From Rev Alicia

So...what are your "soul mate" thoughts? Are you looking for your "other half;" your soul mate? Have you found him or her? Do you believe such a thing exists?

I will never forget the day, when I was 15 years old, and my dad and I sat at the kitchen table and had a talk about these things. Now, to set the scene, you have to know that my mom and dad had an incredible marriage. They not only loved each other, they liked each other. They rarely fought, and had lots of fun. I surely would say that they were one-and-only soul mates. As my dad and I talked, I asked him if he believed that there was one perfect mate for each person. My romantic heart was horrified when he replied that he thought that a person could fall in love more than once, with more than one person, but when you make a decision that you will spend your life with one then you commit to that one for the rest of your life. Not the romantic reply that would support my "one and only" theory. Of course the reply I had been looking for was that when he saw my mom, it was all over; that was his one and only and there never was nor would there ever be another woman for him. As it turned out, my mom and dad were married for almost 60 years when he left this realm. And my mom still says that there was no one but my dad for her.

As I have come to grow and mature personally and spiritually I, too, have come to see things differently... differently than I had previously...differently than my dad. The concept of soul mate has changed dramatically for me. I have learned that "falling in love" and loving are two different things entirely. I learned that romance and soul mates are not mutually exclusive, nor are they always what we thought they were. To say that there absolutely either is nor is not such a thing as soul mate would be to limit God.

Like all of our wonderful, diverse universe of body, mind and spirit, the concept of soul mates is a paradox. So, I invite you to consider this possibility. In the Revealing Word, Charles Fillmore co-founder of Unity states: "Man is Spirit, soul, and body. Spirit is the I AM, the individuality (the God part of us). The body is soul expressing, and soul includes the conscious and subconscious minds. Soul makes the body, the body is the outer expression of the soul, and bodily health is in exact correspondence to the health of the soul."

In other words, the soul is the sum total of our present level of awareness. It is the vehicle through which we are growing and perfecting our awareness to it's full potential. This is the part of us that grows and develops as we mature and gain spiritual wisdom and understanding. The more we grow and develop, the more of our true essence; Spirit, we express...the more health we express...the more prosperity and harmony we express...the more love we express and experience.

Considering this...to me a soul mate is more like something we earn by right of consciousness than something we find by chance in the elevator, telling us "you complete me."

According to the law of attraction, we draw by right of consciousness that which we need for our spiritual growth. Could this mean that the unhappy relationship experiences we have had in the past were soul mates of sorts...helping us to develop our soul? And then when we "got it," when we learned the lesson, devloped the spiritual quality or strength, we were able to either release, or elevate that uncomfortable relationship to a higher level. Hmmm...worth pondering. Holding THAT thought, what if we quit too soon...before we "got" the lesson? What would we most likely attract then? This is where the "frying pan into the fire" cliche comes from.

I think that the biggest error belief that some of us tend to hold about soul-mates is that we will meet our soul-mate, fall in love at first sight, and live happily ever after. We think it will be easy and smooth riding for the rest of our lives.

Our relationships, like our souls, are vehicles through which we grow and develop. We learn and grow not by basking in the glow of romance, but by learning to give and receive and share; we learn and grow not by our easy compatibility but by overcoming our differences and challenges; we learn and grow not by the downhill coast, but by the uphill struggles we share and support each other.

And I embrace and even higher concept of soul-mate. I see all people, and all creation as soul-mates. Through our actions and interactions we come together to learn and develop as together we succeed, fail, love, hate, laugh, cry, pray and praise; as together we overcome self-centered narcissism in favor of the truth of our Oneness in Diversity. Then...and only then...will we truly, fully and completely experience our Oneness in God.