A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
Thomas Carlyle
You might wonder what a Soul Mate relationship feels like, what it looks like, and how you’ll know…
Let’s start by looking at what a Soul Mate relationship is not.
Image from perpetualkid.com
A Soul Mate will not share every view, feel as you do about everything in the Universe, or be your clone.
A Soul Mate relationship will not be about never arguing.
It will not be about perfection.
Image from geekologie.com
A Soul Mate is not some strange sort of parasitic or unhealthy dependency where you simply can’t survive without them in your life, or where they love you all up and suck you dry, before discarding you to move onto someone fresh.
A Soul Mate relationship won’t be categorised by fear, relentless pain, uncertainty, a feeling of being trapped, or a sense of impending doom.
It won’t be an abusive relationship.
It won’t be a relationship that belittles you, puts you down, discredits or dishonours you. It won’t be a relationship that puts doubts in your head until you begin to question your own judgement, and where your confidence and esteem erode, little by little, until you are weak and frail – a shell of who you were before. You won’t need to keep earning the other person’s love, or proving yourself.
Image from contentinacottage.blogspot
So what does a Soul Mate relationship look like?
First and foremost, it is always categorised by love. Not vain love or showy love – but the sort of enduring and deepening love that allows you to grow, together, into something stronger, better and wiser than you were before.
Soul Mate relationships endure – they allow us to suffer the pain, and find a way, together, to move forward. In the presence of love we learn forgiveness, acceptance, compassion.
They bring out the best in us. They give us comfort, friendship, support, and (often at the most unexpected times) fireworks in our bellies. They help us know laughter, and tears, they help us find the strength in ourselves and in each other.
With a Soul Mate we feel safe, and that safety gives us courage to wander far from home, creating and exploring and enacting our dreams.
Soul Mates believe in us, they’ll fight for us, and they’ll call us on it when we’re mistaken, or heading in the wrong direction. They love us when we have done nothing to deserve it, and when we feel totally unworthy of love, and they remind us to take care of ourselves, while caring for us when we can’t.
And at times, they’ll annoy us or frustrate us so much that we’ll wonder why we didn’t choose the other person. We’ll wish they’d just take a hike and leave us well alone. But in the next breathe we’ll know how miserable we’d be without them in our lives.
The relationship, like yourself, will always be a work in progress, ever changing, ever evolving, at times difficult, sometimes even strained to the point where you momentarily find it hard to recognise yourself or each other. But it will also have the familiarity and comfort of home. And in the arms of this relationship you’ll know two things – love and safety. More importantly, you’ll get to know your true self.
A Soul Mate will spilt your heart open and you won’t even mind the pain because of all the love and joy you find there.
Can they really be your Soul Mate if you argue?
I grew up in a house where I never heard my parents fight. Sadly, their marriage didn’t last, but it made me certain that arguing was not a part of anything to do with love.
After I had my very first major and quite vocal disagreement (yep, some people would call that a fight…) with my husband, just weeks after we’d been married, I sat on the internal staircase of our house and cried, while my husband went outside to wash the car.
My beautiful Guide, Rollo, spoke to me, and asked, ‘Do you know what a Soul Mate relationship is?’
‘Obviously not!’ I snivelled, feeling totally pathetic and like I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life in getting married. I was sure Rollo was going to confirm that for me too.
Instead he showed me a picture of an oyster. ‘Do you know what happens when a tiny grain of sand gets into that oyster?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I sniffed.
‘It irritates the hell out of the oyster’ my Guide boomed, laughter in his voice.
Exactly, I thought. Irritates the hell out of it.
‘And in the presence of love, the oyster wraps that irritation in a special substance and after a while the pain goes away.’
I felt my Guide smiling at me. ‘Then the tide turns, and that annoying grain of sand moves somewhere else in the oyster, and do you know what happens?’
‘No,’ I replied, slow on the uptake.
‘That grain of sand causes more irritation in a different spot. But if love is present, love keeps wrapping itself around the irritation. The oyster grows, and over time the oyster transforms that grain of sand, in the presence of love, into something of great value and lasting beauty. That oyster grows a pearl. Without the irritation and the need to grow, nothing extraordinary would have ever happened. But when love is present, magical transformation is possible.’
Image from freewallpaper4me.com
I could have hugged Rollo. My wise Guide was absolutely right. I stopped crying and went into the kitchen to make my husband a cup of tea.
It’s true. Love transforms. It helps us weather many storms. It grows us. It improves us. It comforts us and delights us. And at some stage it causes us pain (usually BECAUSE we love), and love helps us bear that pain. The pain doesn’t weaken us – it strengthens us. And from that pain we grow into something beautiful.
Rumi, the great poet says it best:
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Double love hearts at sunset by Pink Sherbet Photography
