Soulmate Skills

When we’re alone, we often don’t see ourselves.  We need each other to see who we really are.  Let me give you an example from our lives.  When Jim and I were parting at the San Jose Airport, he had parked the car away from the terminal near the trees.  With another hour or two before my flight, we had sat in the car and talked and talked.  At one point, the security guards tapped on Jim’s window and asked if everything was okay.  I felt guilty (for no reason, of course).  But Jim handled it with such strength and maturity, I just loved him for it.  And I told him so in one of my first letters to him.  Doing so had a big impact on Jim.  He wrote:  “I love feedback from you; for example, about the security guard at the airport.  To me that seemed quite ordinary, what I did; your writing about it gave me a new perspective on myself.”  So, that was it.  In being beheld, we each began to see ourselves in a new light:  “So that’s me?  That strong man that she sees?”  Yes, that’s you.  When you see yourself through my eyes, you glimpse your magnificence.

You say:  “I believe I’ve found my soulmate.  He connects with me, beholds me, supports me.  He’s everything I’ve longed for.  However, he is an alcoholic.  When he drinks, he no longer connects with me.  What do I do?”  We say:  How wonderful that you have found someone who connects with you deeply.  We want to address this by saying, this is a case of a block to living out your soulmate love.  We’ve talked before about other blocks, such as negativity and fear.  We labeled such impediments reactivity.  Addiction is one form of reactivity.  As you’re experiencing, when the addicted person is under the influence, they are no longer relating to you from their Natural Self.  Instead, they’re relating from a reactive inner figure.  The solution:  getting free from that reactive inner figure, “The Addicted One.”  You can call your partner to this freedom.  They will most likely need help–through some form of recovery program.  Once free, they and you can fully enjoy your soulmate love.  Our best wishes to you and your partner for that fulfillment.

Oh, it’s a temptation:  To twist yourself into a pretzel for your soulmate.  To give up your identity so you won’t displease them.  So they won’t leave.  I’ve felt that too.  Here’s how Jim guided me about this in his March 1989 letter:  “I need you to be free, creative, your own person, mentally powerful, able to challenge me.  I need a full human being.  I care about you so much that I want you as you are, not a pretzelized Kathyoid.  I will not leave you just because you continue to be yourself.  I will go on being charmed and pleased by your otherness.”  There you have the map.  Dare to be yourself.  Your soulmate will behold your otherness.  And will let the wonder of it sink in.

Soulmate.  It’s a word many of us use.  It’s a primal longing.  We want to offer a definition.  It’s the one we guide ourselves and our work by.  In our work in Anthetic Psychology, a high-voltage soulmate relationship is one where you connect at the core depth level–the level of soul.  It means going as deep as you dare with each other in surrendering to openness, to verbal connecedness, to honesty, to cherishing.  If you want a lot of emotional closeness and talking through your feelings, you want a soulmate relationship.  It takes skills, like the ones in our Skills section of this website:  beholding, requesting, extravagance.  That’s what creates the magic.  We’ve forged the way.  You can have this too.  Our love is with you.

“I’ve surveyed your mind, body, and spirit.  And over all I see I cast my strong male look of approval.”  Jim spoke those words to me early in our relationship.  They became part of his wedding vows to me.  His approval was profound for me.  He had come to know me.  My history.  My flaws.  Still he looked at me with approval.  It took his living by the values of non-judgmentalism, love, and empathy.  Then he drew from a deep spiritual place in himself, and, in effect, blessed me.  It was fabulous.  You can do this for each other too.  Behold one another.  Empathize with one another.  Speak words of approval today.

We threw a Father’s Day party for Jim last weekend.  One of our friends walked in with a big cake box.  As she turned it toward us, we could see through the cellophane window.  There, baked into the creamy white icing:  Jim’s and my wedding picture!  The words above it read, “Happy Father’s Day, Jim.”  That was a stunning surprise.  I’m still savoring it.  What an act of love and beholding.  Our friend wanted to honor Jim, but she also wanted to celebrate our love.  We felt that Jim’s specialness and our soulmate relationship was so important, she’d want to bake it on top of the cake.  Now it has me thinking to ask you:  Who would you honor enough to put their face on a cake?  It’s an extravagant expression of love.  Delicious!

I’m looking at two of the cutest dog pictures clipped from newspapers on the hutch above my computer.  Jim put them there.  He surprised me by taping them up for me to find.  He knows I love pups, so he knew it would give me pleasure.  I can look at them as I write any time I want.  And as I do, it does two things for me:  1)  It gives me a surge of well-being.  My beloved sees me.  And knows what I like.  And took the time to express it in a creative way.  2) I feel close to Jim all over again.  Jim keeps teaching us.  Behold your soulmate.  Then communicate that beholding in small gestures that you sense will give them pleasure.  They’re love notes in a creative form.

Lagniappe.  It’s a Cajun word for “something extra.”  And, boy, do you get lagniappe from a high-voltage relationship!  Because when you use the high-voltage skills we teach–like feedback, honest communication, and beholding–you’re going to wind up with not just a close relationship.  You’ll have transformative growth.  When your partner expresses not only what they love about you, but also what they don’t like about you, you’ll see things in yourself that you’d never see alone.  And they’ll be things you can benefit by changing.  So enjoy your lagniappe today.

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.