Soulmates

 

Have you ever met someone and after a brief interaction felt like you’d known them for years? Maybe they love the same sports or have read the same books. Maybe you found out some little things you have in common like playing dungeons and dragons or playing pranks on others. Maybe you share a birthday, or your families come from the same country or hometown or neighborhood. When you meet someone like this, there is an instant connection, like you’ve found a long-lost sibling. You might call a person like this your soulmate. 

 

There is something profound and powerful about being with someone you can relate to and connect with at this level. Being known and understood is a deep, deep desire of our heart and a person like this often leaves us feeling known and loved. Do you have a soulmate? 

 

I think there is a romanticized idea floating around saying there is a soulmate out there for all of us. But is that a realistic idea? We’ve all stood in grocery store checkout lines to see the tabloid covers advertising the latest breakups and dramas playing out between famous people who just a year ago had been labeled as soulmates. 

 

What’s going on here? Who’s lying to us and what’s their aim? For the tabloid editors the motive seems clear, to sell magazines and make money. Maybe it’s easy to dismiss their use of soulmate to make a buck. But what do we do about our own genuine experience of betrayal, our wounds, and the times we’ve been abandoned by those we at one time thought of as soulmates?