Soulmate

Most people think their spouse is supposed to be their soulmate.

I know I did.

I think this belief is propagated in Disney Princess movies. Our Prince Charming, Aladdin, Eric, or Flynn is supposed to be perfect and someone we can live happily ever after with.



Did you know that you can have more than one soulmate?

I'm not talking about polygamy, polyamory, adultery, or any of that stuff.

I'm talking about redefining the term Soulmate.


Sounds right. Thanks Dawson's Creek.

But no where does it say that this person has to be your spouse, the opposite gender, or the same age. No where does it say that this person remains in your life forever. No where does it say that this isn't several people, who may or may not be in your life at the same time.

At different times of our lives we will need and want different types of relationships.

How do you know if you have found a soulmate?

1. Indescribable Connection

Firstly, you will feel a sense of having known this person for all of your life. They will 'get' you. You will 'get' them. 

• You may experience HUGE changes when you meet. You may shift directions entirely. You may experience emotions you never knew you could feel - extreme highs and lows.

2. Intertwining passions 

This is probably how you will meet. You both will love the same things. When you get together and work on those things, you will challenge and inspire each other to greater heights than ever before. You feel the need to team up and conquer something.

When we get together we pop off like Fourth of July - Hollyn

3. Complete Ease

There is no guilt, no nerves, no shame when you are around your soul mate. Despite what society, religion, culture, has to say, when you two are together, everything is perfect. No one has to understand you, but you.

• You will know what the other person is thinking or feeling intuitively.

4. Mutual Growth

Lastly, you both will grow together. You learn from each other's failures and when you are apart, you still grow and learn. You bring out the best in each other.

The hard part:

Sometimes, once the lesson is learned, the person will drift away, having completed their mission. You will never forget them.

Here's the part you need to understand.

This is not the same as a Life Partner.

Soulmates can be your Life Partner, but they don't have to be. It's only in recent times that we expect our spouses to be in tune to us. Think about it.

(Or read here.)

Your spouse is your Life Partner.

What is a Life Partner?

• Your relationship is based on being physically present and creating new memories.
• You both feel a sense of financial and emotional stability by being together.
• You resonate with each others beliefs, ideas or religion/philosophy.
• Your relationship is based on logical or intellectual decisions.
• You get along like best friends- your relationship does not suffer from extremes.
• You enjoy getting to know each other and learn about your differences and similarities- everything about each other feels new and exciting.
• You feel attracted to each other physically and resonate with each others values.

http://foreverconscious.com/the-difference-between-soulmates-and-life-partners

This distinction has helped me greatly and I hope it helps you, too.

In My Dreams This Week

I've had some really insane dreams lately.

The other night I dreamed that my car had broken down and I somehow had gotten a man to help and was riding with the driver in his pickup truck down a back road with plowed fields on either side.

The man was older, gray, balding, and heavy set. Not long after we set off, police cars raced past us. This is unusual in any rural area. Then I look out the window and there is a man running down the field with a big gun. He is wearing all black.

The truck dissipates and we are running from the man as the police run in. He shoots at the driver-man but the big ol' guy keeps running without a scratch. I hardly heard the shot, so I decide the shooter has a silencer on his gun. Somehow this is scarier.

We end up in a sort of diner/bar. The gunman comes in and tries to blend in at the bar. He's really good at evading police, I guess.

http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2009/04/04/the-session-26-smoke-em-if-you-got-em/

The police come searching. I point at the man behind his back. When the officer calmly, but abruptly, approaches him, the gunman whips out his weapon and shoots. People dive to the floor. He escapes, police in hot pursuit. They close in. 

He runs behind a barn and I am scrambling to see if they get him, but also to stay out of range of his fire. The old man is still running with me. He's got some endurance! I assume they got the bad guy because I woke up.

                            *             *               *              *
The following night I tossed and turned and remembered many dreams every time I rolled over. However, by morning, I only remember one long dream sequence. 

I was in my classroom, with all my students and my two aides. (For those who don't know I work in a special needs classroom in a middle school.) We seem to be coming back from a lunch break of some sort. Everyone is at their desks and there is an air of expectation. I'm supposed to DO something, but these boxes of items I haven't seen all year appear before me, on my desk, on the tables.

http://www.triblocal.com/wheaton/community/stories/2011/07/learning-resources-donates-more-than-250000-in-educational-tools-and-materials-to-joplin-missouri-schools/

Suddenly, I have to deal with them. I begin to sort one and my aide says something about going outside. "Yes, yes, go on outside," I agree. The class leaves, all but one. He hovers over my shoulder. "You are supposed to go with them!" Now I have to take him. I check the closest door, but they are not seen through the glass. I go to the next door around the corner. This next hallway transforms from my middle school to the high school I went to. They are all lined up waiting, one of my aides pushing the wheelchair and the other in line between students. "Well, push the light switch!" one of aides tells a student. He seems confused as to what light switch. I walk up and show him a switch that activates the door.(It wasn't a normal looking switch, it was yellow and round. This picture is close enough.)

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/toggle-switch-plate

We exit the building. Instead of seeing the parking lot, we now see rows of one-story brick apartments. As we pass them, two boys of middle school age appear and begin to entice my students to get out of line and play among the saplings. I tell them not to.

http://dornob.com/concrete-cantilever-small-brick-home-second-story-box/

Then a white convertible appears, top down, to take us across the parking lot to the grassy area. (As if the wheelchair can get in there!!)

We ride to the yard and Senior class members appear and begin to set up carnival style games. There appears a baseball throwing game, a bowling game, and others.

One student sets up a table with popsicles on it. I go over to help him because the sun suddenly is too hot and the popsicles will melt. We move the table into the shade, but I suddenly realize I am topless. There is a huge crowd of people playing games now. My building principal stands tall in the crowd and I am grateful he doesn't see me. Where is my shirt!? I duck into a sort of wooden shed to look for something to clothe my top half with. I dig and dig in piles of stuff. I never seem to find anything, but the dream presses on.

Next, I am running out the back. I jump a low white picket fence and knock on the back door of a house.

A young couple are watching TV. I say, "I'm not gonna hurt you, but please can I call 911? I've been kidnapped!" Confused, they let me use their house phone (who has one of those anymore?!)

I must have called, because next I am waiting for the police while looking at their laptop. I find a YouTube video of myself speaking to Oprah on her show and I point. "See? I am famous. That's why I was kidnapped!" I am suddenly a black woman with a gorgeous head of fluffy hair.

Then I wake up.

I've never dreamed I changed race before. I've dreamed about school before, and being topless, and fleeing situations, even of gunmen as in the previous night's dream, but never have I changed races. That was very unique. Is it a sign of the times?

Dreams are all about emotions. What I felt more than what was going on is what is most significant. There was a sense of helplessness in each dream. I tried to interact, in many instances, with others in the dream. My role constantly changed as I felt new emotions. In both dreams, I woke up still looking for a hero, that moment when things were solved. I was close to an ending, but not quite.

I guess life feels like that a lot. We can't have a good ending because there is always something next on our agendas. We just hope that our schedules include good things.