How To Keep The ‘Spark’ Alive

Episode Resources

• Listen to ‘Open Wide’
• Watch the ‘Open Wide music video
• ‘Open Wide’ by Melissa Ambrosini
• Ep 10 – What Would Jesus Do?
• Ep 29 – Nothing Good Comes From Closing
• Ep 32 – An Orgasm A Day Keeps The Divorce Lawyer Away

Welcome back to The Nick Broadhurst Show. I’m your host, Nick Broadhurst, and you can check out all of my work at www.iamnickbroadhurst.com and all of my music is available everywhere that you listen to music just by searching for my name, Nick Broadhurst. Whether it’s Spotify, iTunes, Youtube, you can listen to it everywhere.

And that song you were listening to is a song about my relationship with my wife called Open Wide. And it’s something which I have been really crappy at this past week. So one of the most common things that I get asked a lot on private messages, Facebook, Instagram, is in relation to relationships. And the big one, “How do we keep the spark alive in our relationships?”

Now as you know, I always say, “We teach what we most need to learn.” And I’m teaching this right now or sharing it with you, I don’t like to think that I’m teaching you anything, just helping you remember. But I’m doing this right now because it’s top of mind for me because the last week I’ve been really lousy.

And I just pulled Melissa aside before this episode and apologized and said, “You know, I just want to say sorry. I haven’t showed up for you this past week, it’s not good enough. I haven’t been a great lover, I haven’t been a great husband or a partner and I’m sorry and I’m going to be better.”

And what I find is that when I drop the ball it seeps into all areas of my life that discipline starts to spread. Lack of discipline I should say, starts to spread into all areas of my life. And I know over the past few weeks I’ve done some pretty long episodes; my longest episode to date was the recent episode on how to poo, and that was over 28 minutes long.

So this is going to be a bit of a power episode. I want to really give you some stuff that you can start implementing today into your relationships. So when you are with your partner and when things are in flow, it’s easy, right? Because it’s just happening naturally.

And what I want to say is that in the very beginning of relationships that’s very much the case because connecting with your lover when you first meet, when you’re first romantic, when you first start making love, in that moment that connection is the utmost priority, because it’s fresh and it’s new and it’s exciting, and all you want to do is just devour each other. It’s a really exciting phase.

The question is, “How do we maintain this? How do we keep this going?” Because as with all things, everything is going to change. And you can’t look back at how things were because it doesn’t matter, there is only one moment that’s relevant and that’s now, and how things are right now. And of course how things were for Melissa and I when we first got together, it’s different now.

When we first got together we always joked that we almost gave each other chronic fatigue syndrome because we basically hardly slept for a long time. And we used to meditate together, we did the same technique, transcendental meditation or vedic meditation, and we’d both have so much fatigue we just fall asleep every time. And we’d open our eyes exactly at the same time, and just laugh because we were so fatigued.

And you can read more about our journey together in Melissa’s latest book, Open Wide, at melissaambrosini.com/OpenWide, and honestly, it’s required reading for every woman and man. It is so important, it’s so stunning, and I’m so proud of her for this book. It’s very very open, very vulnerable, but it’s a great service to the world.

Now, being in relationship is your greatest opportunity for growth and that means yes, it can take work, it can take awareness of someone other than yourself. And when we’re in this world which is so focused on self and achieving and striving, it’s sometimes hard to just slow down and stop and to think of the other person in your life and be aware of their needs as well. This is the give and take of being in a relationship.

Now spark, keeping the spark alive, this becomes a process of awareness and is a conscious act. Sometimes it’s spontaneous and that’s great, love it, but we’re not going to focus on those moments because when it’s spontaneous that’s natural, that is flow.

We’re now going to focus now on when things are not flowing and this I must say seems to be incredibly common. To have more love in your romantic relationship you need to do one thing, are you ready for it? It’s a big secret. You need to make love. I know. It’s a crazy revelation, but it’s that simple.

And I speak about this in episode number 32, at iamnickbroadhurst.com/32, An Orgasm A Day Keeps The Divorce Lawyer Away. So rather than going into all the detail of that, check out that episode, it’s a really good one.

But in a nutshell, ask yourself, “When was the last time you experienced orgasm or sexual bliss together?” Now, personally if I go more than a few days, which is where I’m at right now today, things start to just get more distant and disconnected. That disconnection or actually… you know what it is, I’m thinking back to the moments through the day, what does that disconnection do? What does that distance do?

And I could leave a dish out for example in the sink or I might just make a little snarky comment and these little moments in our lives all of a sudden can blow up into bigger things because we don’t have as much ease and grace, and flow, and connection. That disconnect creates friction. There is no unity.

So, we’re all seeking unity, we’re all seeking unity at all times in all situations. And I call these unity points. In fact I’m going to do an episode on unity points because it’s something which has really changed my relationships, and it’s helped me get out of very very tumultuous situations and not get involved. So stay tuned for that.

