Most of us define a Soul Mate as a perfect romantic partner who will fulfill every aspect of our being. Soul Mates are in sync with us, they are supportive, sexy, intelligent, funny, and will be part of our “happily ever after” story.
The truth is, life is not quite that simple.
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What Exactly is a Soul Mate?
A Soul Mate is a member of your soul family. These are other souls that come into our lives for one reason or another, and they can be family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, lovers, and even enemies.
We all have a soul, and when we encounter other souls in our lives, the friction of the meeting between two energy forces can create different, intriguing, and challenging effects. Some souls will feel as though they have known each other from another lifetime, some will clash, and some will feel at ease with the other person’s company.
Essentially, some of the souls that come into our lives will help us grow in love and wisdom, while others will aid us in learning difficult life lessons or universal truths.
No matter how fleeting the encounter, each soul that comes into our lives has the potential to provide a significant life-transforming moment, even that one girl who smiled at you from the window of a bus passing by.
Soul Mates serve as mirrors of ourselves. What we see in another soul reflects our own soul.
When we are capable of seeing others’ souls as ‘mates’, (including our enemies), as members of our family that are there to teach us life lessons, then our whole perception and relation to other people changes entirely.
Different Types of Soul Mates
In our language, we have the word ‘friend’, and the word ‘soul mate’ which is essentially romantic by nature. But how would you describe someone that falls in between? Someone who is more than just a ‘best friend’ but doesn’t have the romantic and sexual attraction of a ‘soul mate’?
We need to create new words to express these relationships we have with others. Here are a few words that help to distinguish these deep connections we have in life:
Soul Friend
This is your most common type of relationship connection. These are the people in your life who you have chosen because your ego, intelligence or emotions are harmonious with the others. Essentially, you share the same tastes, interests, beliefs, sense of humor, and values.
While this connection is not as deep as a Soul Companion, a Soul Friend’s company creates little friction. Sometimes Soul Friends can become Soul Teachers, but generally, you are the one who chooses your Soul Friend as you perceive the world in a similar way to them.
Soul Teacher
Soul Teachers are composed of all the people in your life who have come to teach you a lesson. They don’t necessarily teach you intentionally but often provide challenging situations in your life for you to overcome and learn from.
Soul Teachers often come in the form of family members, friends, acquaintances, old lovers, momentary drifters, and even enemies. You attract them into your life because you need to learn something from them. For example, some teach you to cultivate patience for the guy who doesn’t signal before changing lanes, to stop lusting over the ‘bad boys’ that keep crossing your path, or to develop greater compassion and understanding for another person’s way of life and beliefs.
Usually, any friction in relationships is due to a failure in acknowledging something within ourselves, or in other words; a resistance to the lessons our Soul Teachers teach us. We can never change other people unless they are open to do so, but we can change ourselves.
Soul Companion
This would come closest to what we commonly define as a “soul mate” with the exception of romantic attraction. Soul Companions can be males or females, friends or family members. While Soul Friends are harmonized with us through their ego identities, Soul Companions experience soulful harmony with us. The nature of a Soul Companion is much more long-lived and stable to that of a Soul Friend for this reason.
Many times, the relationships you develop with these people will feel as though you’ve known them for centuries, even from past lives. With a Soul Companion, there is a great and deep understanding of the other person and a feeling that you are both on the same ‘wavelength’ of thoughts and emotions. These connections often last for a lifetime.
Soul Companions share both attributes of Soul Friends and Soul Teachers in that they experience ego harmony with us, as well as teach, help us learn, and grow without the friction of a Soul Teacher, as Soul Companions lovingly share with us the journey. One of the reasons for such depth and harmony is that they usually share with us the same Soul Age.
Soul Mirror
The ancient Greeks believed that our souls were once whole, and the Gods divided them into two different halves, and once we found our other halves we would become whole and complete again. That is the essence of Soul Mirrors.
Finding our Soul Mirror often feels like finding a piece of ourselves that was missing (even though, at a core level, we are whole and complete already). Many describe the feeling as ‘returning home’, or developing a greater sense of wholeness in the presence of the other person.
