Love ~ Relationships

One of the most enduring quests of womanhood is to make sure we have a date for Valentine's Day. The holiday of hearts is heralded as a time to be wined, dined and treated like a Goddess and Valentine's day is a "concept" that has captured our fancy as the ultimate date night. By the time February 14th rolls around, no one wants to miss out on dinner, chocolates, flowers, and a mushy card with a love note. For many of us, it is a goal to work toward all year round. Valentine's Day becomes a target date on the calendar, where we mentally pencil in: find a boyfriend!

But wait . . .
This can be stressful. We build up our expectations and begin to believe there is only one day of the year that we'll have a chance for an awesome romantic evening. If it doesn't happen, it's disappointing.

Love & Relationships
When I created Find Your Spiritual Soul Mate: Transforming Your Romantic Destiny with A Romantic Resumé the goal was (and remains) to help people rise above the disappointment of the love they haven't found yet … heal the hurts from the past … and create the love they desire by letting go, moving on, and clarifying what they long for in a relationship. So if you are single and searching this Valentine's Day, don't despair! For now, suspend the search for the one who might be The One. Instead, take time to focus on yourself and to clean up stuff you no longer need, get your life in order, and simultaneously, get ready for love.

In the coming months, accompany me as I share some pearls of wisdom on the topic. These tips are culled from more than 25 years of work on the front line of the Relationship Revolution and many more than that out and about on Love's Battlefield. These tips will be announced in the monthly issues of Holistic Expressions and compiled below. Of course, you are also invited to take my relationships course over the next 30 days.

February: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Take responsibility and do your part
In soul mate relationships, people find an end to the sense of separation because it truly is like being reunited with self. Your soul mate will help heal you but can't be responsible for fixing you. Even if he or she wants to, don't let 'em! Even soul mate couples with great relationships have issues to heal -individually and with one another's help -- but it is so important that the process of releasing old beliefs, healing broken hearts and letting go baggage from relationships past is well underway before we tango with new love. If healing has not begun and progressed -- through therapy, grief work, spiritual practice and any other form of transformational work - we risk being needy and over anxious, and jumping into the wrong relationship.

March: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Acknowledge and Slay Personal Dragons
In the mythology, fairytales and Hollywood movies that shape our consciousness about soulful love, epic lovers have a series of challenges to meet and master, and a few dragons to slay, before they can claim the precious prize of everlasting love. The same holds true for modern soul mates. While some people seem lucky in love -- as if they were born in a state of readiness for true intimacy and partnership - the rest of us typically have some life to live and some lessons to muddle through first. Some of us have baggage we need to drop off at the Heart Break Hotel before we can truly unite with another at the highest level of loving communion. Work hard to clean house.

Toss out old stuff, memorabilia that depletes your energy and keeps you stuck in the past, and ex-loves who no longer have any business being in you life. Liberate yourself from the past by cleaning out one draw at a time until you work your way to creating closure with the things you've been stalling on. Do it for you… and the love will follow.

April: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Pay attention to signals and intuition
Our souls continuously urge us forward. We get subtle intuitive messages, signs and sometime warnings. We are given directions to follow, inspiration for places to go and people to see, and guidance on every level. When spirit begins to do its thing of bringing us together, don’t get caught asleep at the wheel or so absorbed in mundane living that you can’t recognize love when it knocks on the door.

May: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Develop the capacity to identify true love
By the time your soul mate stands before you, eyes searching into your own, heart connected to yours, you will have both done quite a lot of personal and spiritual development work. Work on developing the capacity and maturity to distinguish real love from hope created by fantasies you project on someone who has "potential." In order to recognize true love you have to sense of what love looks like; you must be able to see through your spiritual eyes! The emotional healing we take on often gives way to great spiritual openings, and allows us to discern true love with confidence. Soul connection is tangible; there really should be no guessing or wondering when the real thing comes along.

June: Relationships & Love Tip ~
When true love arrives. . . How to know when you know?
Arielle Ford tells the stories of 101 soul mates in Hot Chocolate for The Mystical Lover. She says there was one telltale sign that confirmed to these soul mate couples that true love had arrived:  "There is almost always a distinct moment when soul mates recognize each other. Sometimes it’s simple, mutual love at first sight. And sometimes one or both parties hear a small, still voice confirm: 'she’s the one' or 'this is the one your will spend your life with.'" Liberation from things that clutter our lives, closure with the past and clarity about who we are is what enables us to hear our own inner guidance so loud and clear.

