Category : Wisdom & Inspiration

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Is There a Soul Mate for Me?

Excerpted with permission from the new book Best Thing Ever: Escape Disappointments and Drama and Let True Love Into Your Life by Sky Blossoms, for which we were interviewed. 

When I was about eleven years old, I watched my very first soap opera. The main heroine met the man of her dreams, but soon after that, he tragically died. About twenty episodes later, she met someone else and fell in love again. This was shocking to my childish idealism. How could she be with another person? Isn’t there only one perfect mate for each of us? Don’t you meet your prince, fall in love with him, and live happily ever after?

I grew up understanding that we are not limited to a sole path of happiness, and our lives can take different turns and be joyously shared with more than one partner. It was liberating to realize that we are not bound to a single person for contentment and a blissful life. However, the question then becomes, if we have no pre-determined mate, what makes someone the right partner or the one?

BestThingEverSimply put, it is a mate with whom you can fulfill the purpose of your relationship. Whether a reason behind your romantic union is to experience fun and adventure, or lust and passion, or to feel secure and gain financial benefits, or to have children, the right partner is someone who can help you accomplish your goals. When you yearn for a multidimensional experience—a genuine and soulful connection on every level: physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual—the definition of the love of your life also becomes multifaceted.

In this case, the one is a chosen partner with whom you can craft a delightful and lasting relationship and create a truly wonderful and exciting life. Such a romantic union will enrich the lives of both of you in every single way. Your hearts will open to each other, and your aims, goals, and values will be in alignment. You will evoke the best in one another and become a mutual source of inspiration and encouragement. Each of you will feel more empowered and shine your brightest, reach for new heights and have more clarity than ever before. Loving your mate will feel like you are expanding. Your communication will be seamless, and your attraction will be very strong.

When your mutual love and deep appreciation grow, the two of you will frequently feel as one, as if your very souls intertwine and saturate each other. This kind of kinship is often called “soul mates,” because your affinity is much more profound than similar interests and sexual chemistry. The one for you is the mirror of who you are. In order to recognize him, you have to see yourself clearly, feel your core, or your eternal essence, know your power, and keep your heart open to love.

Becoming the authentic—and thus best—version of yourself is all the work you’ll ever have to do for your relationship. The Life-giving Creative Source of the Universe will take care of the rest, including attracting the mate of your dreams. And yes, there is a person, perhaps more than one, who is waiting to become your blissful co-creator of whatever experiences you desire.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman and William Thetford

Sky_BlossomsSky Blossoms is a sought-after personal guide known for catapulting her clients into the next orbit of personal happiness. Her uncanny talent allows her to see beyond the surface challenge and catalyze a shift in energy and consciousness. Sky’s natural gift is combined with a medical degree and more than a decade of studying psychology, human behavior, traditional modalities, and metaphysical approaches. Find out more at www.BestThingEver.com.

Thank you for including us in your beautiful book, Sky! ~Mali & Joe, authors of The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships, 52 Prescriptions for Happiness, and the upcoming book The Soulmate Lover, and creators of Mantras for Making Love

 

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Love Your Body—In the Bathtub!

Lisa Vincent, who is featured in our Overcoming Jealousy course, graciously allowed us to share this story of her experience reading the "Loving Your Body" chapter of The Soulmate Experience in her bathtub. Learn more about Lisa, and her "Loving Your Body" workshops inspired by the book, at LisaVincentLifeCoaching.com.

Perfect timing. I had spent a very long work day at my computer and was totally exhausted. I wanted to drop immediately into bed. I was in the bathroom getting ready for the evening when I looked over and saw the bathtub. It called to me. I was staying at a friend’s place, and my home for the past two years only had a shower. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more this exciting Friday night, than lay in that bathtub and read The Soulmate Experience.

I didn’t know when I began reading the second chapter, “Loving Your Body,” that I could not have created a better setting than lying naked in a pool of shallow, warm water, unable to avoid the entirety of my nakedness. Little did I know that during this reading session I would not only be physically naked, but that the exercises in this chapter would lovingly undress me into emotional nudity as well.

Loving my body was something I had been working toward for a very long time. I had spent most of my life being verbally and emotionally abusive to myself – mind, body, and spirit. I found the exercises in The Soulmate Experience that coach you into loving your body to be extremely powerful.

One of the exercises is to choose very specific body parts and study them: identify what role they play in your life, appreciate them, thank them, love them. I started, as the book suggests, with my hands. I sometimes looked at my hands in disdain because the skin that covers them is not as thick and resilient as it once was, causing wrinkles and the ability to see more clearly the veins that carry blood through my body. As I soaked in the tub, looking at the amazing hands that allowed me to type this very post, the hands that held my only child, the fingers that ran through past lovers’ hair, I felt immense gratitude and love. It was as if I separated ME from my hands. I looked at them as an entirely separate entity. Like an old, beloved friend.

