Being a couple on an Enlightenment Intensive

Emma McGuinness

Is it possible for two people in a close relationship to take the same Enlightenment Intensive? What are the pros and cons?

It is certainly possible to take an Intensive with your partner. The main factor against doing so is that for the duration of the Intensive you have to put your relationship to one side. This means that not only will you not be sleeping in the same room but also, once the Intensive begins, you will not work with each other during the communication exercises, nor have any contact or conversation with each other until the Intensive finishes.

You will only get the most benefit from the Intensive if you are both able to focus on your own journey and commit to literally ignoring each other for the three days of the formal EI process. This will not always be easy. You are likely, at times, to find each other's presence distracting. There are ways to minimise the likelihood of such distraction, but the risk is always there for you both. Also, we can guide you in how to incorporate that distraction into your process (we ourselves have had a lot of practice, taking numerous Intensives together).

In the context of going for a direct experience of the Truth on an Enlightenment Intensive, close relationships can actually get in the way. In setting out to to experience who you are, you have to be willing to go into the unknown, even if what you discover may be different from anything you or the people in your life would expect.

Both of you must also individually want to take the Intensive. If one of you is doing it because the other wants them to, they will not benefit.

That said, the advantages of taking an Intensive together are several. Firstly, having both been through the same process, the basics of what you have been through do not need explaining to each other. Whatever your individual journeys, you will both be in a more open space at the end of the Intensive. Being in that space together is often much easier than the situation where only one partner is returning from an Intensive.

It also offers great potential in terms of the level of contact between you in the time after the Intensive. We have personally found that this benefit has outweighed any disadvantage. The fact that there is an extended integration period after your Intensive will also help you make the transition to ordinary relating and help you to get the most out of your open state.

Having said that, it is important that you do not take the Intensive as a way to sort out your relationship or with the prime aim of improving the quality of your contact with each other. On an Enlightenment Intensive those things are fringe benefits and if that were the main thing you wanted to achieve then you would be better off taking something aimed specifically at those goals.