Welcome to The Empowered Relationship Podcast, helping you turn relationship challenges into opportunities and setting you up for relationship success. Your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, is a licensed psychologist and relationship coach who shares valuable tips, tools and resources for you to dramatically improve your relationship.
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Dr. Jessica Higgins: Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 228 – How to See Relationship as a Spiritual Teacher: An Interview With Allana Pratt. Before we get started, I’d like to just give a little space to drop into a breath to centering and perhaps taking pause, tuning in to what is alive in you, perhaps an intention or a question you’re holding and contemplating. As I invite you to do that, I also want to set the intention for the Empowered Relationship Podcast, and that is that the conversations, the information shared is intended to support you, offer guidance in navigating the terrain of long-term intimacy, helping you cultivate more happiness, more love, more intimacy, more security in your bond. As we talk about on this show, oftentimes we will be challenged, and we’re going to be talking about that today in today’s interview.
I also want to note some of you have heard me talk about my dissertation research, which was years ago, and it was a meta-analysis, which was looking at other studies and the common themes of these ten studies, and one of the common themes was looking at relationship as a teacher. Essentially, what this means is seeing the relationship challenges, even the ways that our partner might trigger us or bug us or annoy us or whatever it is that’s getting activated, using that as a teacher or curriculum for developing, and you hear me talk about this on the show if you’re a long term listener. I’d be happy to share more of those themes with you if you’re interested. Feel free to comment on today’s show notes, or perhaps even email me, [email protected] and just let me know that you’re interested in hearing more of that research or the common themes of conscious, intimate relationship.
The research really came from the question – who is practicing conscious relationship and what does that look like? So again, I referenced ten other studies which were dissertation studies and did a meta-analysis of that data. So I’d be happy to share that with you if you’re interested. If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit drjessicahiggins.com, click on Podcast which is in the top navigation bar, and there you’ll find all the episodes. Again, today’s episode is 228 – How to See Relationship as a Spiritual Teacher: An Interview With Allana Pratt. Let’s get started in today’s interview.
Allana Pratt is an intimacy expert, relationship coach, author of six books and the host of the edgy podcast, Intimate Conversations. Allana offers private, group and online coaching programs for singles and couples to help her clients develop a healthy, intimate relationship with themselves first, which naturally attracts and enhances their ideal partnerships. Allana, thank you so much for joining us today.
Allana Pratt: Oh, it is so great to be here and to know that you’re you, that we’ve already shared time together, and what an honor it is to be here. Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and so people listening, we have a shared connection, and Jennifer Hermenez has been a long-term friend of mine, lifelong friend, and similarly for Allana, so it’s such a treat to be able to talk shop together about how I’ve known you to really support women and getting in touch with their feminine and their pleasure, sexuality… And you’ve also been just widening the terrain in which you’re supporting people. How did you start pivoting towards couples and supporting people in relationship?
Allana Pratt: I wish I could say that there was a plan, but it’s more like life happens to me, or God, the universe has a plan. In the beginning, about 20 years ago, I did start with working with sensuality, sacred sexuality, pleasure, etc. because for me, when I grew up, I was very obsessed with validation. My drunken daddy wasn’t paying attention so I was seeking this attention from men, and I’ve had two failed marriages. One, seeking to be saved. Another one more in my masculine, like “I’ve got this”, and of course, that was the two sides of the same coin of insecurity that I had to heal within myself, really owning that self-love on the inside, so I could manifest that being loved on the outside… And what I discovered, as you well know, that couples who grow together, stay together. So while I started working with women to teach what I needed to learn, then the next phase was that the universe brought me a lot of men. All of a sudden, I was interviewed on a very large men’s interview series by one of the top dating experts out there, and what I discovered was that men were craving an apology, that they had a very difficult time letting go of the past until they really felt seen and safe and heard. What I realized is that I believe men were sent to me so I didn’t become a bitter, cranky woman who shut her own heart to men. They really helped open my heart to see the nobility that all hearts when they’re wounded, close; that all hearts, when they’re shut down, we go up and spin in our head and kill before we get killed, say things that we can’t take back, things that we regret. So then I grew a lot on how to awaken the best in men from the best place of being a woman. And then, as time went on, couples started to come to me. So I had a real understanding of the feminine, the masculine, communication, heart, openness, forgiveness, all of this.
