeah. And so why not all like a lot of people on Sundays just like go to their church mass and that's it. That's the only aspect of.

SPEAKER_06 48:48

And the other thing that people do, especially if they're going to church mass, is they cook a big Sunday dinner. And they probably prepped the day before. They've put a lot of forethought and intentionality into it. It's the best meal they make all week.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

I love that aspect. Yeah. And so naturally, our days of worship are also Sundays because we're not doing anything business related. We're not really doing anything communal. Both of us are kind of homebodies anyway, but Sunday is like a really good space for us to be like, no, we're not, we're just like mostly not doing other stuff. And it honestly takes a significant amount of effort to leave a full day blank. It doesn't always happen. And I think when one of us kind of steps outside of the box, the other one's pretty good at being like, wait, this is really important. Can we keep this? And we're getting better and better at that all the time, which feels really beautiful for the life that we're building. But this essence of it's like in devotion, you have to almost like mentally create the experience of timelessness. In worship, the experience of timelessness is true. You know, like there just actually isn't anything else that we're doing because we've devoted the whole day to these practices. And by way of like alternating time, there is spaciousness for us to be like, okay, we know who's coming up. We know, like, we can ask for what we want for like our worship days, but also like there is some planning, some intention that goes into it. And also, we're learning all the time. You know, this essence of worship is not something that either of us have been demonstrated. I don't really have anyone in my close field where I feel like they are also doing this. I have seen some stuff, maybe at some point, but it's like I haven't ever experienced this in a way that feels like I've touched it or had it demonstrated to me. And so we really are like teaching and sharing as we're learning.

SPEAKER_06 50:52

Yeah. And it's hard, not the act of worship, but creating the time and space for worship. Anyone that's playing relationship at this level, embodying sovereign union, they have a mission to serve, they have people that rely on them, they have responsibilities, and those can very easily occupy a week. And so simply the act of creating a day or a pocket of timelessness is devotion. Like what you do matters, and if you do nothing else but create a pocket of time where you have no incoming texts or emails, you're not checking your phone, it doesn't have to be this grand gesture, like you could just go lay on a blanket in a park and bring along some thoughtful things or some really connecting questions. And as long as you are fully there and you've removed their decision-making responsibilities, that's it. You can start there.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Yeah. And what you were already saying about devotion also feels key, you know, like have you been listening to the things that this person desires to experience? You know, have you been paying attention to what they say they need? Maybe one day you notice they are complaining about hip pain for a week and you offer a massage, or maybe they'll ask for the massage and you offer to give it and you do it for extra time than they suspect, you know? But it can also be something like they say they miss going to baseball games, and they used to always do that. And so you get them tickets for a baseball game. We probably wouldn't do that because we like to stay home on Sundays, but you know, like feeling into what the other person's experience is that they're not creating time for themselves or that they can't do for themselves. And and worship does often have to do, at least like for us, with intimacy and with body care and with food nourishment. And that's just how we desire to express it. But I love the vision of people, you know, like getting the the little snacks and treats for their partner that they know their partner, yeah, exactly, their favorite things. And like going to maybe not the park you maybe the park you always go to because it's both your favorite spot, but maybe you find a new park that you're like, I really want to show you this spot. And there are ways that people do these types of things in dates, but there is a little bit of a different essence to worship for than a date. Like a date feels like it's for both of us, and someone's planning it, but the experience of the evening is for both people to connect in the partnership. This essence of worship is like the whole day is for you, anything you ask for kind of goes. And I want to make sure, like today is all about me giving and you receiving. Right.

