Many of my clients’ questions are focused on love and relationships, and the question I am asked most often is, “is he (or she) my soulmate?” Well, that question might be running in a tie with “When is he (she) going to call?” :)
The term “soulmate”, while certainly open to interpretation, has in many cases become shorthand for “the one person with whom I am going to spend the rest of my life in blissful happiness”.
Have you read that e-mail that’s been circulating around in-boxes for the last few years? The one about people who come into your life for a season, a reason, etc.? In many respects, that’s my personal understanding of soulmates. Not everyone who comes into our lives is meant to be with us for our entire lifetime. Not all relationships are soulmate relationships, and not all soulmate relationships are romantic – our soulmates could be our parents, siblings, close friends, and others with whom we are not romantically or sexually involved. Not all soulmate relationships are blissfully happy, and not all of our soulmates are our lifemates. To delve deeper into the concept of soulmate relationships, I suggest anything written by Brian Weiss or Michael Newton. Both have written beautifully in-depth books on the subject, and I hope you’ll find their ideas and experiences useful and enlightening.
I wanted to take a different approach in this post and one that may be more helpful and practical when applied to the dating and mating game we all play. Unfortunately, I often see three things in my clients’ relationships. One is that the client’s partner or desired partner is perceived to be their soulmate; with the expectation being that the shorthand (“the one person with whom I am going to spend the rest of my life in blissful happiness”) applies to their relationship.
The second is highly disturbing, because that expectation then translates into the worst perversions of a healthy, loving relationship; abuse, neglect, disrespect and co-dependence. I truly am not being judgmental about these relationships. I believe we must each travel our own path and I can’t fully know another’s soul contract. But when I see and feel people suffering and tormented by what’s supposed to be “love”, when I see a person’s self-esteem and self-respect crushed by what’s supposed to be “love”, or if I see someone who has abandoned themselves for the sake of what’s supposed to be “love”, my heart hurts for them. They may be in a soulmate relationship, but the ending won’t necessarily be the happily ever after one.
The third thing is that the cart is often placed squarely in front of the horse. We start by believing the soulmate shorthand, and then we set out to find that soulmate. And often, we try to pretzel ourselves and/or every potential partner we meet into that belief system, often with disastrous results. We want to find the special person with whom we can share true love and a deep bond, and make a life with them. But if that erroneous belief in the “ideal” is blinding us to what’s actually happening in the relationship, and if it’s blinding us to another’s bad behavior or ill-treatment of us, we’re unlikely to reach that “ideal” we so desire.
So, my approach is to try to put the cart behind the horse again.
Even if you and your significant other are fortunate enough to mutually fall in love at first sight, there are some things that still need to happen in order for you to know if this is your mate (as in soulmate/lifemate), and you get to choose whether or not to participate in the relationship, to improve and positively influence it, or to let it go. So, date. By that I mean, interact with each other, spend time together, talk with each other about the things you enjoy; whether that’s opera or sports, American Idol or Shakespeare’s sonnets. I believe if you keep an open mind and focus on the interactions, you’ll know very soon whether this person is going to remain just a “date” rather than a soulmate, or a soulmate who is not a lifemate.
Ask yourself, how does this person treat me? How do I treat him or her? Along with the giddy, riding on the rollercoaster flush of love and passion, is there respect and consideration in your treatment of each other? When he or she says they will do something, do they actually follow through? Do you? If what people are feeling, saying and doing are all consistent, the foundation is there for a healthy, loving relationship. In other words, these things can show you if you two are mates - soulmates who are also lifemates.
If things seem to be hitting a major snag it’s time to take a deep breath, step back and evaluate. Are there changes you can make to your behavior? Compromising on things like activities and finding the best ways to communicate so that the other person hears what you are saying are examples of healthy adaptation and can bring about positive changes. These are ways to improve or influence the quality of the relationship. But if you are compromising your principles – doing things that demean you, lower your self-esteem, give you that pit in your stomach which is your intuition or gut instinct trying to protect you from potential harm, that may be the time to let the relationship go, either temporarily or permanently. Even if the person with whom you are involved in a harmful relationship is your soulmate, you and he or she still get to choose – and one choice may be not to go through life in this kind of pain, not to be lifemates.
Are there changes the other person can make? We can’t control another’s behavior or make them change. What we can do is communicate honestly about our own feelings and experiences. If they’ve heard us, they then have a choice – to adapt in order to improve or positively influence the relationship. Or not. And if not, the soulmate relationship may not be a lifemate relationship.
Love and peace,
Dona
Destiny Tarot® Copyright 2007 by Dona C. Murphy. All rights reserved.