You get transparency by giving transparency. You get heart connection by giving heart connection. I could teach these skills. So now I have beautiful couples that come to me to become the one, do their inner work, to awaken the one that they’re with.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Are you finding that people are coming to you in couplehood now more– I mean, you’re saying that that has helped you pivot, and so when they’re looking to become the one, are you doing that in joint sessions?
Allana Pratt: The way I work with couples is they generally come and the problem is the other person.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Right, exactly.
Allana Pratt: It’s always the other person. So while I hear that, the way I like to work is that we start off with a couple session, then it’s a single for her, single for him, back to a couple. Single for him, single for her, back to the couple, and that’s like the waves coming in and out, where we take responsibility and do our own inner work with no more blaming, seeing the other as our master spiritual teacher, and how we can lean in and go, “Oh, this annoyance is for me. This obstacle is for me”, and then when we come back into the couple’s session, the compassion, the forgiveness, the gratitude is there.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Precisely. I’m so curious, when you were speaking about the phase in which many men were attracted to your work and you were speaking about the apology – are you open to sharing a little bit about that? I’m interested.
Allana Pratt: Yeah, thank you. So it was probably a good ten years ago, and I was on Double Your Dating with David DeAngelo, who is really Eben Pagan, and he was interviewing me, and I had all my speaking points ready for any interview about women. Anything about sacred sexuality and ladies, I was there. It was my first time ever to be asked about men, and I really didn’t know what to say. But when he started asking me questions, what literally came in as and through me was – and I’m sorry for when, whether it was your mother, your current wife, your ex-wife, your girlfriend, whoever it was, I’m so sorry that when we were scared, when something occurred, whether it was you or somebody else, something occurred and we shut our heart in terror, we went up to our head and we’ve killed you off before you could kill us. And not to condone our behavior whatsoever, that I’m sure what she said was emasculating and devastating, and I’m so sorry. I just want you to understand why she did it, that you’re not bad, wrong, that we were just terrified, and that whether we believe in this or not, I believe on some level, through our DNA, we remember having our heads chopped off, we remember being burned at the [unintelligible 00:10:16.24], we have some chips on our shoulder, we’ve got some healing of our own to do, and so we’re sensitive. We’re sensitive to literally this feeling of life or death, and I’m so sorry that when we get triggered like that, we are cruel, and I’m very sorry on behalf of whoever hurt you… And that just came through me.
What I realized later was that men literally– they told me, they listen to that interview, that specific part, five times, ten times, 15 times, weeping, because they’ve never gotten an apology. Never. And the women in their life hadn’t done their own inner work to heal their hearts so they could open them again, and it was really me talking to me, because I needed to heal my heart to forgive my ex-husband, to forgive my father and live with my open heart again.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, I wanna– it’s so universal what you’re speaking about, and when we talk about gender, and so often, the classic dynamic is a woman perhaps is critical, or pursuing, and often is interpreting the man being super contained or turning away or shutting down, as ways of not caring or not being impacted by what’s occurring in the relationship. And I have found that’s very, very opposite from what’s happening, but it’s not visible. So stereotypically, a woman might get a little more escalated to try to get a reaction, and like you said, be cruel. So often, I think men don’t have the safe space like you’re describing, haven’t had the emotional attunement and haven’t had that emotional validation. So it sounds so healing to be able to really speak to that in such a beautiful way.
Allana Pratt: Yeah, thank you for that. It’s very true. When– this experience of working with men, when I would be that space and take on the role of whoever it was who emasculated them, and really acknowledge, validate, understand, seek to understand, own my stuff without justification or reasons, and speak to them, I could see visibly, their body would soften, their spine would lengthen, their heart would open. It’s like they would puff up, but not in a bravado way, more of coming home into a more regal, masculine grandeur; I call it a noble badass. There’s this– once the acknowledgment has been made and the ownership, like taking ownership of your own stuff without the excuse like, “I’m sorry, but.” No, no, no. “I’m sorry”, that’s a full sentence; stop. And really make it land. They then could step up again, they then could let it go, they then could own their stuff as well. Of course, then that would just soften her and build the respect and build the safety and the security in the container again, and it really brought out the best of everybody.
