Soulmate Skills

She’s waiting for her soulmate.  She’s not settling.  So, she bought a box.  It’s an intriguing decorative box; sort of antique-looking travel box with an old-fashioned handle.  One side has an ancient globe on it with the words, “Life is a journey; love is what makes the journey worthwhile.”  She’s using her box as a container for thoughts, clippings, and items that represent her soulmate quest and that she wants to share with him when he arrives.  Jim did a version of this as he waited for his soulmate.  He made a scrapbook.  In it he put poems, cartoons, clippings about love.  The poems he read to me at our first lovemaking.  They became part of our wedding ceremony.  If you’re waiting for your soulmate, you can do this too.  Save the special quotes, poems, items that represent your search and your hope.  They’ll bless you and become a source of celebration when you and your soulmate find each other.  They’ll enrich your fulfillment.

How can you recognize your soulmate?  Jim captured it in his 1989 letter to me:  “I am aware more and more that what attracts me to you is the fact that you are my counterpart–and that no one else even comes close to being that.  At the same time, you are someone other than me.  First, you are female, with all the magic and mystery and fascination that that entails for me.  Second, you have a more highly developed spirituality than I, so I am getting constant surprises from you.  Third, that you are Southern.  And fourth, a whole bunch of other things.  So you are my identical twin but not a carbon copy.  Sufficiently identical for us to fall into each other; sufficiently different for us to be constantly surprised by each other.”  There you have it.  You’ll know your soulmate by two things:  how much alike you are and how you are surprised by each other.  As Jim, said, “It’s a nice combination.”

She stayed in a painful relationship.  It was one she admitted was no good for her.  She reasoned, “There are so few good men out there.  If I give up this relationship, I’ll never find another one as good.”  Why do we stay in a relationship with the wrong person?  Dr. James Elliott explains in Disarming Your Inner Critic, “You think you might be able to convert this flawed person (who is perhaps cool and distant) into someone who is not only successful and effective but who really does love you.  On top of this, your Inner Critic will tell you that if you give up pursuing him or her, you’ll never find another one ‘as good.’  Your Inner Critic is just interested in protecting you from the riskiness of giving and receiving genuine love.” (p. 107)  This boils down to that we stay in a dead-end relationship at the hands of our Inner Critic.  The good news is that we can get free.  Our stuckness stems from just one more magnified fear generated by our Inner Critic.  Don’t give that fear the power of belief.  The Inner Critic has no idea what it’s talking about.  There are plenty good men out there.  And there’s one just for you.

“You need to find a man who has a 9 to 5 job,” they told her.  “You’ll be eating crumbs off the first wife’s table,” they predicted.  Sound familiar?  Have you had to face others’ criticism of your choice of partner or of your relationship?  Did it make you doubt yourself or your partner?  We know about this.  Jim and I had to face criticism over and over before we got married.  Fortunately, my wise Jim knew how to handle it.  “You have to use critical thinking skills,” he said.  That means you question and evaluate what your critics are saying.  You also need to have clear criteria for the life partner you want.  Then you’ll have an internal compass to direct your choice.  And to give you confidence.  You’ll have the strength to stand together.  Against the world, if necessary.  Here’s to your clarity and strength!

Brad said:  “You’re my once in a lifetime.”  He cried, got down on one knee.  Emily was moved, as were we.  She said, “Yes!” Even the pundits said it was one of the most romantic moments in “The Bachelor”’s history.  Now, we hear that they are struggling: she with jealousy of his connections with other women during the show’s filming; he with volatile feelings.  What’s going on here?  It’s stuff.  The two lovers’ emotional baggage is getting triggered.  It would be easy for us to be cynical and say, “Of course, romance doesn’t last.”  That’s not our message.  We know that romance; in fact, honeymoon fairy-tale romance can last a lifetime.  It’s going to take skills.  Very specific skills.  High-voltage relationship skills that we teach.  They equip partners with the concepts, values, and skills to confront the stuff in themselves and in the relationship.  Once confronted, we help couples get free from what’s driving it.  It’s going to be their Inner Critic; hurt inner figures; early faulty learning; and perhaps more.  So, watchers, take heart.  Love; in fact, fairy tale love can last.  And Brad and Emily, call us.   We’re at (337) 234-8221.