SPEAKER_06 54:01

And that's why it's so important for it to flow both ways, and you get to be intentional about it. You know, a lot of people, me included, have a hard time with receiving, like me literally doing nothing, you know, like not cooking, not doing the dishes, like it that makes me a little uncomfortable, but the ability to receive that opens my ability to receive. And so that stretches far that's my ability to receive money, that's my ability to receive more love in my friendships, and so worship is so it's such a powerful medicine to give to your partner, to give to each other. And so we've talked a lot about devotion and worship without really drawing a distinction between the two. I think that you've started to of devotion is you can create like pockets of it throughout the week, mentally create this experience of timelessness, and within worship, it's like a mystical experience. There's actually truly timelessness. And I'm what's coming up for me, I mentioned there's like five characteristics of a spiritual experience or a mystical experience, and I want to talk more about it on a later podcast. I think it could be really interesting, but I think that perhaps all five apply to experiences of worship. Another one is ineffability, which means that it cannot be described with words, right? So that's like if I had an experience of worship and I was trying to share with a friend about it, it's like ah, like it's just so amazing. I can't even put it into words. Like, I don't know what to say is another one.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So there's like, you know, in in saying I love you to each other, that feels good. But other than maybe in the very beginning, that term doesn't really, or expression doesn't usually like get all the way through the body. And I'm seeing that as you're talking, it's like the experiences of worship really should be landing all the way through the whole soma so that they're impossible to express with words. I was just talking to a client this morning about, you know, the reason you're having trouble expressing this in words is because words aren't really truth. The experience is the truth. And we do our best with the words to describe them, but pretty much they'll always fall short, especially the more powerful the experience. And as you're describing this, I'm like, oh damn, like I really want to level up my worship to you. Like if if we have these, what what are all five? There are timelessness, ineffability.

SPEAKER_06 56:59

I only have three. There's timelessness, ineffability, and then like numinous is the word, which is like an encounter with the divine.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Okay, cool. So it's like if I can take those descriptors of you know what an encounter with the divine is, it's like that's my standard for worship. That's not my standard for devotion. My standard for devotion is to create an experience that eases your day, that feels like next level love and care and intention and prioritization. And it also I was gonna, I was thinking this earlier, but it also kind of feels like art. It's like devotion feels like this way that we have taken a discipline or a to-do and made it something special. And worship is an experience with the divine. And so I'm like, okay, like as you're talking about this, that that's my standard now. Okay, how do I make this an experience that if someone were to ask him about his Sunday, he'd be like, oh, you know, had to be there, had to be there, exactly, you know, and timelessness as like there's no way anything could have ever gotten in the way. Barely the sunset stopped us. And then this new numinescence or something. We're gonna have to link these up. Yeah, we'll we'll circle back on another pod. But yeah, both of us, I'm I'm like seeing that word as both of us being lost in like a cloud of spiritual dust, where it is like like feeling our love is as powerful as seeing a new like nature scape or seeing the most magical sunset you've ever seen, or hearing a sound or a song that just like hits your cells and makes every part of you vibrate. So these experiences of worship on Sundays, like, how do I tap us into a God experience every Sunday so that it really is worship of spirit through connection to self as it flows through to worship of you?

SPEAKER_06 59:09

I'm smiling because this conversation for me has been so enriching in the way I think about offering worship to you. It's like I can't just show up to Jessica worship day. I can't just show up in the morning and be like, okay, like what do you want? Like, we could create some devotion and some love, but no, like I actually need to like set aside like an hour the week preceding and meditate and think, no, oh, how do I will have the full day? Like, how do I create this full day arc experience to try to touch some of these mystical designations? Yeah, there's really just no, there's no showing up. And also, it is impossible to offer worship without a personal practice. If you cannot remain present, you cannot offer worship. Even if you're sitting in the pews in church, if you're sitting in the pews trying to pray and your mind's going to this and that and your to-do list, your energy is not being focused into a channel towards the divine. And if I'm giving you a massage and my mind is elsewhere, or I'm cooking you dinner, or I'm steeping you tea, and I'm thinking about anything other than the love that I am putting into this thing, it's not worship. So yeah, you've got to be able to sit with yourself. You've got to be able to tame the mind, you've got to be able to create this one-pointed concentration in order for you to be able to offer full worship to anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

And if you can't, we have something for you called reclamation, which is a way to work with us this summer, and you won't want to miss it. So maybe we can put a link down low, or if you don't follow us on Instagram already, there will be some stuff in our bios about it. But yeah, this focus piece and this presence piece is key to so many things, which you will learn about in that course. But also it really is to worship because the second you get distracted, or if I'm worshiping you and I'm distracted, now suddenly I'm giving my energy away to something else.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

And the whole point of worship is that all of my energy is flooding into you so that you can fully be in receiving mode. And if I'm side questing or leaking my energy somewhere else, then you don't get that experience.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:38

Yeah. Everybody's been in conversation with a distracted person. Everybody has had sex with a distracted person, and it doesn't feel good. It deflates the experience, it removes your ability to want to be open, which like when I am offering you worship, it's like I want you to be utterly open, like no restriction, no clutching, no tension, and anything that's pinpricking its way through my field is gonna interrupt that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