I think on the spiritual path, it’s not fair. Life’s not fair. Somebody’s going to have to go first. So who cares? Just go first. Go first and apologize. Go first and own your stuff. Go first and manage your own anger and do your best to open your hearts vulnerably, which takes such bravery and humility, and say, “I’m sorry”, and let that land.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, and I love too your personal sharing about what it evoked in you and your journey, in recognizing perhaps your ex-husband and maybe some of the things that you weren’t possibly in contact with at the time, and that softening and forgiveness in yourself, that I’m sure is tremendously healing.
Allana Pratt: Yes, you bring up a great point. I was very good at being exasperated by my ex-husband’s behavior. People would say, “So, how are you?” “Great.” “How’s your son?” “Great.” “How’s your business?” “Great.” “How’s your ex?” It was like, I would say, “An orchestra. Let’s go.” It was a big drama story every time. And as I started to observe that behavior, that wasn’t working, and I started to do this inner work and really see the beauty and nobility of these men that were coming to me to heal their hearts. I looked at myself and I started to have more compassion for my ex-husband. I started to be able to see things from his point of view. I started to be able to see the very thing that I accused him of that was me, according to his point of view.
I had a few choice words to describe him, and I’ve always had a coach. I’ve always been a coach for 20 years, but I’ve always had a coach for 20 years. I think it’s completely out of integrity for me not to have somebody pointing out my blind spots, if I’m pointing out other blind spots all day long. So my exploitative words, my coach at the time said, “Great, and where are you that?” “I am holier than thou. I am a coach. I am on the spiritual path.” Spiritual bypassing is what I was doing, of course. So when he said, “No, let’s get over into his world and through his eyes. You said you would marry him forever; you divorced him, and he is humiliated. You left him in front of everybody, and so from his point of view, can you see how he could have a completely valid point of view to call you the very name you’re calling him?” And while that didn’t necessarily condone my ex’s behavior from time to time, all of a sudden, I was just washed with compassion, understanding, empathy and an allowance. We don’t have to like something to stop resisting it, we can be an allowance; there’s this middle ground. When we stop resisting, things can shift, things can heal, and I started to become an allowance of why he was doing what he was doing. And the more I resisted him, the more he kept coming after me. But the more I went into allowance, forgiveness and even gratitude that he is my master spiritual teacher, teaching me to keep my heart open in the face of anything, the drama, the 12-year custody battle ended.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Oh, wow.
Allana Pratt: Yeah.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So that’s beautiful, and I’m imagining we could dive deeper into that, but just the testament to your own process, your own healing. It doesn’t always need to be a direct process with that person, that you can shift the dynamic and your own development and how you relate and that starts to shift the pattern. Was that your experience or did you have a process with him?
Allana Pratt: Oh, no, I haven’t talked to him for years and years. This is all done on the energetic level, and while I do have a blessing to work with a lot of couples where I work with both of them, sometimes one of the partners won’t come to counseling, they’re not interested, and a lot of people just want to give up. And I said, “Before you do, let’s just try working just with you, the husband or just with you, the wife”, because everything’s energy, something will shift, and if we can invite their best self, who cares if you’re the one that ‘did the counseling and they didn’t, so long as you have the outcome that you’re looking for, which is deeper connection, greater communication, richer intimacy, peace and joy. Who cares? Let’s do the work.
A lot of times, I’d say at least eight out of ten times, even working with one of the two people in the relationship, creates extraordinary results. It’s still quite rare that only working with one person, the other just digs their heels in, and if that’s the case, then at least there’s no regrets. They’ve done everything they could and they can complete with grace, compassion, conscious uncoupling, and you don’t have to woulda, coulda, shoulda. You don’t have to look back like that. You know you’ve done everything you could.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I can just say, being with my husband, I think we’ve been together almost 15 years and not married the whole time, but very much in partnership, and it’s amazing having the stability of that relationship, but the deepening in our growth, that the things that I have found so challenging in the past in doing my own work and getting to that allowance and that healing, but then understanding — I mean, it still baffles me what I learned about him and how what’s underneath some of the ways that he approaches things, and just the deepening and that softening, it’s remarkable, the depths of this. So I think you can do it.
