🎧 EPISODE 4: The Spirituality of Relationships
What if your relationships—every one of them—were part of your spiritual path?

In this powerful episode, Dr. Carlos Garcia and Supna Doshi explore how romantic, familial, and even fleeting connections are not random... they’re mirrors. The people in our lives reflect back to us the places we’re still growing, still healing, still awakening.

💬 “What’s showing up in this relationship is the work I probably need to do on myself.”
🧘🏽‍♀️ “You can run, or you can use it. That’s the choice.”

Whether it's a difficult parent, a triggering partner, or an unexpected friendship, this conversation reframes relationships as sacred ground for self-discovery. Inspired by Ram Dass, Karma Yoga, and lived experience—this episode invites us to stop asking, Why is this happening to me? and instead ask, What is this teaching me?

🎙️ Available now on all platforms. #TheHumanExperiencePodcast

#SpiritualityAndRelationships #KarmaYoga #SelfGrowth #RamDass #ConsciousRelationships #EmotionalHealing #HumanExperience #PodcastClip #InnerWork #SpiritualAwakening

 

The Spirituality of Relationships Transcript:

[00:00:00 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Welcome to the podcast, the Human Experience Podcast, where we explore the depths of spirituality and our own personal journeys and experiences. I'm Dr. Carlos Garcia. 

[00:00:11 ] Supna Doshi: And I'm Supna Doshi. In this space, we'll reflect on the wisdom of some of the most profound spiritual teachers from Eckhart Toi to Ramdas Wayne Dyer, Michael Singer.

[00:00:23 ] Supna Doshi: Together we'll dive into their teachings and share our own insights that have guided us on our own paths of self-discovery. [00:00:30 ] 

[00:00:30 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Each episode will feature inspiring clips from these masters, weaving them into our own reflections and conversations on how spirituality has enriched our daily lives, deepened our understanding of ourselves, and led us to a more meaningful experience.

[00:00:47 ] Supna Doshi: So take a deep breath, open your heart, and join us on this journey of exploration. Welcome to the podcast, the Human Experience Podcast. [00:01:00 ] The universe puts relationships in our lives that really are meant to teach us something. I go into something thinking one thing, and then it's it's usually hindsight, but now like I've caught up and now I can say, oh, today my lesson was this.

[00:01:17 ] Supna Doshi: Today, this person taught me this and I learned this about myself and this is where, I have whatever stuck energy or growth opportunity or whatever it's, but because you've lived, I mean you've lived [00:01:30 ] right through the Marine Corps, through the fire department, through. Like you've lived and had a lot of romantic and non-romantic relationships like that come in, friendships and then now having a partner and a child, like those relationships teach us so much.

[00:01:48 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Like understanding, right? Like the understanding of these things are always critical and important. Like culturally. 

[00:01:55 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Like there, there's a shift cognitively that had to happen for me to [00:02:00 ] even know or understand or, sit with the idea that relationships come into our lives for a reason.

[00:02:07 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: So oftentimes when I'm doing work as a psychotherapist, people come in and they're like what do I, what do I do with this relationship? And what I offer them is you have. Two options. One of those options is anytime anything feels uncomfortable in your relationship, set boundaries or move away from it, or you use it.

[00:02:28 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: I think we [00:02:30 ] have traditionally or in some cultures, it's just easier to move away from the relationships, especially in today's day and age, where like you can go on an app and with, within a couple of hours, have a date later on that evening. It's easy to move out of relationships.

[00:02:44 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: It's easier to not do the hard thing. I think culturally we're set up that way. It's easier. Look at the divorce rate, right? But when I shifted my mindset to, oh, what's showing up in this relationship is like the [00:03:00 ] work that I could probably use or need to look at myself, right? This person is mirroring back to me where I potentially have some work to do.

[00:03:09 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: That was a big shift. 

[00:03:12 ] Supna Doshi: What prompted that shift for you? 

[00:03:14 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Probably my delving into spirituality. It just started, as a psychotherapist it was like, oh yeah, great. Just set boundaries here. Or and sometimes that's necessary, right? We, I would never condone an abusive or threatening relationship in any [00:03:30 ] way.

[00:03:30 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: But there's these different shades of it, right? So as a psychotherapist, before it was just like, oh, what do you need to do to get out of this relationship? Or what do you need to do to, fix the situation? And yes, maybe that is required at times, but yeah, through spirituality and understanding, like I think what you started to say oh, there's a purpose for these relationships in our lives.

[00:03:52 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: A big, where I can pinpoint that is, is when I learned about the sort of idea of karma yoga. That, that you use the [00:04:00 ] things of your life as your work on yourself for spiritual growth. That was the big sort of pivot point for me. 

[00:04:08 ] Supna Doshi: We do have a tendency to move out of relationships, but then there are the relationships with parents and children that I feel like we're not so easy to move out of those relationships, but that we struggle so much in them because maybe that mind shift hasn't happened of oh, I don't have to be right and somebody else be wrong. [00:04:30 ] Like I can just, I can try to sit back and see what I need to learn. 

[00:04:34 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Yeah, those relationships that we can't easily move away from and those, those relationships often when we're talking about family. They can be the most triggering, right?

[00:04:44 ] Dr. Carlos Garcia: Like the, those are the ones that get us. 

[00:04:46 ] Supna Doshi: Yeah. I love I heard a talk by Ramdas and he said he went to India and he was on the spiritual path and he was on cloud nine, and he'd go home and his father would say to him, do you have a job? And back he would just [00:05:00 ] himself. 

[00:05:04 ] Ram Dass: It's hard to appreciate how deep in it we are.

[00:05:07 ] Ram Dass: How deep in the do-do of personality, how real it all is. You all think you have needs that must be met. You all think you have personality identities that must be honored. And even as I say that, I can feel you get tight defending your right to have those things. Isn't that true? I can [00:05:30 ] feel it in myself too.

[00:05:31 ] Ram Dass: I have a right to be angry. Damn I do. We'll wait, there's no rush. When you finish that trip, we'll still be here

[00:05:43 ] Ram Dass: because awareness isn't in time. It's just here. You want to enjoy your neurosis enjoy, have more, have another helping really climb in. We have gotten so thick in it and so you are either getting into it through abu