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Soul Mirrors share complementary, compatible life goals, and their spiritual natures are often in sync. They also experience immense levels of comfort with each other that cannot be experienced in other relationships, and they complement each other in many ways through their strengths and weaknesses.
Interestingly, the Soul Age development of a person plays a significant role in Soul Mirror relationships. Mature and Old Souls, for example, are more in tune with finding their mates as they are more capable of experiencing a peaceful, joyous love that is not rooted in infatuation. This love can be grounded in unconditional affection that requires significant spiritual development first to overcome the fears and possessive attachments that are involved in most typical relationships.
In the end, it’s important to remember that none of these relationships are better or worse than the other – they each serve a purpose in our spiritual growth and healing.
Why Soul Mates Come Into Our Lives
There are three ways a Soul Mate can come into our lives, and that is For a Reason, For a Season, and For a Lifetime.
It is important to know of this distinction because once you know why a Soul Mate has come into your life, you can know what to expect from that connection. All too often we find couples, for example, who are still clinging to the dead flower of a relationship that was once blossoming but has reached the end of its season. So let’s have a closer look at these:
For a Reason
When you come across a Soul Mate for a REASON, it’s usually to meet a need that has been expressed in your life. This can be for guidance, assistance through difficult times, support, depth of conversations, or simply as a presence for you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. A Soul Mate can last a moment or a lifetime, depending on the type of Soul Mate relationship it is.
For a Season
Then there are Soul Mates for a SEASON, or people that come into our lives only momentarily. These people may serve as catalysts to share, grow, and learn, or they may present themselves in a moment when we need to overcome our fears of vulnerability, or when we need someone to challenge our belief system, or even when we need to discover a passion we were unaware of. Regardless of the reason, these Soul Mates are only Seasonal and leave once their gift has passed on.
For a Lifetime
Lifetime relationships are predominantly Soul Mirror connections. They teach us lessons that are so deep, so intricate that they require a lifetime of loving growth with the other to assimilate deeply.
In lifetime connections, the strengths of one person are used to strengthen the other, and the harmony between both Soul Mates is so peaceful and flows so well that they often last a lifetime. These relationships are as rare and as precious as fine jewels, and we should feel immensely blessed if we encounter them during our lives.
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There are an infinity of Soul Mates out there that we will encounter during our lives. While some come to teach us something new, others come to share our joys. While some last for only a few months or years, others last for a lifetime.
With these lessons and shared moments of bliss, we learn to grow spiritually and come closer to finding our wholeness as human beings.
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I thought I was going crazy! We are born 5 days apart in December. We fought it forever as we knew each other as children, and met later as teens & crashed to one another innocently. I fought it, thinking he was just too wild for me & not my type, although wildly attracted! We loved many of the same things & sometimes just stared at each other during holiday gatherings. I was very opposite as far as intimacy & very afraid. I just fought it with everything in my being, my parents thought it not a good idea. Years later we contacted each other once in a while. I didn’t want to interfere with both of our long term relationships & neither did he. In between occasional emails we would stop contact for long periods of time. I never told him that my relationship was horrible for years & just quietly exhisted in it. I thought he was in a happy relationship, and I wanted him to be happy. We lost touch & I just lived without feelings for a few years. Like a dead person, but it was ok. I was contacted by my love and he wanted… Read more »
I feel this way right now :( I feel all the emotions everyone bright and as intense and unbelievably so!!! I’m vexed!! At the possibility I’m really not imagining things this time!! It’s real and my perception and instincts aren’t wrong. Wrongfully right. I need this person in my life, I’m also scared of this person in what he does to me. So powerful. But I’m not immature, young. None of the sort. I can read my own mind well enough to predict my future. I know the tricks I can cause just by producing a thought. But I’m overly skeptical of my thoughts. He’s making me question everything about me! And I wanna love him and hold him and do things with him that I’m quite unsure is possible with the actual stage of our relationship right now. We’re just friends, but this intense energy always hits me and I’m afraid I’m not the only one who feels it. He feels it as well. It’s romantic feeling, it’s sexual feeling, it’s deep feeling, spiritual feeling. Can a soul twin be all of these things at once?? But I’ve been struck by lightning, pulled in like a moth to a… Read more »
I meet my twin soul but maybe he doesn’t feel it. If only one way, is that twin soul?