As I waited for my client to arrive, I plucked an older book off my bookshelf, “TNT: The Power Within You.”  I loved what it said: You have the power to attract your heart’s desire to you.  The author said, visualize clearly and in detail what you want.  Hold on to that image persistently.  You will see it manifest in your life.  I thought, “Wow!  That’s what Jim did to find me.”  He had 56 criteria!  He was very specific.  He knew where such a person would likely be.  And there I was–at his doctoral program.  He imagined, he persisted, he found!  You, too, can use this principle.  Start now.  Image your soulmate!*

*Need help getting started?  See Establishing Criteria for a Life Partner, James Elliott & Kathryn Elliott, available right here on our sidebar.

“Yes, I am both gentle and strong.  My male strength is here for you when ever you want it.  I will be careful to ensure that your slightest fear, your tiniest qualm will get my full care and attention.  It will be an act of love to do this, a deep pleasure for me.”  Jim’s words to me in his March 1989 letter.  Can you see how I was transported with love and valuing of this man?  He was giving me the two things modern women want:  masuline strength paired with gentleness and sensitivity.  How does a man develop these qualities?  By doing what Jim did:  developing his tolerance for strong emotions in himself and others.  Learning to note them when they bubble up; just observe them, “Oh, there’s some pain.  There’s some sadness.  There’s some anger.  I can just let them be what they are; I don’t have to do anything about them.”  Then learn to take pleasure in caring.  Feel the good feelings that come with connecting with another with love.  Cultivate these, and you will be a man women have to have.

It’s January 6.  That’s Epiphany in the Christian church calendar.  It marks the finding of Jesus by the 3 Wise Men.  For Jim and me January 6, 1989 was an Epiphany for us.  We found each other 22 years ago today.  Finding is an archetypal moment.  Veils drop away and a deep meeting takes place.  Here’s how I described it to Jim in my love letter to him two weeks later:  “For me it came like a dawning of recognition.  You sitting to my right at the meeting table; me not knowing you.  Then I slowly,very slowly, turn in my seat, and with a comfortable, warming, thawing, I settle into a place of recognition:  I receive you. I know you.  Why, I love you!”  Oh, what a moment!  It changed our whole lives.  We have never been the same.  We have experienced the deepest fulfillment.  We wish the same for you:  A Finding; Fulfillment. (See where we met: http://www.visitasilomar.com/)

I am feeling thrills of memory today.  It’s January 5–one day before Jim’s and my meeting 22 years ago.  I just love to remember it.  So, I’ve been tracking my steps of the days leading to that fateful day.  Last night, as I talked to Jim about what I was doing January 4, 1989, I had a realization.  January 4th was the day I was driving up the California coastline toward Asilomar Retreat Center, where my doctoral meeting would be held.  It was also the day I got out of the car to take in the most gorgeous flaming sunset over the Pacific Ocean.  And that’s when it happened.  I got cracked open–emotionally speaking.  You see, I had been hurt in love, deeply enough to make a cynic out of me.  “There’s no man for me,” had become my motto.  But there on a blanket a few yards ahead of me, also beholding that sunset, sat a couple, their heads together.  You could feel their love.  The power of it ripped through the armor I had constructed around my heart.  I walked back to the car a changed woman.  A woman open to love.  I share this not just for the pleasure it gives me, but also to tell you, if you’ve become disillusioned or even despairing about love, you can still find your heart’s desire.  You’ll just have to be cracked open.

“I just don’t think I’ll ever find my soulmate.  Do you have to have faith in order to find your soulmate?”  It’s a question people often ask us.  From personal experience, our answer is “No!”  Doubt is just the result of magnified fear delivered by your Inner Critic.  And you know what?  Your Inner Critic does not have the power to block your soulmate’s arrival.  I had lost all faith that I would find a man who would fulfill my heart’s desires.  I was cynical.  But, when I walked into that lovely meeting room the first day of my doctoral program, there was one man sitting there.  I saw him in profile.  He looked intelligent, wise, strong.  I thought, “Looks like a psychologist.  Probably wouldn’t be interested in me.”  Hear that?  My Inner Critic was still insinuating doubt in my mind.  It didn’t matter.  Ignoring the 14 other empty chairs in the room, I made a beeline for the chair right next to him.  That was Jim.  And he was my soulmate.  So, if you want to learn from my story, look at my state of mind.  I was doubting all the way up to the moment I saw him.  That didn’t stop our finding each other; nor our falling in love; not even our marrying.  And it couldn’t stop the profound fulfillment of my deepest longings.  So, we say, faith or not–your soulmate is coming.