Soulmates

It was Synchronicity to me that Paulo Coelho posted the topic of Soulmates up for discussion as it has been the very question in my mind to the Universe this past week. Speaking out my feelings on his blog today really helped me get one step closer to my very important truth in my rather difficult relationship.

"My partner knew i was meant to be his when he was 10. I only fell in love with him at 15. We spent 8 years overcoming parental disapproval, cultural gaps and disapproval as he is of Chinese descent and i of Indian descent, distance, and our own continual personal struggles to finally go from falling in love to marriage.

It’s not actually been always easy, but there has always been an unexplainable attraction, a ‘fit’ and feeling of coming home when we are both in the NOW together. But that rarely happens as he has had bipolar disorder for many years now and for a decade it was undiagnosed which means i lived through many betrayals of trust and heartache at his unexplainable and even risky behaviour. But i could never leave..even at his worst, i saw that he needed me even when he couldn’t, and that i was his only lifeline through it. We have 3 little girls and at times, it has seemed that i have put them at risk staying on with him, but i know now that the force driving me to stay with him was more than just my own willpower and fear of being alone. It seemed the divine love of God itself was pushing me on even when the whole world couldn’t make sense of what was happening and on hindsight i know now that indeed, it was.

After diagnosis and ongoing medication, he is finally improving after 10 years of me wondering where he had gone and why the man i fell in love had “left” me. The heartache was excruciating..having someone you love right there next to you but so far away in their heart and love. But lately, i have had times with him again when time stood still and the Universe opened to me. My heart has been searching for many years the reason why our love seems destined to be a struggle to be together, for even though we are married..it is maybe a collective 2-3 weeks at the most in a year when we truly are in each other’s presence, when we ‘fit’. But it is those times that keep me fueled to stay on and keep up the fight for our dream of true love to come true.

Is he my soulmate? I have read now that soulmates are people we feel comfortable with and have an uncanny ability to connect with, a sense of unexplainable familiarity. As in Brida, there can be more than one. Lately, i have met many soulmates and in my case, they are all women. And it has been their friendship that has kept me strong and ‘topped up’ to love my husband better despite the pain he unconsciously causes me due to his illness. So soulmates definitely exist and are so important i feel for us to feel loved enough to grow and to dare to reach for that happiness that is attached to our true purpose of being.

But from my own experience i think now..soulmate is not THE ultimate one for a person, but definitely AN ultimate someone in your life. Sometimes it is even a mother, a father, a sister, a friend, or a stranger you meet on a cafe by the highway for just one evening of your life. Soulmates can be a masculine or feminine. But your TwinFlame will always be the opposite gender as it is the EXACT match to you..and the relationship will be a struggle unless both souls are evolved in the NOW equally.

So is my partner my soulmate? I wonder now if he is not..if he is in fact my TwinFlame. For the connection to him is strong, we are almost telepathic at times without trying, i KNOW when he has had a high-risk episode even when he is in another country and i will be the one who will contact him as he by then will be too wracked with guilt to reach out to me. And when he is present in the Now and well..for that small window in time whenever that happens - he KNOWS me to my core and i see in his eyes my entire purpose of being as if i am staring into the eyes of God himself..so deep is the knowing, and so complete is my soul."

I am still learning..life is about the journey is it not?

Going with the Flow

Sometimes when you've reached the end, you just need to LET GO. At some point, we realise that we really can't ever have control of anything and that life is a tune that plays regardless of our preference for the music. We just learn to stop trying to change the music, or staying off the dance floor in a sulk and start learning to dance instead. It's not giving in or giving up - it's accepting.

Accepting isn't defeat. It's wisely adjusting your sails according to the wind so you keep moving forward.
It's a self-loving thing to do..to ALLOW ourselves to seem weak and accept what we don't want. Truth is, it takes far more courage to let go and accept, and then to grow and flourish despite the setbacks..

I know how it feels to have been there so many times, crying out in my heart what the hell?? Why? But then i realise it's just me fighting to hang on to my own desired outcomes and avoid my fears coming true. And that's all i do each day..fight. I keep rowing against the current. But when i finally let go..i find myself being swept downriver rather easily and i just need to learn new ways of rowing.

I've found that instead of feeling that i should get everything right upfront to control outcomes, i can instead trust myself to be able to handle whatever happens. That way i just follow my heart and intuition, decide on the best at the given moment and never look back with regret, doubt, guilt or self-incrimination. Because I CAN. To hell with people's opinions, responses and reactions. If i am giving my best - that's that.

Honesty

I miss my girlfriends. I miss just being me.

It's hypomania season again and i've been so unavailable to all but my most necessary relationships, mainly my three girls and whoever i feel i must interact with daily. But i'm much stronger inside, a lot of pain has been dealt with and healed so i am a much better person and mom to my girls this time around through the season of single parenting.

When hypomania hits i become extremely bossy. In fact, i become an overwhelming control freak. Why wouldn't i? I get so scared of potential mess and possible pain. But mostly i just want my man back from whatever planet he's left me for, and my desire for control is my way of trying desperately to avoid the changes that seem to take him further and further away from me and his daughters.

But i can't.

And I think i am coming to a point of total honesty with myself, something that happened in the depression cycle and set me freer there. But it's now time to do the same kind of honest awakening in the hypomania cycle. It occurs to me now that the best way for me to avoid myself regressing when he changes is to separate both cycles into two significantly different lives with two completely different men. Like winter after summer. You need different clothes, tyres etc. It's not just in people's mind that they need to dress warmer.

And so, it's no longer just in my mind that i am living with a different man now than i was a month ago. I am giving myself permission to make all the necessary adjustments without feeling, as in previous times, that i have failed to love him enough to keep up with him and that he hasn't loved me enough to stay with me. I am also feeling less guilt about lapsing back into being a bossy control freak. I have not regressed as a person. I was merely caught off guard and coped the only way i knew best against change that threated the most important relationship to any girl - her love-life.

No, this time i am going to gain much ground by being completely honest with myself. Just like in depression, it's not my call to heal him or walk his road and bring him back. I can instead just love him and myself and my girls from my heart..and this time be honest about how much my heart can handle from day to day.