I just know he always accepted everything i gave him ( emotional, love with thanks)
How do you know he is twins soul or not?
i’ve met this guy a few years back right and so when i first met him i got really attached to him for a moment and i got jealous when girls talked about him or said stuff like if they’ve had a chance with him. we started talking the next and how it started was in this class we were both in and it was weird he made a funny face and we both laughed from across the room and tbh with you all it felt like that wasn’t the first time we shared a laugh together it felt like we’ve been doing that stuff for a long time. but now everyday i feel so depressed sad and worried about him. when he’s not in my sight i feel like crying it’s this strong feeling i can’t let it go it’s so painful. we got into a fight one night and he said some very rudet thing she towards me and about me and now he has a gf. but even after that fight and everything he said to me i still feel the same attraction towards him. i feel lost sad depressed nervous worried heartbroken its like i’m missing… Read more »
I think that Elizabeth Gilbert gives the idea of soul mate a definition that immediately struck me as – “Yes, that’s it!” – when i read it. She says: “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…” For me, so far there have been two soul mates (both women) who have had this… Read more »
There is a man that I have known for 2 and one half years. At the beginning he seemed to be interested but backed off and he wouldn’t tell me why. We got together twice but he would pull back. I backed off because of my strong feelings for him; and accepted it was only to be a friendship. But recently he hugged me twice at a gathering and said he loved me which confused me. Later I asked him about his feelings and he said he cared about me and respected me. The trouble is that I have over whelming feelings of love for him, a very strong heart connection and a feeling of having know him in passed lives. When our eyes meet across the room I have feelings of having known him forever. I just want to hold him and be near him.The problem is I think I have a lot more feeling for him than he does for me. Whenever I see him it is like being struck by lightening. My whole body awakens. Also whenever he is around me in the same room during a gathering and then he leaves for home, I feel a… Read more »
What can I do cause I honestly feel lost. This man proclaims he knows I am his twin flame. The one he has always been searching for but I am honestly afraid to feel the same way about him. I do love him but its hard for me to fall completely in love with him. Especially since this is a relationship that is online and for now, I can’t physically go see him but I know he is being truly authentic and raw and genuine. I know cause we talk on Skype and he’s told and shown me so much about his life. Its still so hard for me to reciprocate especially with the way his life is at the moment. I know I don’t want to lose him but to completely open up to him is so hard for me cause I feel I also need the physical connection we haven’t been able to have as of yet to completely be honest and raw and open with him.
I always believe that soul mates exist and they come in various forms. In my case though I always feel like I am born in a wrong place and in a wrong time and I do believe that my soulmate is on the other side of the planet and there is an invincible rope connecting us together and someday somehow we will meet and our soul will become whole again
Interesting to me that the “forever after” I expected did not go quite as planned. Instead, the road took a most unexpected path, and better for all concerned in the “bigger” picture…life will teach, if you let it!
Thank you for this elaboration on ‘Soul Mate’ types. I really enjoy your writing and the clarity in it. You and Aletheia make such a beautiful couple by the way, I was in awe when I first saw the picture of the two of you. Somehow your mutual existence brings me great joy! :) Is it possible to be in a relationship that has the qualities of a ‘Soul Companion’ or ‘Twin Soul’ and at the same time feel like you have never come across this other Soul before, or even that you may have completely different soul ages? How would you explain something like that? I often feel much older than my Soul Mate. It feels to me like he has the purity of an infant soul fresh from the Source, while I have the wisdom of an old Soul looking for my way back to the Source, so we seem to be on ‘opposite ends’ so to speak, and also complementary in that way.