Soulmate Skills

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.

Want to know the secret to creating security in relationships?  I named it in my 1989 card to Jim:  “This morning I’m meditating on your devoted availability to me.”  How did Jim do it?  “You arrange your schedule to receive my calls (and you never ever act sacrificial about it), and you leave your phone on all night when you know I might need you.  I know absolutely that I can call you anytime, and your voice, when it hears mine on the other end, will turn all warm and delighted and say, ‘Aw, Kathy.’”  So, if you want to create security, or if you’re trying to assess whether a person will provide you with that security, observe whether they are there for you.  As I told Jim, “To be assured of a loving welcome is a wonderful thing.”

Oh, that waiting time for your soulmate can seem like forever.  For me, it was nine years between my first longing and Jim’s arrival in my life.  But, despite its tediousness, the waiting time is an essential time.  Here’s how I described it in my 1989 letter to Jim:  “You said that you weren’t ready for me before.  Yes, I feel I have been ripening for you; for our relationship.  I am more a full me than I have ever been.  I think, ‘How strange that this man so perfectly mated to me should come into my life when my life is most full.’”  So, soulmate questers, don’t despair, your waiting time is an important time for your own development.  Use this time to follow your sparks; follow your personal bliss.  You are ripening!

Red flags.  They’re behaviors that are early warning signs to relationship trouble on the horizon.  He might be a chronic flirt with other women while you’re dating.  It’s a predictor of infidelity once you’re married.  She might say, “Don’t let me cut and run.”  It’s a clue she’ll be withdrawing and distancing.  He might push you, take your car keys, restrain you.  It’s a good chance he’ll escalate into worse abuse.  We know it’s a temptation in the blush of early love to want to overlook such red flags.  Your black hole that longs for love will want to turn a blind eye to the pain these red flags are already causing you.  We recommend you take executive charge of your black hole.  Be alert.  At the least, the red flag is an indicator you need to request your partner get therapy for these behaviors.  At the most, you need to scratch this person off your list.  Make way for a partner who treats you lovingly and with respect.  If you find this hard to do, we recommend you get counseling to help you break free from your drivenness to put up with pain.  We want you to be free!

Here’s a tip for how to recognize your soulmate:  There’s a realization; in fact, a revelation that will emerge in your mind.  You’ll marvel, “I have never loved like this before.”  I know Jim and I each wrote those words to each other during the first six months of our relationship.  Oh, you may have loved before; even deeply.  But the love you feel for your soulmate is deeper yet.  It’s at the soul level, deeper than you’ve ever been.  It will have an element of surprise and even awe for you.  It must be mutual, of course, for the relationship to develop.  And, you’ll need skills–like the ones we teach.  With such soulmate love and the skills for creating closeness, you’ll be well on your way to ecstasy.

Permeable.  It means literally “having pores or openings that liquids or gases can pass through” (Webster’s Dictionary).  It’s a good word to describe the quality needed to have a high-voltage soulmate relationship.  Being open to each other.  Letting in concepts, feelings, and of course, love.  I wrote Jim in my love letter two weeks after we met, “Your permeability idea is beautiful.  Yes, we are permeable to each other.  Yes, it is a joy.”  To be permeable, you’ll need to assess that your partner relates to you in an accepting, non-judgmental, loving, caring way.  Once you see that they are those things, you can open yourself.  It will be bliss.

Wow! So your first date went well.  Now what?  Jim and I want to share with you what we did.  We’re considering our ten-day doctoral meeting our “first date.”  What we did was talk about it–to each other.  At length.  Listen to Jim’s letter written about the night we parted:  “As I lay in bed, all kinds of images came to me–your dear face, your empowering words, the song you sang.”  (He’s bringing up the images of our meeting that stayed with him. You can do that too.)  Then he told me the impact on him our meeting had produced:  “I was driving to go shopping for groceries, and a car cut in front of me.  I was about to get angry when I said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and I was now speaking from some deep place in me, and the episode of the other driver now seemed quite insignificant; just a little ripple way up there , not very important at all, and I could love the driver of the other car.  So I now felt that serenity that I hadn’t known at all that I was lacking.  And you had evoked that in me.”  Here, Jim puts into words how I had affected him; even changed him.  You can do that too.  So, if you’re wondering what to do after the first date, we say, talk about it.  Review with each other the scenes left in your mind.  Most important, put into words how that experience has impacted you.  Do these things, and you’ll be creating your high-voltage soulmate relationship.

If you’ve read Our Story-Part 9 (click on the Our Story tab above), you’ll know that today was the day 22 years ago that I made that outrageous request of Jim.  After only six days of knowing him, I asked him to inseminate me!  I explained that I was asking for him to imbue with his presence, his strength; with a belief in myself.  From that first sight of him, I had seen his personal power, and I wanted that essence of who he was inside me.  Not surprisingly, after I dared to speak it, my Inner Critic pounced.  I told Jim, “I’m afraid you’ll see my request as a physical come-on.  My Inner Critic says it’s phony; it’s just sex I’m wanting.”  In response, Jim taught me an important perspective:  “But even if physical sex were to be involved, it would be symbolic of deeper insemination.”  You know, Jim was right.  At its best, sex is not just a physical act.  It is an expression of the merging of heart, soul, and body of the two lovers.

Did you know you are a sculptor for your partner?  According to the late relationship researcher Caryl Rusbult, if all goes well, partners sculpt each other to help them become the person each aspires to be; in fact, the ideal that each desires for himself or herself.  I loved reading this research, because it gave me a name for what I asked Jim to do for me when we first met.  In fact, after only five days of knowing him, I asked him to inseminate me!  I said, “I have a request that you inseminate me with your strength, with a belief in myself.”  And he began that process that very evening.  He has continued it over our entire marriage, teaching me the skills for becoming strong; for becoming the person I ideally wanted to be.  He’s affirmed the strength in me.  So, now I say, “Jim, you are my Michelango.  You have sculpted me and brought out the best in me that I aspired to 22 years ago.”  We share this with you so that you, soulmate questers, may assess any potential partner:  “Do they affirm me and help me become, not what others think I should be; not what they think I should be; but what I would love to be?”  If you’re already in a relationship, you can help your partner in this unique way:  Hear their heart’s desire for what they long to become.  Then affirm and support them in doing just that.  Rusbult says here’s the true test:  If your partner is being your Michelango, you will feel exhilarated.  I can attest to that!

We love this item from the New York Times.  Research shows that the happiest relationships are ones that foster self-expansion.  That means we increase in knowledge, experiences; even capabilities and a greater sense of who we are.  This effect is especially pronounced at the beginning of a relationship.  So, soulmate questers, you should be able to assess this early on.  In my second letter to Jim after meeting him, I wrote, “Thank you, Jim, for naming me, loving me, seeing me and receiving me.  It’s a transforming experience.  I have been a powerhouse of activity on my doctoral work; others have sensed some aura of spiritual openness in me.  They are sharing things of themselves they never have before.”  We recommend you add the self-expansion test to your criteria list.  To read more, here’s the link (it also has a great quiz for you to take):