But to make love you need to create space. Yes, making love can be spontaneous, but  it can also be planned, kind of. So example when you get into bed at like 8pm and you make that white space together a priority, it allows for whatever is needed in that moment to come through.

It could be a beautiful conversation, it could be a quick cuddle, or it could be multiple orgasms; all these things are in fact parts of making love. And for me personally, I’ve not been as disciplined this past week with when I’ve been getting to bed and when I’ve been waking up.

So that lack of structure for me, the masculine, the masculine brings the structure, the masculine energy, not the man, the masculine energy has not allowed space for the beautiful softness of the feminine energy to flow into our relationship. So, there is no making love, there is less flow, and yes, temporarily there is less spark.

But when I wake up at 5:30am I know I have 30 minutes to allow that spark to manifest. When I go to bed at 8pm I know there is time to make love, time to connect, and still enough time to read so that my very busy vatta brain can calm down and be ready for sleep.

If I get into bed at 9:30 I get all anxious because I know it’s already past my bedtime and the space for making love, let alone reading, is gone. If I wake up at 6:30am I know that there’s not enough time to make love, do my morning routine, and get my podcast done. It just doesn’t happen.

So spark, just like a flame, it can be fanned by intention. If you consider your spark creating skills as one of your MIT’s for the day, which are the most important tasks, it becomes a priority. How are you going to make your spark an MIT? Well start by being honest with yourselves, with each other. How committed are you to creating wide space with your lover? Start with that question.

I also want to mention those moments in the day that we can easily miss, the opportunities to connect. When you eat breakfast, do you sit together and just talk, or are you on your mobile phone? At dinner, are you numbing out with TV and missing another opportunity to connect? Because these are all opportunities and all these little moments all add up to connection. And connection adds up to spark.

How about outside of the home, do you have shared interests that light you both up? Now if not, find something and start doing it together. And recently Melissa and I started doing ballroom dance classes and we love it. And we’re working towards actually competing together. We’ve only been doing it a few weeks and we’re competing next week, which is going to be very interesting.

And this is something else that we can do together where we are super connected, we’re super tuned into each other, otherwise basically I tread on her toes and I smack her knees.

And the next thing is, how do you speak to each other? Do you speak to each other like lovers or like friends? When your lover walks in the door, treat them as if they are Jesus or Buddha or Muhammad. Treat them as if Jesus just walked in the door. How would you speak to Jesus or Buddha. I speak about this in episode number 10, What Would Jesus Do?

And I also want to briefly touch on our number one mantra, and that is, Nothing Good Comes From Closing, which you can learn more about in episode number 29 called Nothing Good Comes From Closing.

This, my friends, is absolutely key, key to creating more love and keeping the spark well and truly alive. Being closed means you so often can miss those moments where magic can be created. It’s the times we feel closed and the least connection when you can in fact create the most spark. And when you do, keep fanning it, keep it alive by following some of the simple steps in this episode.

Because when you overcome that hurdle of being closed, you get the complete opposite. When you are closed and you open, you get huge expansiveness and huge openness, which allows so much more spark and connection to flow in.

It’s these moments of feeling closed when you don’t want to make love, when you feel angry, it’s these moments that are the gold in your relationship. So instead of frowning upon those moments of discomfort, look at those moments as opportunity to create spark, to create love.

So that, my friends, is episode number 54 of The Nick Broadhurst Show. And you can get all the show notes and all the episodes I mentioned today at iamnickbroadhurst.com/54, and you can also get a full transcript of the show.

And please don’t forget to make sure you hit the subscribe button on your podcast app so that you get all of my episodes popping up in your podcast app. And as always, I would love to hear your thoughts. If you are using iTunes, head into iTunes, leave me a review, leave me whether it’s 1 star, 2, 3, 4, 5, I would just love to hear your feedback.

And tell me what you love and what do you want more of. Make a suggestion, I am open to all suggestions, I’m at your service. In fact, a lot of my episodes come from direct messages on Instagram and Facebook, so I’m completely at your service.

And speaking of social media, please do share this episode with one person. Whether you just hit the share button and send them a text message or you share it on social media using the handle @IAmNickBroadhurst. And I will see it and I’ll say hello and I’ll send you a little message.

So thank you again for being here today. And remember today to look up, see the beauty around you, see the beauty within you and within your lover. Be gentle with yourself, be gentle with your lover, be love to yourself, be love to your lover, create space, fan that spark, it is a conscious act of creation. It takes some work, sometimes, but if you don’t do the work you don’t reap the rewards. So listen to your intuition, do what’s true for you, and as always, have a beautiful day. I love you

I would love to hear from you, so please tag me @IAmNickBroadhurst on social media, and use the hashtag #TheNickBroadhurstShow, or leave me a comment below (I read every single one!). And if you could take a minute to leave me a 5 star review on iTunes I would be very grateful.