I have also very much have high regard for doing it energetically and not always having the person there, and the profound impact of that. And also, I think it can happen in relationship and the unfolding of this isn’t always an exact science. But I think there’s some, really — if we’re in the practice, the development of it and the blossoming of it can be better than we would ever imagine. Beautiful. So I want to go back, because you’re speaking about something else. I want to just touch on, that in your first– did you say first marriage? You were very– wanted him to care for you, and then the second version was really amping up, and “I’ve got this and I can do this.” Is there a middle spot that you’ve really found a ground in?
Allana Pratt: Oh, for sure. I wouldn’t– I don’t know if– again, it’s all semantics, but for me, the way I express it is in the first relationship, it was the wounded feminine, the damsel in distress, not knowing my own capacity and looking to be saved, looking to be approved of, looking to be chosen, not knowing how to choose myself, take care of myself. And so then I swung into this net, the pendulum– if we’re talking about middle ground, I would swing the other way and be very critical of myself and very driven, and “I got this”, but there was a cruel edge even to myself being mad at the damsel in distress, rather than compassion for her. So I swung over and I had a real crunchy edge to me, and the heart was closed, for sure; it was very much mind. Mind over matter, willpower, pushing, making something happen. So while that, I suppose, is a step in the right direction from being a victim, I still wasn’t evolving in terms of maybe more of a clean energy, more of a mature enlightened energy. There was not an integration of the wounds. There was a bypassing of them.
So as I continued to do the work, while we could call it a middle ground, I feel like it’s a whole other life dimension or trajectory that I was on, where I made peace with my damsel in distress. I integrated her, not judged her and get rid of her and shoved in the closet. I acknowledged her. She had a dad that never paid attention to her. There was an emptiness in her that she was seeking from the outside in, that I needed to fill up from the inside out, appreciating her for doing her best, that she’s always done her best, and as she is this part of me felt appreciated, that part came home, integrated into home, compassion, presence, grace, oneness, that kind of feeling… And then my other badass, more masculine self – I also didn’t want to make that part of me wrong. That you have too much willpower and you’re too mean and you’re too driven – that was judgment as well, that was rejection as well; that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So I had acknowledgement for that part. That you were trying to grow, you were trying to do your best, and during that time was when my mom was dying of cancer, and that I didn’t want to feel pain, and I just thought a man and a baby would make everything better. Let’s just make that happen. So I had a lot of compassion for myself then as well, and that integrated it into forgiveness, allowance, all these new capacities of compassion and appreciation for myself, and I wasn’t– and I made a declaration. I wasn’t going to wait to love me anymore until I was such and such on the outside. I was going to learn to love my damsel in distress just as much as I loved my edgy badass, and I was going to love all my hot, mess, wobbly parts equally. I was really going to learn to unconditionally love myself, which means love without condition, which means even if these parts never change, can I keep my heart open to them and listen and be present with them. And when I had the willingness that it could take eternity – the patience of eternity gives you instant results… So these parts came home, and my experience is a more whole self, a more allowing queen-like evolved level of being a woman, where I choose to still have a gentleman who provides, protects, has that masculine rock-solid presence with me, but I don’t need him to take care of me, I can still take care of myself. So it’s more like two wholes coming together, rather than two halves coming together. I still love my masculine drive, I’m a go-getter, and yet, it’s being sourced in a different place now; sourced out of choice, out of generosity, out of a healthy work-life balance, as opposed to needing to accomplish something, to be safe, look good, do it right, be in control. It’s evolved as well. It’s like my masculine and feminine have evolved.
I believe whenever something comes down the pike, like more women to work with, I need to work on my femininity. More men come down the pike, I need to work on my masculinity. Couples come down the pike, I need to do my work to be prepared for my own couples’ relationships. So I sense my next ideal partner is probably around the corner, because the universe is preparing me and asking me to support other couples.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that. You’re speaking about something and I don’t know if this is your experience, but it is mine that even with all the work that I’ve done, and the practice and all the principles that I talk about on the show, I do my very best to practice, but I still notice my tendencies and how I work with them and how I hold them and it’s very different, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve arrived at this perfection… Is that your experience, that even with the integration and even with the ground of this queen or more whole masculine, grounded approach that you can access, that you still at times might notice tendencies?