What is your favorite part about being in a relationship in which love, devotion, and worship all get to flow mutually?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:27

Yeah. Well, sitting here right now, what I love is how excited I am to plan and facilitate even more expansive experiences of worship for you. And I love how excited I am to do that. You know, like I'm not thinking about the next time that you worship me because of what you've gotten from this conversation. What I love is that the passion is around giving. And I also love that I know you feel the same way. Like I trust that you feel the same way. I'm not like measuring you to be like, is she feeling this as much as I am? Like, is she gonna give as much to her days of giving worship to me as I am? It's like so generative, is a word that we use a lot. And I just see the container for our love and devotion and worship growing bigger and holding more because we're on exactly the same page, like the same word with all of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

Yeah, I agree. I feel the same way as you're talking. I'm just like, I couldn't have a bigger smile on my face. Like my face kind of hurts because of how much I feel like this conversation has nourished, just like dumped a lot of energy into this bucket in our own, even understanding, but also exactly what you were saying, like passion to provide more. And it really is that. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, how do I get us to touch God the next time it's Isaac worship day? And that feels so good. It's almost like um this last piece of this conversation has created a little bit of like a game out of it where like everyone loves a challenge. And we we've been talking on our Instagram a little bit about having something else to like side quest that is also nourishing your home, you know? So like our physical bodies, it's like it's a side quest, but it's not really a side quest. It's like a foundational thing. And this feels kind of like that, where it's like, okay, am I gonna get a pistol squat? And also, like, can I create an experience where we touch God on the next Isaac worship day?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

And it's not pressurizing, it's like we're gonna, it's gonna be like so beautiful, whatever we plan. But it's like the amount of intention and care and excitement that feel like are gonna start being dumped into our worship days are like really sweet.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:07

Yeah, there's a new element of challenging ourselves a little bit to really create an experience of like, oh, you pull that out of a hat.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Yeah. Anything else about worship? If there was one more thing that you wanted the people to know about this teaching on worship that maybe they could consider or be curious about, what would it be?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:34

Yeah, I think it's what I offered on our very first podcast is, you know, if you don't feel like you're in a place where you can offer worship to your partner and you also are committed to your partner's relationship that you want to be in, how can you offer devotion? How can you offer more respect? How can you offer more trust? And We can only give what we have. So it's like, do you trust yourself? If not, how can you build trust with yourself? Do you respect yourself? If not, how can you respect yourself more? Are you somebody that you admire or someone that you have reverence for? Right. And so you can kind of walk yourself back into those prerequisites if worship isn't yet something that you're ready to offer or that you feel um capable of giving.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

I think that is a great little integration piece, integration homework assignment for everyone of, you know, understanding where you are on this trajectory. You know, if you say that you love your partner, do you actually do you show up every day in a way that lets them feel love from you? You say that, yeah, sure, like I trust my partner, but do you actually do you trust them to hold every thought that you have, every emotion that you have? Are you sharing with honesty and transparency, or are you just saying that you trust them because that's the thing to say when you're in partnership? You know, are you showing up as if you respect your partner, or better yet, do you respect yourself? And are you being that person that you would respect were they a different person in the room? And just kind of like walking your way through this path of from love to devotion, you know, am I willing to set aside extra time in my day to do the extra thing so that my person feels devoted to? Am I willing to set aside a whole day for connection with spirit, for rest for myself, for connection to myself? Because if I'm not willing to do that, then doing it for my partner probably is gonna feel like a task and impossible. And so, where are we falling on this trajectory? And which level do I have capacity for? And which level do I desire? Because maybe everyone doesn't want partnership that requires them, requires in quotes, it's not a requirement. But, you know, if it's not aligned to you, it will feel like a requirement of setting aside this amount of time. And if this is the type of partnership you require, then being honest with yourself about where you are. Because, you know, like Google Maps, you can't get where you're going if you don't know where you're starting.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:18

Yeah. And the biggest way to build trust and respect in your relationship is to be honest. Trust and respect for yourself and for the other is to be honest. And sometimes being honest is really scary, especially if we haven't been fully transparent from the jump. And the threshold in is always a conversation that feels edgy, that feels like one you don't want to have, but it feels true that you need to have it. And so we've created a free guide for you. It's called From Close to Connected, and it will walk you through exactly how to have that conversation with love and also with a strong spine. So grab that from the notes in the description. We love you. We love you, we'll see you on the next one.