Soulmate Skills

How can I tell if this is my soulmate?  You need a list.  A criteria list.  Your list is something you’ve been developing for years.  It contains all the qualities in a partner that fulfill you in a relationship.  Even if you’ve never experienced a fulfilling relationship, you can know what you want.  How?  You may have to flip your old partners’ qualities.  What gave you pain points to the opposite quality that you want in a partner.  Write those qualities down.  Add to your list.  Arrange your list by categories: physical, emotional, affectional, intellectual, spiritual, sexual.  Then use your list as a guide to check out a person.  Jim had his 56 criteria with which he checked me out.  He said he would have been happy with 10% of those qualities; ecstatic with 20%.  But he said I had them all.  You can have it all too.  You need a list.

Sounds strange, doesn’t it?  On a blog about love!  Love:  You’ve gotta be able to take it or leave it!  It was one of those startling, turn-you-on-your-head sort of things Jim has taught me.  So, what does it mean?  It means don’t value love so highly that you’ll do anything for it.  Like not be honest about who you are and what you want in a relationship. Like hold back from revealing your thoughts and feelings.  Bottom line:  You have to be free.  Free from your Inner Critic shoulds to give away the store just so they’ll love you.  What we’re saying is have your values in the right order.  Inner freedom first.  Love second.  Then you can love freely–and be true to yourself at the same time.

(You can learn more about getting free in our book, “Disarming Your Inner Critic,” available on our Products tab and at amazon.com.)

New Twig:  We’ve posted a new Twig!  Click on our Twigs tab and see our “Couple on a Swing” painting.  It’s a heart-melter.

Wait till you hear Jim’s new idea:  He told me last night that he’s been thinking about hyperbolic curves; that is, curves that go on and on.  He said, “We’ve lived that way.  Always coming up with new ideas.  And we’ve loved that way.  With a love that goes on and on.”  And when you think about the prefix “hyper”, it suggests “greater than normal”, an exaggerated amount.  And that’s how High-Voltage soulmate love is.  It’s a “mile-high” love; a love that never fails; a love that never dies.  No ordinary love.  That’s what we’ve wanted.  That’s what we’ve lived.  That’s what’s possible for you too.  Go for it!

“You’re too needy.”  “You want too much.”  “No matter what I do, it’s never enough.”  Ever been told this?  And did you buy it?  Well, we want to set you free today.  If you were told this because you love a lot of emotional connection and affection and talking in a relationship, there’s nothing wrong with you!  You simply like High-Voltage relating.  By definition, that means you enjoy a relationship characterized by emotional closeness, deep affection and expressive love, open and honest communication, and more intensity.  It actually has a major advantage of producing psychological growth in the partners.  So, now you know.  You’re not too needy!  They were a voltage mismatch to you.  If you’ve found your High-Voltage soulmate, enjoy the bliss today.  If you’re still on your soulmate quest, don’t give up.  A High-Voltage match is worth waiting for.

You’re gonna need this.  Because there will be days when your soulmate is going to be in his or her stuff.  Angry at you.  Stuck.  I speak from experience.  And Jim modeled how to handle it.  When I’ve been stuck in anger, fused with a hard-hearted part of myself, Jim did what he calls one-way love.  He just stood in his love for me.  And he said, “I’m sorry you’re suffering.  I hope you get out of this soon, because you don’t deserve to feel bad.  I love you.  And I hope you’ll come back to me soon.”  Oh, those words went straight to my heart.  And melted it.  He sees that underneath my anger is hurt; pain.  And he’s soothing me with his love.  That is a profound gift he gave me.  So, when your soulmate is angry, do one-way love.  It will feel good to you.  And may work its magic on your partner’s heart.

What’s this?  Anger at my soulmate?  Can this be?  Yes.  You are human.  And you have stuff.  By that we mean emotional baggage from which to get free.  And we want to tell you.  Anger is always stuff.  It’s inner material to work on.  Maybe you’ve been constricting yourself.  Maybe you haven’t been asking for what you wanted.  Maybe you feel entitled.  Whatever is driving it, anger at your partner is not righteous anger.  If you see your partner as bad–That’s your stuff.  In Anthetic couple counseling, we help couples learn to analyze their anger to get free from what’s driving it.  Because anger doesn’t feel good.  For you or for your partner.  And we don’t want you to lose those ecstatic feelings that are part of soulmate love.  So don’t trust your anger as the truth.  Next time you’re angry, say to your partner, “I’m feeling some anger, and that’s just my stuff.  Bottom line is I love you, and I know you’re a good person.”

“Baby!  Tsk!  Tsk!”  Those were my father’s chiding words when he caught a glimpse of the first love letter I wrote  in ninth grade.  (I had written the greeting, “My love…”)  So what did I learn from Daddy’s response?  To feel shame at feeling romantic love for a boy.  I had been exposed as loving.  So, for years after that I felt nervous when I was in love; anxious that someone would see me.  Perhaps you may have learned something similar too.  I know many of my therapy clients have.  Whether it was being shamed by a teacher for passing love notes.  Or taunted by an older relative for holding hands with a new love.  Our work in Anthetic Psychology holds that whatever the experience of shaming was, we can get free of that learning.  Today, let us liberate ourselves.  I have the right to love; to express my love for anyone freely and boldly.

At last.  Your longing, searching, and waiting are over.  You’ve found your soulmate love.  Now, there’s one more step.  Don’t devalue it.  Don’t treat it as though you despise it.  That means, don’t focus elsewhere.  Don’t get complacent.  Don’t treat your soulmate with contempt.  Keep using your communication skills of beholding and cathexis and Anthetic listening.  In other words, keep fostering connectedness with your beloved.  Because soulmate love is a precious thing.  Once you get it, reverence it.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I just don’t have any energy.”  Ever felt this way?  Thought “I just can’t get motivated”?  Here’s the culprit:  Your Inner Critic.  It condemns the part of you that is full of aliveness and energy for living–your Natural Self.  Your Inner Critic calls the plans, ideas, and feelings of your Natural Self ”bad, wrong, silly.”  If you believe that, you squelch your dreams and submerge all that energy for motivating yourself to reach them.  So if you’re low-energy today, ask yourself, “Am I doing what my Natural Self wants to be doing or what my Inner Critic says I should do?”  When you start doing what your Natural Self wants, your energy will flow.  There will be no stopping you. 

Note:  For specific help on how to recognize your Inner Critic and get free from it, read our book “Disarming Your Inner Critic.”  It’s available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.

How do you increase the voltage in your conversations?  You connect about your feelings about the topic.  So, you could actually be talking about the weather.  But what will catapult it from low-voltage to high-voltage is to say something like, “When it’s cloudy like this I feel down.”  Next, your partner (who’s taken to heart our message not to experience-match) says, “Can you tell me more about that?”  In response, you reveal more about yourself.  Then, because high-voltage is about mutual connection, you ask, “What do you feel on cloudy days?”  Your partner answers.  That’s how it’s done.  Connect like this, and your cloudy day will look much brighter.

Note:  Thank you, Linnette, for your insight about yesterday’s blog on happiness.  It inspired today’s thought.