As I studied my hands, I suddenly remembered sitting on my Grannie’s lap as a child, holding her hand in mine and tracing her pronounced veins with my finger. One of those times, my mother saw this and told me that what I was doing was rude. My grandmother must have loved and accepted her hands, or maybe it was me she loved and accepted, because she told my mother that it was all right and allowed me to continue tracing.

I had no idea, at this young age, that protruding veins were not considered beautiful. I loved this part of my Grannie’s body. I loved the way her smooth, shiny, veiny hands looked and felt in mine. Who decided that these features were anything less than magnificent? And when did I start believing it? If I thought of my Grannie as beautiful then, can I think of myself as beautiful now?

This series of thoughts extended to the rest of my body. The book mentions a woman being grateful for her soft belly that had once protected her unborn child. I contemplated this as I reclined naked, pushing into the softness of my own belly. I began to weep in gratitude for all of the parts of my body that worked perfectly together to create and deliver my own cherished child. This belly of mine represents the MIRACLE that occurred there. How could this piece of me, which played such an important part of something so miraculous, deserve anything less than my reverence?

If negative thoughts about my hands and my belly were lies, then what other lies had I believed? Is that small roll of flesh on my back, below my bra, really that bad? And what about my thighs? Is anything less than perfectly smooth flesh really disgusting? Would I have thought so as a child if no one had told me it was? Are my legs any less worthy of love, appreciation, and gratitude for carrying me around all of these years? Will my lover still enjoy having these legs wrapped around him during a passionate night of lovemaking? How could the distraction of not loving this part of my body inhibit that passion?

Do the imperfections of these body parts mean that I am not sexy? Oh no, folks. I AM SEXY. The Soulmate Experience explains a mirror exercise. The goal in this exercise is to see your body as a whole. Although I did not immediately practice this, I can tell you that it works. In my Bikram yoga practice, I come face-to-face with myself in the mirror, in form-fitting clothes, and watch myself twist into very interesting positions on a regular basis. When I first started this practice, I was obsessed with what I saw as the flaws of my individual body parts. Then, one day, I saw MYSELF. I was struck by the realization of my beautiful form. I stood in awe at the awareness of my body as a whole. Now, when I pass a full-length mirror, I make it a point to stop and appreciate the shape of my sexy body.

The “Loving Your Body” chapter does not focus only on appearance; I just strongly relate to that. It also encourages you to care for yourself. Listen to your body. Attend to its physical needs. Develop a caring, loving relationship with yourself.

I knew before reading the “Loving Your Body” chapter of The Soulmate Experience that it is important to care for, love, and accept my body, but following the exercises encouraged me to take the time necessary to deeply consider the concepts within. The awakening I had around the way I felt toward my body was invaluable. My body is my home. It’s where I live. Shouldn’t we all be comfortable, happy, and at peace in our own homes?

Lisa Vincent is a life coach and co-developed the online course Overcoming Jealousy. Contact her through TwitterFacebook, or her website for a free 20-minute consultation to see how she can help you to love your body, embrace a healthy lifestyle, quiet self-judgement and criticism, overcome jealousy, insecurity, or loneliness, release unhealthy partnerships, produce loving relationships, and create a more peaceful, joyful experience of life.

Mali & Joe are the authors of The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships and creators of Mantras for Making Love and Overcoming Jealousy.

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Soulful Reflections from Love Story

These words are a gift from the provocative and prolific Love Story on Facebook.

My soul's purpose is to lead me to people, places and circumstances that will get me to grow and force me to become more. Your soul knows you better than you do; it knows what is important to you. Your soul knows what it will take to get you to act and it leads you to that. Your soul will lead you to painful situations, because it knows it is stoking your desires. As you continue to run into the same problems over and over again, your soul will continue to bring you more and more pain until you do something about it. It doesn't care how long it takes; it knows it has forever and it never gets frustrated because it knows you eventually will respond.

Our soul seeks out and intentionally leads us to problems, because it knows we need their gifts.

The place where I have felt the most in touch with my soul is not a physical place, but a non-physical state of grace. It is a soul connection. It can be likened to an awakened meditative state where everything feels so right. In this state you understand that everything IS right. Worry and fear become impossible to even understand in this place.

