There is so much mushy stuff out there about soul mates. So many folks say they found their soul mate, get married, and then five, ten, even fifteen years later, bye-bye soul mate! Off, I guess, to find another soul mate. Perhaps we don’t really stop to consider exactly what we mean by this soul mate thing. We romanticize this love of ours and hang pearls of perfection around them and envision this person as satisfying our every whim, desire, and demand. Thus, when those pearls break and fall all over the floor of our heart, this perfect soul mate vanishes and is replaced by some soulless mate with whom we can no longer live. Sigh.
I too found my soul mate. But he’s not perfect and I don’t expect him to be. I thought my first spouse was perfect and I idealized him to the point that when his pearls broke it was so bad that our marriage couldn’t withstand it. He’s a nice guy and we are still friends, but when I reflect back on our relationship I know he was not my soul mate and I never thought of him that way.
My second (and last) spouse, R, is my soul mate. But not in the romantic, you’re perfect way. He is my soul mate, and I his, because our hearts and thoughts and minds are in spiritual sync with each other. R says we are soul mates because our souls connect and I have to agree. It isn’t just that we are connected at the hip, it is deeper.
Well then, what does it mean when souls connect? Our first indication that we were soul mates came when we realized that we read each other’s thoughts. The most frequent sentence between us is “I was just thinking of that!” More often than not we both order the same food from a menu. We can also judge each other’s moods very well and empathize with them. We also bought the exact same anniversary card for each other twice and most of the time our cards to each other carry the same message. Our value systems never diverge and even our decision making process is the same. We don’t always make the right decision, but we at least agree on it! I also have a spiritual sense of R’s presence and when we are apart it is as if a part of my soul is away from me. I know he feels the same. After all, we’re soul mates!
When we hurt each other our connected souls bestow forgiveness that is deep and pure and honest. Thank God we have not set ourselves up on “Perfect Pedestals.” Our life is full of ups and downs, being good and being bad, doing right and doing wrong. We do not live on a flat plain, we live in a landscape of hills and valleys. And, it is our spiritual connection that allows us to soar and dip with each other in love and forgiveness in all things! Wow! We are so blessed!
This defining a soul mate is not an easy thing. It is sort of like defining God. You know it exists but our words fail us when trying to explain it. A friend once said, “How do you explain the unexplainable?” Right. You don’t. It just exists and our souls as soul mates dance together in a world all of their own.