Cultivating Everyday Romance
For many years, I believed to have a spiritual practice was to be extremely disciplined. Commitment, dedication and progress were celebrated above all else. I would pat myself on the back, regularly. For this, I could graduate top of the class.
Discipline, obviously, is not a bad thing. In a world of hyper convenience, we need discipline to avoid spending every waking hour on the phone, to cook a beautiful meal instead of ordering delivery, to resist binge watching an entire season of a new show. We need discipline to cultivate healthy, supportive habits. For many of us, it takes discipline to prioritise rest, pleasure and romance, too.
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The reality of life is simple. Mostly, it’s not that easy.
Before you take a big sigh and sink back into your seat: is easy what we actually want? Practices like yin yoga teach us the importance of good stress to create healthy connective tissues and joints. Practices like meditation and Restorative Yoga teach us how the discomfort of stillness and silence can change your brain, your nervous system and therefore, your entire outlook on life. Difficult conversations make relationships stronger. Hard work is an essential ingredient of birthing a new creative project, idea or life.
But — the ability to take action in the world: to move and dance and create and build is directly influenced by the quality of your inner energetic wellspring: what is hidden, dense and yin. Cultivating and prioritising moments of rest and romance infuses the system with a steady inner strength, which in turn allows us to ride the inevitable waves of difficulty with more adaptability, ease and grace.
In the early days of my yoga practice, I was hyper exposed to popular teachers of spiritual disciplines who criticised the pursuit of pleasure and desire — something I already struggled to allow myself. It wasn’t until 2020 that my perspective really began to shift. When I realised the purpose of a spiritual practice could be anchored in the cultivation and reverence of beauty, romance, pleasure and joy, even, or especially, when life is difficult, busy and mundane, so much began to shift. It’s like I had discovered an oasis, just outside my door, that I didn’t know could possibly exist.
I fell to my knees and drank it in.
I believe it is when we make space for small pockets of romance, we begin to notice the poetry of the everyday. It is when we prioritise real pleasure we become sated, not craved. When we take true rest, regularly, we become more energised: the opposite of what people usually fear.
When I take a walk around my hometown at dusk in the summer evenings, the air fragrant with flowers so wet and ripe they fall from the trees, I realise how deeply humans are hardwired to crave the experience of sweetness. The natural world looks like this for a reason. To deny ourselves romance is to deny ourselves the great pleasure of being alive.
It can take courage and discipline to honour, or even admit our need for beauty. How many of us have been celebrated for working so hard we feel an ache in our bones? How many of us have downplayed a desire for romance because to be high maintenance is apparently a curse? How many of us have been praised for highly disciplined bodies, when on the inside, we were depleted and unwell?
How many of us try so hard to do all the right things, and then find ourselves hitting exhaustion, looking for the biggest, quickest dopamine hit (scrolling for hours, shopping, alcohol or way too much food we didn’t even want to eat) to remedy our real pleasure deficit?
The extraction of romance and pleasure from the practices of yoga, spirituality and wellness in general, keeps us constantly hungry for something to fill the gaping void. It’s like drinking powdered milk instead of the real thing, fresh with a little cream. You can tick it off the list, but the feeling of being satisfied is a faraway dream.
What would it look like, to romance yourself, for a few moments, every day? A shower by candlelight? Flowers and leaves from the trees outside in a tiny vase to practice beside? Wearing your favourite jewellery or silk slip to meditate? A few pages of a novel instead of the news? Learning how to make your favourite drink just right? Dressing up and working from a cafe? I don’t know. What is romance to you?
Let me know if this rings true. Let me know if you’re committed to the practice of Romance, too.
xo
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This month in the studio, our gentle focus is on cultivating small moments of beauty and romance throughout the day. You’ll find a daily practice for beauty and a guest workshop by LA based herbalist Sasha Emoniee: Venusian Herbal Medicine Making. We’ll meet, as always for classes on the full and new moon with a focus on devotion, sensuality and femininity. We’ll dive deep into the mysteries of the emotional centre in our Human Design Circle, too.
p.s. I receive a lot of beautiful feedback on these newsletters, for which I am so grateful. I love to write. You can find some previous newsletters, as well as a series of blog posts on my journal and my substack if you are new here and would like to read more.
p.p.s I recently recorded a podcast episode with Jordanna of Lunar Lover, an author, astrologer, truly excellent Gemini and a member of TDR studio — my favourite take away from the chat was how she schedules in her rest practices to change the feel of her entire day. Let me know if you do this too!