As someone who describes herself as deeply in love with her soulmate, SweetP, an article about The Soulmate Myth caught my eye on the blog feeds a few weeks ago.  I kept it aside to share it with you.

Doug Manning over at Proactive Living was musing on the overuse of the word "soulmate" and things to be wary of, in his post The Soulmate Myth.  He reckons "A soulmate is a romantic but essentially flawed concept.  No two figures dance forever to the same drum."

As Doug reminds us, just because you find your soulmate, doesn't mean you can take the foot off the pedal, in terms of your efforts and input into nurturing the relationship.  "The great danger of the soulmate myth is the accompanying belief that the relationship will be easy over time. Relationships decay when someone puts their feet up."

I'm pretty confident that SweetP would agree that at times the "mate"ship can leave the soul floundering at times in our relationship. 

When I come home crabby and take out my frustrations with others on poor old SweetP, it's not very matey or soulful!  The soulmates that have fearfully skulked out of the building with my anger and frustration, wander back into the kitchen, when he asks (maybe a little tentatively and carefully) "What's up?"

It's when I remember it's not him I'm shitty with, but it's him I'm taking it out on. That's when the long hug happens. 

You know the kind of hug I mean?  The one where you hold each other until you can relax against each other and the world somehow feels a bit better.  Whatever the issue or problem was, it hasn't changed.  It's still there waiting to be solved.  But your attitude to it and your behaviour towards each other is able to be different.

But we couldn't reconnect like that or as readily as that, if it had been a while since we'd talked about anything more than the surface stuff in our lives.  In other words intimacy is a  necessary  component of soulmating.  And remember when I say intimacy , I don't mean  "sexual intimacy", I mean the many actions that give our partner permission and encouragement to really "into-me-see".

"Working at relationships" (You know that "thing" we all know we're supposed to do, but many have no idea how!) is a daily committment.  Taking it for granted - spells it's end!

So folks! Let's get down to tin tacks!

What have you done today or this week to give your partner permission and encouragement to see right inside you?  How often does he or she get to know better that "real you"?  The you that is filled with all your golden qualities, as well as all the flawed and ugly bits?

Why wouldn't they deserve to know you better? 

How long since you created a safe enough environment, and asked the questions, that would encourage your partner to show you the real "him/her"?

Having posed those questions, I have to ask myself the same ones! 

Don't know about you, but I'm heading off to ring SweetP and ask him for a date.  Somewhere that will allow us to talk.  Hmm!  Maybe, a rugged-up walk along a wintery beach followed by a warm coffee.

My first question to him will be.  "So tell me, what's been the high point of your week and how did that feel?  Tell me ALL about it!"  And then I get to listen.  The greatest gift of all.

Comments

[Marjorie]

after reading the article The Soulmate Myth my thought was "...if we could educate only half the men in the world to feel that way there wouldn't be so many single women..." :)

[Leah]

What a wonderful, thought-provoking post Chris. Thank you! It reminded me of 2 things. 1) we all need to be 100% responsible for our 50% of the relationship. We can't fix everything all of the time but we can make our part of the relationship as conscious, open and soulful as possible. 2) I haven't been doing enough of 1) lately.

When I am tired and it seems that everyone just wants one more piece of me, Ian seems to come off the worst. Kids, clients and even the dogs get some of the best of me, but poor Ian sometimes gets the worst of me.

Maybe it is because I care for him so much and know that he cares for me that I allow him a level of "into-me-see" that he doesn't need to see.

[Chris]

Hmm Leah
Maybe it's that he needs to see what's UNDER the bit he's, perhaps reluctantly, seeing