Let me give you an example of this intelligent form of energy. Do you remember what it was like when you were learning how to ride a bike? With intense concentration you would move the handlebars from left to right very quickly in an attempt to keep yourself from falling. Now to describe what happens three weeks later: you get on and ride with no concentration and not even a thought of where, or of how to move the handlebars. At this point YOU are no longer riding the bike. Through repetition, you trained this energy how to ride and now it rides for you.

In this state, the soul takes over the mind and directs your body without consciousness.

The way to get to this place, or more accurately, this state of grace, is to "allow" the flow of divine energy through you by relaxing from the inside. I started out in an almost traditional form of meditation with my eyes closed and my wrists facing the ceiling but while laying down. Now I strive to live every waking moment this way. You do everything better when you let your soul take over.

No need to ever concentrate on your breathing or to try to breathe differently in your meditation; just allow the divine energy you just let in to breath you.

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Unstuffed: The Incredible Fullness of Just Being

This guest post and paintings are the work of Leslie Escoto, host of Tell a Story Online

I have given in to that enticing voice of materialism many times. I have had the wants, the I-gotta-have-it, the Let-me-at-it, the It-is-all-about-stuff. Just come look at my home and you immediately can see that I’ve been there and my world is very stuffy. I have treasures, and heirlooms, and art, and music, and books, books, books and of course the proverbial junk… but good junk… important junk… the “I might need that some day junk.” My stuff are my old friends…they sit with me, never saying a word, but always eager to give me comfort when I need it. My big, puffy, reading chair upholstered in a Parisian street scene cuddles me when I am lost in another world seen through the eyes of a good writer. My angel collection, secreted in a curio cabinet, but always watching over me and helping me through the dark times. My hand me down piano, sitting quietly but always reminding me of history and of those who have passed before me.

I love my stuff. I have always loved my stuff and I have actually, believe it or not, gathered more stuff as I have traveled my life journey. Memories of family, of friends, of times, of travels, of adventures, of history, of those incredibly special moments in one’s life that are to be treasured and kept forever, and having something material helps keep these memories alive. I always have had more than enough stuff to provide memories but it seemed enough was never enough and my stuff kept growing, and multiplying, and taking over my space, my life… but who needed a life when I had stuff?

But not so long ago, I came to a place on the path I was traveling that knocked me to my stuffy core…I had to say goodbye to much of my stuff. Through no fault of the stuff but through my own pursuit of material wealth, of keeping up appearances, of wanting to be part of the stuffy crowd, I over indulged and the weight of all the stuff was too much to carry and it and I went crashing to the ground, all of us breaking into a million tiny pieces. I was devastated and immediately thought about what people would think of me… I let my stuff go… I betrayed my stuff… I was weak… I was a loser of stuff.

It took me a long time to peel myself off the floor of nothing. "How can one go on without stuff?" I asked myself. What will I do without things, without junk, just plain without? I agonized over this and hid for many a day, hid inside myself as I had no stuff behind which to hide. I cowered in shame that I had been such a horrible caretaker of all the stuff that had trusted me to keep them safe and secure in my home of things. I didn’t know where to turn, where to go… I needed to find more stuff to love and love me but where, how?

I searched high and low for an answer about getting over the devastating loss of stuff. I went to places where stuff can be found and asked about how to find peace without it. I roamed through areas of other peoples’ stuff, reaching out with hesitation and asking, “May I simply touch your stuff? I lost mine and I need to feel again.” I was now a stranger in a strange land… I had once lived there but now was alone in an empty wilderness of nothing.

And then, like a bolt of lightning I found an answer, a very simple answer… an answer I found in this comment by an anonymous human being who understood my pain and loneliness about my stuff but provided a way out of stuffiness.

“There is something perverse about more than enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes.” Yes!!!!!! That was it. Stuff was a self-fulfilling prophecy… when we had it we wanted more of it and stuff bred stuff and more stuff and even more stuff. It is only when we lose our stuff that we know that we have enough, that the stuff we must cherish and protect and love is the stuff inside us, the stuff we are made of, the stuff of heroes, and patriots, and doers, and givers, and lovers.

So yes, I have accumulated more stuff and it still gives me pleasure and comfort, and I look around and admire my stuff and touch it, and care for it, and love it. But what I love more is me… the stuff from which I am made, my most prized possessions… my heart, spirit, and soul.

So here’s what I do now… I am not afraid of losing stuff, in fact, I find great joy in giving it away. I often pick out one favorite item of my stuff, I hold for a brief moment, enjoying it, loving it and then I give it away to someone who has little or no stuff. And my stuff now has a new home, will become a cherished possession, will be taken care of, kept safe, appreciated and fill another’s heart with the joy of stuff.