Dating : 5 Steps To Finding Your Soulmate

#3 — Be prepared to get hurt.

To love someone so deeply, to fall for someone so completely, to connect with someone so perfectly, is what so much of us want.

A soulmate.

But soulmates are not easily had.

Few actually discover their own.

It’s an idea I know exists, and yet I struggle to discover on my own. Often it’s the waiting, the wondering, the unknown that cause the most headache. The most heartache. I’m in no rush to find that person, and yet I want them to appear. Many days I need that person to appear.

And yet forcing it, rushing it, will inevitably cause it to dissapear. The idea of a soulmate is as fragile as the soul itself. It needs to be handled with care. Sudden movements and the dust it turns into will slip through the fingers I clasped in prayer for that very soulmate.

There is no mathematical formula in tracking such a person down. But there are some tips to help improve the chances. I know I need to follow these tips. Sometimes it’s the most difficult part.

But nobody said it would be easy.

You can’t begin to find your soul mate if you first can’t find yourself.

Do you have friends who hopscotch from one relationship to the next? As if they are afraid their dating resume might have gaps that look undesirable to future mates?

Maybe that sounds like you.

There is a draw to a new relationship. To have someone new by your side. Yet when you invite someone to join you along the journey of life you spend time on them, which you need to spend on yourself.

It’s impossible to know who your soulmate is if you don’t understand your own soul. What nourishes you? What fills you with joy so pure it’s necessary to sustain life? You need a true, intimate knowledge of yourself.

This might be what I struggle with the most. There are mornings I wake and refuse to make eye contact in the mirror. I don’t want to see myself. My reflection doesn’t want to see me either. I don’t take selfies for this very reason. I don’t like to look at myself. Maybe I just don’t like to see what’s looking back. Perhaps I’m afraid of it. Afraid of what I might see. Or what I won’t see.

And yet I know I need to understand myself, appreciate myself, and love myself before I can find and appreciate and love someone forever. Perhaps this is the one step I need to take before my soulmate becomes clear.

The quest to find oneself is a journey not everyone makes it out of. There are trials and pitfalls along the way. Distractions to pull attention and traps to hinder. Few people understand themselves as much as they believe they do. I have no idea how much I know about myself.

Some days I think I know everything. Other days I believe I know nothing.

Hard to find a soul mate when you don’t know who you are and what’s needed to complete you, or your soul.

I was talking with someone a few days ago. Her friends were getting on her because she goes all in with all of her relationships. They told her to stop doing that.

But, in my mind, I want someone who’s all in. If they’re half out, what half am I dealing with, and what half is being left out?

When the boat casts off, you can’t be half on and half off. That’s going to spell trouble.

So if you’re in a relationship, go all in. You can only go so far when half of you is connected to the dock.

And if you can’t go all-in with someone, that should tell you something.

Get out.

Of course, going all-in has its consequences.

You’re playing with fire here. Your soul mate likely won’t turn up on the first go-around.

And because you’re all in, your emotions are all in. That means it’ll hurt that much more.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone going through a breakup and they seem unfazed?

If so, it means they’re suppressing their emotions, which is not healthy. Or they never really were all that emotionally involved. If that’s the case what was the point?

So just know if you’re serious about finding your soul mate you’re going to get hurt. It may even be by your actual soul mate.

Because everyone is on their own journey, and it doesn’t mean the two will line up at the same time.

There are days I’d swear my timing is never right. Like Fate and Time are playing a game where the winner gets to decide how to mess with me. Time introduces me to the perfect girl the day I’m moving across the country. Fate makes sure I meed someone who’s already married. Sometimes the lines blur with whether it’s Fate or Time with their hands dipped into my search for a soulmate.

It’s just a battle I need to continue through. It’s a battle I’m sure we all have.

I have a relative who asked a girl out multiple times throughout college and later in life. Turned down every time. They’re now married with three kids and are more in love than ever.

Relationships hurt when your emotions are all in. But that’s how it is supposed to be.

Makes finding your soulmate that much sweeter.

We’ve all been there. A bad breakup hits, friends want to pull you outside but instead, you stay in, eating ungodly amounts of pizza rolls and ice cream, only to eventually hit the gym (because, damn it, you’re going to look hotter than ever before and show them how dumb they are!) and then get back on the dating scene…only to run into the same problems.

Discovering my wife was cheating on me was about as low as I could fall. I haven’t been in a true relationship, or at least one I’d tell my mom about (which might be the very definition of a true relationship) since then. It’s been a decade.

Perhaps I learned a less too well.

Maybe I’m running from the lesson.

We all have friends who get their hearts crushed, then end up dating the same kind of person with the same kind of results.

We’re attracted to who we’re attracted to. Can’t change that. But we can learn from each failed relationship.

And while it’s all too easy to blame everything on the other person, this is where understanding your true self is so important.

Understanding your true self means you’re also honest with yourself, and if you’re being honest, you’ll know where things went wrong.

But here’s the thing. Just because it didn’t work and you know what caused it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Some things don’t just work and they were never your soul mate.

Your soulmate will love you for who you are.

Sure, you listen to death metal and they listen to pop-country. Yeah, they have cats (cats that hate you as much as you hate them) and you have dogs.

These are surface differences. Surface differences are problems only for surface relationships. Soul mates connect at a deeper, spiritual level. It is a bond that doesn’t rely on these external flaws or variables. It’s why when you find your soul mate you’ll feel instantly connected with them. As if you’ve known them for lifetimes because your souls had intertwined long before your physical beings existed.

It is this connection that makes it so powerful. It pushes past what doesn’t matter. Because no matter how many arguments surface relationships have whether Seinfeld or Big Bang Theory is better, soul mates understand this is nothing but unnecessary noise.

(Although do keep the toilet seat down. Soulmates or no, wars have been fought over this).

Finding your soulmate isn’t easy. It isn’t supposed to be. The journey brings about physical, mental, and emotional trials unique to each individual.

So don’t get discouraged when others seemingly find theirs. Your path is different.

Enjoy and learn from the emotional, spiritual journey. I know I’m trying. I don’t know how well I’m doing, but I’ll find my way down this path. I hope you do the same.