Soulmates + Relationships : Lessons Learned

In my travels around the psychic, new age sphere of the internet, I have been surprised to come across a lot of reading material about relationships, soulmates, twin flames, etc. This is something we clearly love to talk about, seeing as much of our lives from the time we’re teenagers we are looking for, seeking out, or trying to attract our soulmate or ideal romantic relationship.

I find it really interesting because myself I don’t really believe in “soulmates”. Now before you bring out the pitchforks and torches, hear me out. What I don’t believe in particular is that we all only have one. One great love for our entire lives and we shall be empty and alone for the rest of our waking hours without it!

That’s just simply not true.

Soulmates can come in many forms: a best friend, a snuggly pet, or a romantic relationship if we are lucky.

In each of these situations, we are forming love bonds and relationships, and we are also learning things about ourselves and the other person or thing. And yes, there are some people who associate with objects as being their soulmates! That thought brings back a memory from a popular TV show where a woman was in love with an out of commission ferris wheel. She took care of it, bought new parts for it, and talked to it daily. The ferris wheel even had a name. If you’re curious, I’m sure a quick Google search on that would do the trick.

What I’m getting at here is that in each of our relationships that come into our lives, whether it be friendship, furry or romantic, there is always things that we are learning about ourselves, about our world, and what we want out of our lives. We all have a short time on earth, and these relationships are one of the ways that our souls learn lessons that have been attached to us throughout our lifetimes.

It’s OK if you don’t resonate with the idea of past lives, but you probably do resonate with the idea of learning from your mistakes in order to not repeat them again. Nobody likes to stub their toe on the coffee table only to do it again a week later, when you probably should have moved the table a foot to the right and it would have solved your problem.

For simplicity sake, I’m going to focus on talking about romantic relationships in this article today. Most of us at some point in our lives have had a relationship that has ended in a breakup. From my own experience, these are some of the most painful moments in our lives. Looking back on things though, I always have been able to realize that these people were put into my world to test me, to teach me and to help (or force me!) to learn and grow into a better version of myself.

I want to talk about two relationship experiences I have had.

When I first moved to Vancouver, I ended my first long term relationship. We had been together two and a half years at that point, and even though it was pretty clear the relationship was already coming to a close before I had moved, it was a very difficult tie to sever. We were very co-dependent on each other in terms of friendships and emotional support, so when we were apart we were both lost. We dealt with grieving this relationship in our own ways, which lead to more emotional distress for ourselves, and each other, effectively trying to make sure we both felt that same pain. It was about six months after I moved that I had to cut contact completely, knowing that this is what I had to do to keep my sanity and move on with my life.

As all of that was ending, I had the pleasure of meeting many friends (thank God). In that time, I met someone who momentarily filled the void for friendship, affection and what I thought was love. We had a lot in common, but he also had a lot in common with my ex. It was almost like he had all of the bad traits of my ex, but intensified, which should have been obvious then but it wasn’t. I was falling into old patterns again.

The funny thing with looking backwards at things is that what seems like such an obvious sign to you, isn’t. We spent far too much time together, depended on each other for a lot of things. Despite everything, I was certain that I could make it work. I was not going to give up yet… Something had to give…

And then it did. He stopped contact with me one day. No rhyme or reason. Blocked my phone number, and completely ghosted out of my life after over a year of knowing each other. I could not understand and was upset for a long time.

That was nearly 2 years ago now. It was a really terrible emotional place to be in, and I wondered why I had been put there. I am able to understand now that I had been removed from both of those relationships because they were toxic and clearly no longer serving me anything good. This has been true for friendships, jobs and other areas of my life as well. “Divine Intervention”: as cheesy as it sounds, but that’s exactly what it was. Who knows where I would have ended up if I had not moved, or if I hadn’t been shut out from that person’s life?

Now, I look back and compare the two relationships and realize that there were lessons I was supposed to learn the first time around (but didn’t) that I had to re-learn with the second go. Certainly things could have been different if I had.

The lessons I was supposed to learn about co-dependency with a romantic partner, emotional abuse, not abandoning your friends, and learning to be a more balanced person in all aspects of my life blew up in my face in such a way that I could simply not notice anymore. It was a more intense ending that I had expected, and it took me a long time to recover. However, now that I have that information, I believe that I am more able to choose better partners for myself, and notice the ‘red flags’ or ‘signs’ that things aren’t going to work out. It’s hard when you think that you love somebody, but at the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for you.

Ask yourself: Is this/how is this person enriching my life? Are they helping me to learn and grow? Are they encouraging and accepting of my friends and family?

The list goes on, and I’m sure if you thought about it, you could come up with some personalized questions to ask yourself.

Moving forward, I took some time to sort myself out. I really started to focus on my work with spirituality and angels. This is what really pulled me out of my black hole, and has helped, and is continually helping me realize my self-esteem and self worth.

I had to learn to attract better love into my life, so I practiced daily affirmations, and writing exercises to help with forgiveness. There was one thing in particular that I did that stands out to me the most, and that was when I wrote my angels a letter.

I’d watched a video that day by Doreen Virtue talking about attracting romantic love and relationships into your life. This was an especially good video for me because she was talking about ending toxic patterns from past relationships and not allowing those to continue into the future. It focused on being honest with ourselves in terms of what we want in a partner and how we see that relationship going. What she instructed was that I write a letter to my romance angels, explaining to them what I desired in a partner, and what I wanted in a relationship.

So that’s what I did. I followed her instructions and wrote page after page about what I wanted to let go of and what I wanted to attract into my life. I felt so relieved after I’d written it, because I knew that those were burdens I no longer had to carry. I had my angels as my support system. I knew that I would never be alone and that they would bring love into my life when the right time, and right person came.

I wrote the letter and left it out on my table (part of the instructions) and it took time, but a few months later, I did meet someone. This could have been a coincidence and had nothing to do with what I wrote, but I never questioned it because it worked. I’m not an expert in the law of attraction, but it seemed like it had worked because he was everything in my letter that I had written.

My prayers had been answered and since then I’ve learned to be more present in each moment, and try to enjoy each moment of my life in a relationship with another person to the fullest. I’ve learned that I need to appreciate the ‘soulmates’ that I already have in the form of pets, friends and family. By doing this, I am able to feel more love for myself and I’m able to share more with others.

It’s around us, it’s in us, and it is us. We all have unlimited love, but we just have to get out of our own way to realize it.

“Be an earth angel, and look for love behind the actions of everyone you meet today. Whenever you look for love, you will always find it.” ~ Doreen Virtue