There’s this moment in every woman’s spiritual awakening where she looks at her partner and thinks:

“Are we even on the same page?” Or “Why don’t you want to do this with me?”

I’ve been there.
Many times.

For years I quietly held this belief that for my spiritual evolution to feel safe, my partner had to evolve in the exact same way – at the same pace, with the same practices, using the same language. If I was going to sit with Ayahuasca, I wanted him sitting with Ayahuasca. If I was learning to speak to my guides, I wanted him hearing from his.

But underneath that desire was something I didn’t want to admit:

I wasn’t afraid that he “wasn’t spiritual.”
I was afraid of being fully myself without someone to validate it.

I think so many women feel this – especially when our awakening is big, messy, beautiful, disorienting, and impossible to explain. There’s a part of us that wants our partner to meet us in the experience so it doesn’t feel so lonely, or so “weird,” or so different from who we used to be.

And in this week’s podcast episode of The World Needs Your Medicine, Matt and I sat down to talk about all of this in the most honest, unfiltered way we ever have.

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When your partner doesn’t “speak your language”

The internet loves to label people:

“He’s not spiritual enough.”
“She’s too emotional.”
“He doesn’t get it.”

But one thing Matt said in this conversation that struck me was this:

“Spirituality is individual. Only you get to define what it means for you.”

What frustrated me early in our relationship wasn’t that Matt didn’t understand spirituality… it’s that he didn’t express it the way I did. And because I wasn’t fully confident in my own path yet, I felt threatened by that.

Women ask me all the time:

“Lauren, how do you get your partner to be more spiritual?”
“Does Matt ever do ceremony?”

And the truth is:
I had to stop trying to make Matt evolve the way I wanted him to… so I could finally evolve into the woman I was becoming.

What Matt brings into our relationship is spirituality expressed as groundedness, logic, presence, integrity, and emotional steadiness – and those things have been medicine for me in ways I never could’ve predicted.

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We also talk about the hard stuff. Like… the really hard stuff.

This episode isn’t all soft reflections and sweet moments.

We got honest about:

• the “rock bottom” seasons where my healing journey felt overwhelming
  
• how Matt held me through mental health spirals and trauma work
  
• the emotional labor of supporting a partner who is changing rapidly
  
• the resentment that builds when communication breaks down
  
• the years we questioned if our marriage would work
  
• how we rebuilt trust after my Sedona year and business burnout
  
• the truth that you can love someone deeply and still feel wildly different
  

Something Matt said during our episode that many of you can likely relate to is this:

“You both can’t be sick at the same time. Someone has to be the rock.”

Hearing him describe what that season felt like for him…
it cracked something open for me.

So many women underestimate the emotional weight their partner carries quietly, in the background, without saying a thing because they don’t want to make the spiral worse.

It was eye-opening for me. And deeply healing. And I think it will be for others too.

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On communication, triggers, and learning to be a team

One of the biggest things we share in the episode is how much we struggled with communication early on.

There were moments where:

• I felt controlled
  
• he felt overwhelmed
  
• I projected my fears onto him
  
• he walked on eggshells trying not to trigger me
  
• we misunderstood each other constantly
  

I used to interpret Matt’s boundaries as him trying to make me small.
He interpreted my emotional intensity as chaos he didn’t know how to manage.

And the truth underneath both of those things was simple:

We were learning how to love each other while loving ourselves at the same time.

The turning point came when I realized something that changed my marriage:

Matt wasn’t trying to keep me small, he was trying to keep me safe.
And I wasn’t trying to overwhelm him, I was trying to understand myself.

Once we learned that, everything softened.

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Your partner isn’t meant to be your clone – they’re meant to be your ally.

You don’t need your partner to be your co-mystic, co-healer, or co-shaman.

You need your partner to be themselves.

And honestly?
The world needs that too.

This episode is such a beautiful reflection of what partnership can look like when two people allow themselves to be different, and still deeply connected.

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Listen to the full episode now!

→ Listen to “But He’s Not Spiritual” – a conversation with my husband, Matt
On Spotify Here
On Apple Here

If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
DM me on Instagram @laurenoflove and let me know what landed. Your medicine matters.
Your relationship gets to be its own kind of sacred.