Loving through our preferences isn’t evolutionary
Perhaps like you, I believed dating via strictly adhering to my list of preferences was my ticket to the romantic relationship promised-land. Not who would challenge me in just the right ways. Not who would bring cosmic balance to my character traits. But instead, who would check off my ego’s list of personal likes and dislikes most completely. What I wasn’t accounting for is how this would just make my ego comfortable and unchallenged which inhibits my growth rather than stimulates it. Loving only what I prefer leaves my ego un-evolving and complacent which doesn’t align with my personal spiritual growth ideals. Shouldn’t our romantic relationships both compliment and challenge us deeply if they are to be our most vital spiritual partnerships?
When we are looking for a mate or when we think we've found one who's qualified, we search for our pre-conceived lists, our values. We take inventory as we get to know this new one to ensure they match our carefully curated lists of preferences and watch for areas in which they stray from those perceived needs. Though valuable work, we do so completely blind of our bias–our tendency to want the world itself and the world of others to be and believe just like ourselves. To surround ourselves with people who just "get it" the way we do. People who share our worldview, who don't challenge us to venture too far off the beaten path of what we already find acceptable. Someone 'easy' because easy means we don't have to use effort to understand them or effort to bend and stretch ourselves to embrace their differences. We want to love what we like, what we prefer, to be made comfortable, and we think finding love is a matter of finding someone with the most closely matching list of likes and then celebrate by liking it all more intensely. But the deepest love isn't a matter of liking what we already find acceptable more intensely, it's a matter of growing ourselves. True love is a path of ever expanding embrace...
I used to date people who I liked because they were like me and because they were like me, they didn't notice my shadow. They were complicit accomplices in my crimes of keeping my shadow hidden, so to speak. They only communicated back the good they saw in me, which of course was music to my ears. It's what I thought love was about--that we find someone who simply allows us to be comfortably ourselves. Who loves us for simply being us. But, what is that self we are busy comfortably being? Is that our ego or our soul? There's a clear way to answer such a question: our egos never want to be seen and questioned to the core of their operating system and do everything they can to defend such hacks from ever happening. On the other hand, our soul wants nothing more than to completely dismantle the ego's fear-based programs to get to the core of what Love really is.
While it's important to find someone who you can share a large overlapping portion of reality with, who you can see eye-to-eye on the big issues with, who can really see you at your best, you would do well to attract someone who can also see you for your worst. Someone who brings your shadow forward rather than who helps you keep it hidden away. Someone who is willing to go beyond their personal preferences, to show you what's beyond yours, and to meet you outside of the 'known' because it's in the unknown where you'll find your greatest growth. This is a soulmate.
We can't find a soulmate, we can only be one or not. Your mate can choose to be one, or not in any given moment and there is no perfect being out there waiting for you which doesn't require hard work and love-filled effort to enact mutual soulmate-ness.
A soulmate can love you unconditionally and conditionally and knows the difference.
A soulmate doesn't believe in true love, they know it is they who have to make love true. Who has to choose it, again and again in the face of what seems difficult to accept because it doesn't match their unconsciously programmed preferences.
A soulmate both compliments and challenges you, not to become worse but to become your best by helping you transmute your worst. Who knows that we all have to walk tenderly through our worst in order to redeem it, like spinning straw into gold.
A soulmate is willing to walk there and back with us, unselfishly, not because of what they gain but because it is simply what Love would have us do.
A soulmate would also not tolerate abuse because they understand everyone is worthy of kind, loving regard.
You don’t find a soulmate. You become one. In each moment, you choose whether to relate from ego—defending preferences and avoiding discomfort—or from love, which seeks understanding and growth.
Can you find your soul? Do you know the difference between your soul and your ego? Most relationship advice thought leaders can help you with the ego but if you want to bring the unconditional love of Being into your relationship life, you need a spiritual path. You need to develop a relationship with the ‘spirit’ aspect of yourself in order to perform soul-craft. You need to learn how to relate from your soul to another soul if you are going to become someone’s soul mate.
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