Ahhh, Love. We dream about it, we long for it, and we pray for it. We pray for that “special someone” to come in and sweep us off our feet, our Soul Mate. Soul Mates, for all we ask them to be in our dreams and popular culture, are greatly misunderstood. Most of us believe that our Soul Mate is that answer to our dreams. Our belief is that we will have an indisputable feeling when we see this person, that the heavens will open up, and the angels will sing. Our belief is that they will appear physically as we knew they would, and that there will exist between the two of us an incredible attraction and chemistry. Our belief is that they will embody all the personality traits and values we do and knew our Soul Mate would. This person will know who we are, and will meet our every desire and need. In truth, a Soul Mate rarely meets any of our expectations of them.
When I think about a Soul Mate relationship I hear the words of Shakespeare ringing in my ears: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” A Soul Mate relationship differs greatly from a romantic relationship. Most of the time, a romantic relationship is based on our fantasies. It usually starts with attraction. We spend the majority of the time focusing on the other person: how they make us feel; when they are going to call; are they meeting our expectations physically, sexually, and behaviorally; are we feeling happy when we are with them. If they fail to meet those expectations, we leave. A lot of how we feel depends on them, their behavior; and how they show up for us. A lot of how we define ourselves afterward will depend on them.
A Soul Mate is not there to make us happy, even though eventually they do. They are not there to meet our expectations of Love, even though they provide and supply us with what we need to achieve the deepest and truest Love that exists. In the simplest of terms a Soul Mate is the person who reflects back to us how we see ourselves, and the things we need to see about ourselves to heal and become whole. Romantic, huh? It is the deepest, truest, and most challenging Love there is and, in the mastery of it, the most rewarding, perfect Love that can exist.
The Soul Mate relationship asks that you not look to the other person for Love, but look to yourself. It teaches you, plain and simple, that to have the Love you seek you must become the Love you seek. What you feel is missing in your relationship with your Soul Mate are the things you are missing in yourself. What you criticize in your Soul Mate are things that are incomplete in you or you are critical of yourself for. What you Love and value about them are the lessons that they are here to teach you. You are responsible for how you feel and your own happiness. Your Soul Mate is there to teach you to Love yourself before you can give to them. You cannot give another person what you do not posses yourself. And that does not mean that you are going to be alone; actually, in some ways, it means you will never be alone again. You will be whole, live in the moment, and be healed. It is in that state of wholeness that you will be able to Love. Loving another no longer is a need; it becomes a choice.
A Soul Mate relationship is about authenticity. It demands that you become 100 percent of who you are, not who you believe yourself to be. It demands of us to move beyond our safe, narrow, fantastical, shallow view of ourselves and Love. We are asked to look into ourselves and see our greatness. We are asked to look into Love and see the truth. Love is always there; it is not neat or pretty or ever safe. Love is easy if we can move out of our limiting beliefs and accept the truth. True Love does not allow itself to be controlled, manipulated, or lied to. It demands of us that we be fully present, and accept and honor another human being. We are faced with the fact that there is someone other than ourselves that has feelings, needs, ideas, values, beliefs, and history. Our Soul Mate has a different set of eyes. They will express themselves differently. See things differently. We are asked to accept them, their point of view, and their history at any given time, even if it is in direct opposition to our own. In A Soul Mate relationship we are asked to live in this duality. We are asked to move beyond ourselves and our history to move into Soul Mate Love.
Fun facts about Soul Mates:
- You find them in the darndest places. They are not who you imagined or look the way you pictured your Soul Mate looking.
- They, for the most part, will not sweep you off of your feet. You will, however, be strongly drawn to them, or the universe will throw them repeatedly in your path. You may even know them for a while before your Soul Mate relationship reveals itself to you.
- They will probably not make you feel giddy or euphoric, at least not for a while, if ever. They will challenge you and make you feel irritated and frustrated. You may often feel sad or angry as you start to touch the wounded places inside of yourself.
- At the same time you will feel deeply seen and Loved because they will know you in a way no other has or will. They know who you truly are at your core, at your soul. They know your pain, wounds, and your secrets, and they Love you anyway.
- They will teach you, heal you, support you, honor you, respect you, and Love you.
- Everything they are to you, you are to them.
A Soul Mate is a gift. The greatest gift a Soul Mate gives you is the understanding of Love at the deepest level of existence, not only for someone else but for yourself.
© Erika Morrell 2007