Partner Work

Spending time with a loved one doesn’t mean deep thoughts and processing your relationship. This week I spent time doing construction work to gain some new insight. I share a few photos at the end.

Hi Readers, 

This week has been focused on construction. I grew up on a farm with a father that was always doing little projects, repairing barns, house repairs and little fixes on tractors. In these little projects, I was the runner and organizer of these small projects. I feel it’s like the “sous chef” of construction. I never loved it but I did like spending time with my dad.

This week this was my role with my husband. We are redoing the kitchen in our 1890 created house. As you may gather, this old of a house takes a lot of work to level a floor because some corners are not square, some beams are rotten and when trying to save old wood it takes more time. I did at first put up a fight as it’s summer and I want to be at the lake, I had to miss many of my own meetings and it is really hard work. Thankful to the little jobs I did with my dad, I gave in.

 In letting go, I gained a new respect for my husband as we worked side by side. I knew this about my husband but working with him and seeing his meticulous way of working was inspiring to me. I also was amazed at his ability to focus until a task was done. On two days, it was high humidity and I was sweating in places I didn’t think I had sweat glands, and I was done. However, Joseph kept on working and wanted to finish. There is something to working alongside someone with this kind of focus. 

I do like using my body and it was nice to be using my body to lift boards, and walk on beams to create something in the material world. However, it was also quit sad because as we reworked the kitchen much wood was thrown away. We did try to save as much as we could but I do wonder if we really needed to redo the kitchen at all. 

I let this thought go as we did trips to Lowe’s to get new floor beams. I saw the inner workings of the house, the base of what everything is resting on and saw how boards were disintegrating and not holding the house together. I saw how former contractors did a quick fix with cement and metal supports which one can manually put in without redoing the infrastructure. This process showed me why Joseph’s focus on detail is so important. He didn’t want to cover but spent the time diving into the root of the house and redoing to make the house stronger.

It is such a wonderful analogy of why I love working with the mind in a yoga practice. As practitioners, we don’t want to move too fast and go over the cause of our dis-ease. We don’t want to get stuck in the movement practices because we are not able to go deeper. The practices of mantra recitations, meditation and living by the Yamas and NiYamas create this space to look at our foundation, the beams. 

Yes, there is a frustration that comes with this work because we may want to be doing something more fun or easier, but we loose sight of the greater focus of how we are all connected. It is important to play between the balance of work and play. But if we get skewed to one side, the balance is no longer there. Focus on the goal and big picture is needed for our growth to become steady and at ease. 

If you have an opportunity to work with your partner on a project, dive in! Like I said, it was difficult and not what I love to do. But working with the man that I love allowed me to have new insight and after 12 years of marriage this was so welcomed. 

I look forward to hearing about your projects!!! 

God Bless You,

Suzanne Scholten

At the end of the day we would make a path for Bella. Here she is eager to see if she can walk on the it. How trustful are they, we could see her asking herself.

Joseph contemplating during our discussion of how many and which beams do we need to replace.