Allana Pratt: I’d say, at times, a couple of times a day, at times… [laughter] If we were really to be honest. If you’re on my newsletter list, Tuesdays is my weekly inspiration, and sometimes it’s written, sometimes it’s audio, sometimes it’s video, and a couple of days ago, it was full-blooded five minutes Allana crying her face off, like her date didn’t go very well, and I just decided to flip the camera on and just show people that I am vulnerable, I do get scared and sad and how I breathe through it, and how I find little Allana and I hold her, and I just cried with them through the emotion until the other side, grateful that they shared. I was eating Brussel sprouts and having a glass of wine, so I said, “Here we are, people.” We sat together, we cried together; at least, I cried.
So yeah, I’m very much a hot mess when I’m a hot mess, and I’m very masterful at what I do when I’m really on in my genius. So yeah, I’m a work in progress. I don’t think we ever get there, especially if we keep growing and risking and expanding. I’m developing group curriculums, I’m developing a dating app, I launched my sixth book, I am doing television interviews. Normally, I would do these longer-form podcasts, but now I’ve got to get my thoughts together in three and a half minutes. So I stumble, and that’s okay, because I’m learning to love myself every step of the way, celebrating the process, not just the outcome or the goal.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: You’re giving us some indications of examples, and I’m wondering if you have anything that you use to illustrate this as far as what this integration and coming from that place looks like in relationships.
Allana Pratt: I think yeah, I think I understand the question. So I’ve been trained for 20 years and I keep getting trained in newer processes. I’m always curious about the most cutting edge brain science, quantum psychology processes, so I can give people the quickest, most lasting results… And even up till about two, three years ago, I’d say about 80% of the time, I could create lasting change with clients… But something recently has shifted, and it was really my own trauma of some really nasty stuff that went on during the custody battle that I just– it’d still keep me up at 3 am. I was overall pretty good, but that trauma was still in there. So I started to get interested in all the different trauma integrations out there and I found a study by [unintelligible 00:27:45.21] in integral psychology– all these big words; it doesn’t really matter, but I’m getting trained in all of these processes, where the integration is lasting. I used to go for the high, like the NLP high or that feeling of oneness with all, more of a high, but it would go away. But these integrated processes, it’s like the memory is there, but the trigger is gone. And not only is the trigger gone, an awareness came through that I never saw before, and I’ll give you a little example.
About three years ago, when I ended the custody battle by letting my son live 100% of the time with his dad, I just took the high road. I just said, “Okay, I’m going to have a good attitude and go live with dad,” but it was really very devastating for me. And when it all went down, it wasn’t very pretty. He arrived, dad’s in the driveway, a big scene, don’t try to stop me, I’ll call the police. It was just awful, and it was the best my son could do at the time, he was 12, and his whole life had been in court. So I remember being so devastated that I crumpled to the floor, and I could hear though the car hadn’t pulled out of the driveway, and I went to the window and there my son was standing like a sentinel, and as soon as he saw me look out the window, he put his hand on his heart, very nobly, got into his dad’s car and drove away. But I was so traumatized that, “Oh my God, I lost my house, my savings, I’m in a quarter of a million debt, and now I lost my son? There’s nothing to look good on the outside at all?”, and I had to go within and learn how to actually love myself. But it wasn’t until I started to do these processes and I integrated the trauma…
So the emotional charge was gone and I wasn’t still reacting in my reptilian brain. I was really present in my prefrontal cortex, my intuition was alive, my heart was vibrationally coherent with the field. I was in my happy place, if you could call it, about that traumatizing moment, and I saw something I never saw before. That’s the awareness that I’m speaking of. The emotions really get integrated all the way home. You see what you never saw. It’s like looking through God’s face, looking out God’s eyes at a situation, like you just see… And I saw that “Oh my word, my son knew exactly what he was doing.” He knew that he had to create a scene to make dad believe that dad won, but he wanted mom to know, “Hey, I’m protecting you. I know what I’m doing.” His hand on his heart standing as erect as a sentinel just, “I got this, mom”, and he was right. He has peace, and of course, every mom or dad, that’s what we want for our child, so he knew. When I’m doing these processes, I’m now able to have these divine insights that make my soul rest and obviously, my brain becomes still, and my heart, even more open. So I am so grateful to keep learning, to keep being a student and to keep passing on these incredible integrative processes to my clients, so they can see what they’ve never seen, feel what they’ve never felt and be more connected to the whole oneness of it all, journey of it all, that literally is for us and not against us.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for that. I was looking for an example, but you helped share a process and you’re speaking about the landing in this very sacred space and recognizing that the reactivity and just the work of doing these practices allows you, again, to see more clearly and to move more clearly. Yeah, I think that is so much of what we’re all hoping for or wanting, or when we do experience it just, again, that sense of it’s better than we could have ever crafted in. So I know I don’t– we have a short amount of time with you, and I wonder with what you’re offering as far as couples and their connection – one of our intentions was to talk about to support couples and their connection. Is there something you’d like to share as a tip or a tool to help couples be in this place of presencing and landing together?
