Soulmates and Lovers

People ask me all the time:  “How do I know if he’s/she’s my soulmate?”  And my answer is: Start from where you are now and scale it up to the most intense level of feeling that you can imagine!  Are you there yet?  Well, that’s what it’s like to have a soulmate.  People have said to me over the years:  “It was the “click” in my head when I first met and looked into the eyes of my husband.  I just “knew” that I knew him.  There was nothing to fix in this relationship.  We slid into the relationship; it was easy, familiar and comfortable.”  Have you heard these expressions from colleagues and friends and wondered if it will ever happen to you?

There are relationships and then there are RELATIONSHIPS.  We’ve all experienced the huge range and intensity of feelings when we’ve had different relationships but what we need to keep in mind is all the lessons that we’ve learned from having them. Every relationship teaches us something about ourselves and another human being.  Our partner reflects and mirrors our emotional concerns and issues so that we learn valuable lessons about love, kindness and grace.

You learn about the ability to give and receive love from another soul being during moments of joy and anguish.  You push your patience to the utmost extremes during challenging life events, crises, and disasters.  You can only learn about yourself in relation to someone else.  Don’t run away and hide, even though you’re disappointed and hurt by rejection and criticism.  Look inside yourself and take the perspective of the other person to better understand your insecurities and expand your emotional knowledge.

Each relationship will teach you something important about love because each relationship is a lesson and the relationship is your classroom.  Each partner in the relationship is a teacher for the other person.  Even when relationships end abruptly or badly, you’ve moved forward and learned something about your persistence, stamina or ability to commit.  Treasure what you’ve learned; reflect and process what’s happened between you and your partner.  Think outside of the “box” by focusing on how you’re changed and grown.  How are you different?

What specifically have you learned about yourself?  Keep a relationship diary and actively journal about your feelings and insights as the relationship continues.  Periodically go back and reread your thoughts about ongoing events and focus on challenges and conflicts that might highlight a repetitive pattern that creates conflict in your relationship.  Try to identify the anxieties that interfere in the relationship with your partner which create conflict.  Are these dynamic problems present in any of your other relationships with significant people in your life?  For example, are there intimacy or commitment problems?  Are there anger management problems or abuse issues?

As you experience the daily dynamics interacting with your partner, become more conscious of what you’re thinking and feeling as things occur between the two of you.  If you can train yourself to be more conscious in real time as things are happening, you will have a much better chance of changing your behavior in these self-destructive repetitive sequences that often leave you separated from and rejecting of one another.  Remember, your classroom is your relationship, and you can only learn your lessons in relation to other people who are “in” the classroom with you.  Consider that you and your partner are “teachers” for one another and whether the relationship lasts is not the point or the issue for you to focus on.

The relationship creates the process and the end result and “take away” are what you’ve learned from your interactions with your significant other.  There is always something that transcends the relationship experience that can positively provide you with an emotional growth advancement.  Step back and read your journal to identify what you’ve learned about yourself and be grateful for the new knowledge.  Note in your journal how you’ve changed from having had this valuable experience and affirm that your next relationship will be more connected and loving.  As you commit to keeping your relationship diary, you will see significant change and growth because you are more conscious of how you’re reacting to others in your “classroom.”

Over lifetimes you will experience many different types of relationships that will enrich your soul experience and teach you about oneness with God.  People will come and go in and out of your classroom, and some souls will reappear in future lives.  You will experience future lifetimes with some people who are part of your soul group and one such significant partner may be a soulmate that you recognize and have a strong affinity to as soon as you meet him/her.  Professor Caitlyn Morrys in Past Lives Denied knew from the beginning of her relationship with Ashford Connor that he was her soulmate.  Their relationship was tempestuous, and Ashford felt frightened about his desire to commit to her and what it would mean.  In his mind, he obsessed about being “consumed” by his intensely passionate love and desire for her, so he ran away over and over again.  As fast as he ran away, Ashford realized he could not get away because he experienced a sense of intense “addiction” to Caitlyn.

Without a doubt, the intensity of feeling can be jolting and surprising leaving you wondering “where is this coming from?”  The answer, of course, is that the feelings are coming from a past life and surfaced in the present life when the two lovers finally connect again.  The intensity is immediate, and certainly it can feel all consuming.  The recognition may also bring memories about past events, people and places that were shared.  The experience meeting and connecting with a soulmate is an affirmation of past lives and the reality that what is “unreal” in life can become very “real” when love is involved in your life.  Have you found a soulmate in this life or in a past life?

~ Dr. Tiegerman