July: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Honor your path, know when to change routes
The journey to soulful love is ongoing in daily life. Lived with consciousness, each step will count for something. Even the difficult aspects of romantic evolution can be considered '"time served'" in preparation for true love. No relationship is bad or wrong, as long as lessons are being learned and no one is getting injured. It’s important to discern when one particular path has run its course. Many of us get our best training in relationship boot camp. We may beat our selves up for bad dates and time that seems wasted on Mr. or Ms Wrong, but in truth, they are an important, instructive part of the journey. The grand awakening to what soul mate love is comes by discovering first hand what it is not. Refusing to see the truth about nowhere relationships keep us stuck; insisting on continuing on a dead end path limits possibilities. It is difficult to let go of a relationship that offers companionship, sex, fun. But when you want a true soul mate, holding on to a relationship that is imitating love keeps us from the very thing we say we desire. Eventually, we figure it out. Many people take a break from searching or even swear off relationships for a while. Its at those times that many people report meeting the loves of their lives -- when they least suspect it and when the aren’t '"searching.'"

August: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Acknowledge the Mythology of That Guides You
The concept of soul mates is as old as time. In Edgar Cayce on Soul Mates: Unlocking The Dynamics of Soul Attraction (ARE Press), author Kevin J, Todeschi talks about the many images and stories of lovers who were destined for one another that are ingrained in us from history, folklore and religion. Isis and Osiris. Krishna and Radha. Cupid and Psyche. He eloquently points out how in fairy tales, it was the kiss of one certain prince who could awaken the Sleeping Beauty; and only one Beauty could tame the Beast and return him to a state of grace. You don’t have to go for the big, epic love story. It’s not everyone’s destiny to have a love so great and earth shattering that it ends up recorded in human history. We may long for that level of profundity and yet how many of us really want something that huge and all consuming? It is important to recognize the myth that has helped shape your love life and cull the best aspects of archetypes that inspire you. Re-evaluate and rewrite it: take the best parts and favorite aspects and make them your own. Many humans are daunted by the concept of always having to live and love like a God or Goddess, and yet we are happy to know that we can tap into that energy as we choose.

September: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Consciously create your own soul mate reality
Hollywood movies provide plenty of fodder to inspire hope in sacred love. As well as fill our psyches with images of "perfect love" that is unattainable to most of us and impossible to maintain every moment of the day for the rest of us. Hollywood gives us the added advantage of being able to create our own reality, stories, drama and personal legends. It’s important to live the legend that is personally empowering. Somewhere out there is likely a guy or gal who is working on the same material and beliefs. You will have similar vibrations and mindsets. And you will recognize each other from the get go – as long as your lives are not cluttered with insurmountable physical, logistical, legal, emotional, spiritual refuge from the past.

October: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Don't hate being single
It's important to embrace being single and honor the state of not yet having a mate. It's important to use time as a single person to prepare for being in a relationship. Some people hate being single but the truth is, the time of longing and yearning for love is the time to prepare for real love by assessing your life, creating the life you want to be leading -- even if there is no one to share it with yet -- and reflecting on past mistakes that you do not want to recreate.

November: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Let your imagination lead you closer to the love you desire
There are many practical and spiritually creative ways to encourage your soul and subconscious mind to raise the vibrational forces on Project Soul Mate. Begin to imagine the love you want then psychically tune into that love. Write, visualize, daydream, pray, and love your way to a great relationship. Cut out magazine pictures of couples in love, makes lists and write stories about the relationship you choose, use any creative tools you are comfortable with to ask for all the divine help you can get! Get together with a friend who is getting ready for love and partner up on the process.

December: Relationships & Love Tip ~
Find the right pace for love
Some of us imagine that when we finally find "the one" is when we will finally start living. To the contrary, our job is to live fully now… that is how your soul mate will know you. If you are traveling a fast lane of life with little time for nurturing the heart or spirit, or if you hide out in a way that causes life to move too slowly, the window of opportunity could be delayed or missed. Everyone's path to soul love is unique. The cosmic timing for our personal love stories varies. Awareness followed by appropriate action, can emotionally, physically and spiritually prepare you for love when Cupid's coveted arrow comes your way. Help Spirit do the work of bringing you and your soul mate together.

Relationships & Love Tip ~
Know that when you find one another, it will truly be a reunion.
Jewish mysticism offers one of my favorite descriptions of soul lovers. This is from The Zohar, the key doctrine of Cabalistic wisdom: "Each soul and spirit, prior to entering this world, consists of a male and female united into one being. When it descends on earth two parts separate and animate two different bodies. At the time of marriage, the holy One, blessed be He/She, who knows all souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before, and they again constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and left of one individual."


Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway is the creator and instructor of the Self-Healing Expressions course Find Your Spiritual Soul Mate: Transforming Your Romantic Destiny with A Romantic Resumé and author of A Goddess Is a Girl's Best Friend: A Divine Guide To Finding Love, Success and Happiness (Perigee Books, December 2002). In the coming months, you'll find more "Finding Your Soul Mate Tips" here and in upcoming issues of Holistic Expressions. Click button to learn more about Rev. Laurie Sue and her uplifting course for singles.