We all have experienced or have heard of someone meeting another person for the first time or knowing them over a period of time and feeling an unexplainable sense of having “known” the person before - a sense of instantaneous connection with this person. We feel like we’ve known this person all of our lives and we can talk to him or her about anything. They make us feel the way we have never felt with anyone else. This feeling of “having known” is registered not only as an emotion itself, but also, and probably much more intensely as a shared identity and awareness, and represents to us unlimited and unconditional love.
For many of us however, this deep need for unlimited and unconditional closeness that falling in love brings has been corrupted by the misinformation we received right from when we were young. Directly or indirectly, we’ve been taught that someday someone will come along and bring light into our darkness. This person will look into our eyes and we will feel our soul awakening. All the love, all the sexual lust will surge forth from our loins and rise to new levels. He or she will touch us so deeply on so many levels that our life will never be the same. So when we meet a person we feel we have an unusual connection with, we a unconsciously assume that this is the person who holds the key to our happiness and has the “unique” ability to make us wonderfully happy. Something about the person that we feel so “connected” to leads to overwhelming feelings especially if we allow ourselves to be obsessed by it. Usually we overvalue the other person and shower them with such endearments as "my one and only love" or "my soul mate".
Many surprises however await this kind of idealism, most of them unpleasant. In many cases our object of love is transmuted right in front of our very eyes. But because we so desperately want to hold onto our dream of unlimited and unconditional love, we try to do more and more for the object of our fantasy until we have done all that we can do and can do no more. Then comes the final torment – they leave us. And it is like our tender soul has been ripped from our body. We feel devastated, lost, abandoned and betrayed.
From my years of work helping single men and women find the love they’ve always wanted, it has become more and more common for people to want to have a magical soul mate experience. Whenever someone comes to me and I ask what they are looking for and they tell me “my soul mate” my feelers go up immediately. That's because finding that “miracle” person who meets our romantic idea of a lover is in most cases is an illusive process. Often I am reminded of the number of times people have come to me excitedly to report that they have met someone new, with whom they have an instant “soul” connection - someone they feel they have known all of their lives, whom they can talk to about anything, someone who makes them feel the way they have never felt with anyone else, someone who is their soul mate. And within four months or even weeks they come back to tell me how this person really wasn't for them after all.
The fact of the matter is that when we meet another person we feel an instant attraction to this person because we are sensing how that individual experiences him or herself. We are drawn to the rhythm and energy the person radiates because we sense that a union with this person can bring new possibilities for our soul to flow freely in love, truth and bliss. But quiet often our first impression is played out dramatically by the false beliefs about love imprinted into us in the early years of our development. We have very limited abilities for understanding such an intense feeling of connection with someone else, and romantic or idealistic love is the only familiar response to such an extremely unusual situation. And when our real experiences fall short of our romantic dreams we feel compelled to try to control the relationship so that we can stay happy. The problem is that we can not control a relationship or the other person and be happy. We will end up feeling victimized, in pain and hurt.
Only on some unusual occurrence do two people who have an "instant connection" actually maintain a long-term love relationship. Usually this is because these people were fortunate enough to have met someone with whom they could build mutual admiration and respect and a deep, trusting friendship. It would be wonderful if all of us were that fortunate, but that doesn't happen to the vast majority of people in this world. And as long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy, we are setting ourselves up to be victims. We will have fewer and shorter relationships than work-it-out believers. We will also be more likely to be abandoned and betrayed or to have unexciting, unfulfilled relationships characterized by deceit and lies.
Exciting, passionate, fulfilling and committed long-term love relationships require information to build a solid foundation. And information gathering requires time. It has been proven over and over, effective and frequent communication can improve the balance in shared identity and increase shared awareness. And when we have a conscious intention to love unconditionally and in an unlimited way we are more open to being actually loving, rather than being stuck in a fantasy about love that is going on in our own head.
For many of us however, this deep need for unlimited and unconditional closeness that falling in love brings has been corrupted by the misinformation we received right from when we were young. Directly or indirectly, we’ve been taught that someday someone will come along and bring light into our darkness. This person will look into our eyes and we will feel our soul awakening. All the love, all the sexual lust will surge forth from our loins and rise to new levels. He or she will touch us so deeply on so many levels that our life will never be the same. So when we meet a person we feel we have an unusual connection with, we a unconsciously assume that this is the person who holds the key to our happiness and has the “unique” ability to make us wonderfully happy. Something about the person that we feel so “connected” to leads to overwhelming feelings especially if we allow ourselves to be obsessed by it. Usually we overvalue the other person and shower them with such endearments as "my one and only love" or "my soul mate".
Many surprises however await this kind of idealism, most of them unpleasant. In many cases our object of love is transmuted right in front of our very eyes. But because we so desperately want to hold onto our dream of unlimited and unconditional love, we try to do more and more for the object of our fantasy until we have done all that we can do and can do no more. Then comes the final torment – they leave us. And it is like our tender soul has been ripped from our body. We feel devastated, lost, abandoned and betrayed.
From my years of work helping single men and women find the love they’ve always wanted, it has become more and more common for people to want to have a magical soul mate experience. Whenever someone comes to me and I ask what they are looking for and they tell me “my soul mate” my feelers go up immediately. That's because finding that “miracle” person who meets our romantic idea of a lover is in most cases is an illusive process. Often I am reminded of the number of times people have come to me excitedly to report that they have met someone new, with whom they have an instant “soul” connection - someone they feel they have known all of their lives, whom they can talk to about anything, someone who makes them feel the way they have never felt with anyone else, someone who is their soul mate. And within four months or even weeks they come back to tell me how this person really wasn't for them after all.
The fact of the matter is that when we meet another person we feel an instant attraction to this person because we are sensing how that individual experiences him or herself. We are drawn to the rhythm and energy the person radiates because we sense that a union with this person can bring new possibilities for our soul to flow freely in love, truth and bliss. But quiet often our first impression is played out dramatically by the false beliefs about love imprinted into us in the early years of our development. We have very limited abilities for understanding such an intense feeling of connection with someone else, and romantic or idealistic love is the only familiar response to such an extremely unusual situation. And when our real experiences fall short of our romantic dreams we feel compelled to try to control the relationship so that we can stay happy. The problem is that we can not control a relationship or the other person and be happy. We will end up feeling victimized, in pain and hurt.
Only on some unusual occurrence do two people who have an "instant connection" actually maintain a long-term love relationship. Usually this is because these people were fortunate enough to have met someone with whom they could build mutual admiration and respect and a deep, trusting friendship. It would be wonderful if all of us were that fortunate, but that doesn't happen to the vast majority of people in this world. And as long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy, we are setting ourselves up to be victims. We will have fewer and shorter relationships than work-it-out believers. We will also be more likely to be abandoned and betrayed or to have unexciting, unfulfilled relationships characterized by deceit and lies.
Exciting, passionate, fulfilling and committed long-term love relationships require information to build a solid foundation. And information gathering requires time. It has been proven over and over, effective and frequent communication can improve the balance in shared identity and increase shared awareness. And when we have a conscious intention to love unconditionally and in an unlimited way we are more open to being actually loving, rather than being stuck in a fantasy about love that is going on in our own head.
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