Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Relationship Hack: Be Present

Ahna Hendrix
3 min readFeb 25, 2021

--

Want to change or supercharge your relationship overnight? Practice being present.

I’m one of those people who loves picking a word for each year. It gives me one directive that I can sink into throughout the year. It feels doable. Liberating. And I love seeing what my Intuition will bring me each year.

My word for 2020 was Present.

Fortunately, I was given this word before I knew what was coming otherwise I may not have followed through, haha.

Why Present? I’m a fast-moving person, forever working, dreaming up business strategies, solutions, or fantasizing, which is fun but often leads me to be anything but present. My mind is a six-lane highway, 24/7 and that’s not an exaggeration. I’m constantly moving even when it’s not physical. And I have the ragged cuticles to prove it — they take the brunt of my unending energy.

It was time for me to slow down. To learn to connect with my body. To listen to my inner wisdom. To better connect with those around me. It was time.

But damn if it had to happen in 2020. I mean, I couldn’t have asked for a harder year to begin practicing presence in my life.

What 2020 did make easier was giving my sole focus to my partner. Because life had slowed down so much, I didn’t feel the gravity of every moment. I was able to relax more when we ate. Leave my phone alone when we talked at night. And slowly, I began to see change.

Not just in myself, but also in him.

I’ve always been the talker. And I’m multi-passionate about all things in life so there are always topics to discuss. He’s quieter and is still developing his interests, which leads to less conversation.

But once I started calming down, talking less, and giving more space to our time together, he began opening up in all kinds of ways.

He started talking more, asking more questions, and I began to get to know him in a totally different way. We’d been together for nearly four years at this point, but it felt like I was getting to know him all over again.

Super hot for our relationships and our sex life — let me tell you.

When I practiced being present, I caught his humor more easily and he made me laugh more often. I saw his gentleness and it rallied mine. And it really shifted our relationship.

We grew closer than ever, but yes, there was still plenty of hard times and arguments. However, I noticed a funny thing — our arguments usually began because one of us wasn’t being present.

In December, businesses were reopening and life felt like it was returning to normal. All of a sudden, I felt the impulse to busy myself again. To live life at an unlivable pace — like before. And our relationship began to suffer because I stopped being present. I was living in uncertainty. I was concerned about the coming year. I was elsewhere.

Bottom line, I wasn’t appreciating what was right in front of me.

And that’s what being present is really all about. It’s about being able to notice all the wonderful things in each moment. The blessings. The gifts. The smiles. The kindnesses. The closeness.

I so, so treasure his warm hugs now.

We don’t notice these things when we’re galloping through life. And we certainly don’t notice them in our partners either.

I haven’t mastered being present. I’ve got plenty of growing to do. But if you want to change or re-invigorate your relationship, I invite you to give being present a try.

It’s really easy to take our partners for granted or those who are around us all the time. But when we allow ourselves to think we already know them, know what they’re going to say or how they’ll react, we miss out on so much.

The richness lies in the in-between moments.

Being in the present has innumerable rewards but the greatest of these is enriching our relationships.

--

--

Ahna Hendrix

Spiritual Guide. Akashic Channel. Intuitive Healer. Teacher. Podcaster. When we invest in ourselves, the world benefits. http://ahnahendrix.com