Allana Pratt: Yeah, thank you. I’ll go through a couple quick ones, and then I’ll go a little deeper into one that they can take and try tonight, hopefully. The first one is I really think it’s okay to take timeouts, but not to say, “I’m out of here,” and give the other one that sense of abandonment. But to say, “Hey, I love you. I can’t stay present right now. I’m going to go away for ten minutes and come back.” This idea of staying connected, but leaving at the same time is, I think, very honoring, before it gets worse and you hit below the belt. So timeouts are okay.
Two, I like the zero blame zone. Just zip it. Just don’t say it. Just zero blame zone, try it for a week and just notice how many times– maybe something passive-aggressive that might come out, maybe it’s something that you– but you have to zip it and then burn. So the next tip would be burn. Take that, “Oh, I want to say that. Oh, I’m angry about that”, take that and have your own Phoenix rising experience. Really sit in the fire and feel all the way through to the other side. We all know what you resist persists, but if you feel something in a process, in maybe a breathing moment fully, if you duplicate it, it will dissolve or integrate into the next level. But if you only feel like 8 out of 10 or even 8 out of 10, what you resist persists and it stays there lingering over time. So be willing to face it all, feel it all even if you have to imagine alien abduction of your partner, ha-ha-ha, and off they go, and you’re like– I don’t care what you need to imagine in your mind’s eye. Whatever it takes to fully feel what’s coming up, so it can fully move into the next level of awareness, integration and insight – do a process to honor that away from your partner. It’s not– we don’t want to do that in front of them or to them or projected onto them, but we also don’t want to stuff it away into depression or stuff it away with a glass of wine or a pill, or stuff it away for it only to erupt bigger later. So really honor your anger and do the process.
Allana Pratt: The fourth thing that I think is really supportive is what I call dyads. A dyad, I’ve been trained, it’s a two-way conversation, but all you get to say is, thank you. No justifications, no reasons, no comebacks, none of that, and thank you doesn’t mean I agree. It just means I understand. So I like to give couples a dyad date night, and once a week, you have a question. The question could be, “Tell me something you’d like me to understand that you think I may not understand”, and you go back and forth. One person asks, one person answers, just sharing one thing at a time back and forth, simply saying thank you. You’d be amazed after about 20 or 30 minutes if you do this for, let’s say, 40 minutes, how the first things that come up in your mind have been spinning around there for a long time, but when they get heard, not justified, not ignored, not blown off, heard, it’s like they go away, and then the next thoughts can come up, the next truth can arise. After about 20 or 30 minutes of this, there is a truth inside that you might not even know it was in there, and it’s incredibly nourishing for intimacy and deep connection.
You could also, over time, have that one question be, “Tell me something you’re afraid to tell me.” Or it could be around a certain topic. “Tell me something about you and money, or you and sex or you and the kids.” So when we ask these deeper, profound questions in the sanctuary of a structure where you’re going to be heard impeccably without judgment and total presence, it restores respect, connection. You can go into areas you never even knew.
One of my favorite ones is, “Tell me a way you like to be loved.” I thought I knew, but after about 20 or 30 minutes, this emotion arose in me and the tears were there, and I said, “I like for my cheek to be touched and I don’t have to put out.” “Yeah, that’s the way I like to be loved.” I didn’t know that every time I was touched, I assumed I had to spread them, now we have to have sex. I didn’t know that that was deep inside there until it created the space for that truth to arise.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: For people that are listening Allana, do you recommend the prompt or the question being asked multiple times, or for people that are used to answering the first level and then moving on, how do you invite that staying with the question? And do you switch at some point, like 20 minutes, and then the other partner? Is that just really for the one, and then another time for the other?
Allana Pratt: Oh, sorry for not being better at explaining. So yeah, it’s the same question for the whole time, and one person asks– like I would say, “Hey, tell me something about me you like,” and you’d say, “I like your humor,” and I’d say, “Thank you,” and then you’d ask me and I’d say, “I love your depth,” and we’d go back and forth, one at it– one question, the same question, but back and forth with one answer, one thank you, one answer, one thank you, and that’s the magic that allows it to go so deep, because a lot of the mind’s content gets spewed out within the first five, ten minutes, but after that, deeper heart wisdom begins to flush up when it’s the same question over and over. It’s like your mind answers for a while, but then your heart starts to answer.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and I love that you know that, and I love that you’re so passionate about this, that there’s a deeper knowing or a deeper felt sense that if we start paying attention to, turn towards and bear witness to that, there’s such a depth and richness there that perhaps we will be even surprised by. So it sounds like you’re inviting people to stay with the question, even if the mind’s empty, to really sense in and tune in to that.
Allana Pratt: Yes, yes, because think about that. If we just always know what’s going to happen, we always know who our partner is, we always know how life is going to go, we get into conclusions, expectations, we get bored. But if you can stay open to the mystery, if you can stay curious about who is my partner, even if I’ve known them for 15 years, who are they today, who are they right now, and then you’re witnessed that way, with that spaciousness… It’s delicious!
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I wonder, too, if there’s a resonance– I’m just imagining this. I’ve done this in different versions. One version is where one person just holds the space and they keep asking the question, and it allows the person to go deeper. But I like what you’re suggesting, because as you said earlier when one person is allowing that transparency or that vulnerability, it almost– like tuning forks, that it can deepen the intimacy if we’re both going there, and it invites just a richness and a depth that this is unfolding, I imagine.
Allana Pratt: Yeah, and you can also use it with the kids. I remember my son didn’t like me to look at him straight on. “It’s too much pressure, mom.” But we’d go for walks, we’d jump on the trampoline, and I’d say, “Yeah, tell me something about you and your new teacher.” I don’t have to it so ritualistic, although I love ritual and candles and bowing and all that stuff to do it with a lover, but you can do it as you’re going for a drive, you can do it about seemingly, not very serious topics, but it’s just giving your kids, your friends, your lover, your clients, whoever, that space of being totally safe, seen and understood without any rebuttal. No judgment, just listening. It’s so rare that somebody just hears you and doesn’t need to fix you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, yeah. Great. Well, this has been such a treat, and I just enjoy the energy that you bring and how much you believe in what you’re offering, and what’s available to people. How do people get in touch with what you’re up to?
Allana Pratt: Oh, thank you. Yeah, my name is my website. So allanapratt.com and right out of the gate, there is an Intimacy Blind Spot assessment, and I found that I attract very, very clever people, and I like to think I’m clever and yet, I can’t see my blind spots, nobody can, and that makes us very frustrated, especially as clever ones that we can’t figure it out. So this is a wonderful way to discover, “Ah, maybe that’s actually what’s running the show, what’s the source of the suffering or frustration.” So that’s a wonderful resource there.
I also have programs, digital programs for a year for couples and also for singles, for him and for her, and they include these dyads that I speak of. They include touch and connection exercises, and they also include for him and for her, like I spoke of before, as much fun as it is to blame the other, to take responsibility for our own journey is important as well. So the curriculum is simple, but profound, and a real momentum grows over time in relationships when they go through this digital curriculum. So that’s an offering.
And then again, if there’s counseling or wanting to be more in a group program or a retreat when we’re allowed out of our lockdown quarantine, these are all things that I offer, and it’s just a delight to answer people’s questions on my YouTube channel, interview amazing people like you. I have a podcast as well, Intimate Conversations, and just show up to really have people’s back and let them feel safe to be exactly who they are.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. I’ll make sure to put those links on today’s show notes, and thank you so much again for joining us today.
Allana Pratt: Thank you for having me. It’s been such a delight to connect, go deeper and to see you again.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s episode, again 228 – How to See Relationship as a Spiritual Teacher: An Interview With Allana Pratt. I do really enjoy having other experts on the show, giving voice to different angles, different language and I like how poetic and expressive Allana is. Again, if you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit drjessicahiggins.com, and click on Podcast and there you can find all the episodes. Again, today’s episode, 228. Thank you so much for listening and until next time, I hope you take great care.
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