The myth of the soul mate

Photographer: Alan Bassett Postprocessing by Jade

 Alternatives  has been  active since 1982 and regularly hosts interesting talks in a historic place, the St James Church in Piccadilly. The speakers are drawn from people who have made a name for themselves in the Mind Body and Spirit world.  All spiritual traditions are honoured, from all cultures. In other words, Alternatives is a focal point for holistic learning. I remember Alternatives from way back, I used to be a member then I moved away but more recently I rejoined, after stumbling upon their rich storehouse of podcasts, freely downloadable - all you need to do is join as a member and there is no fee for this. Luckily for me the talks at St James Church are also within easy reach, you can bet I shall go to a few - I am particularly keen to hear in person Summer McStravik, the creator of Flowdreaming (see my earlier post).

Photographer: Alan Bassett. Postprocessing by Jade

The list of podcasts found on the Alternatives site is impressive. An interesting talk is by Vena Ramphal, whom I have actually met, way back when she was still engaged in pursuing a career in dance - at some point we even shared a dance teacher in India but that is another story. She is now a passion coach - I mentioned her in passing in a previous blog post. It's amazing that sometimes we keep on bumping into the same people again and again in our lives, people that we seem to have left behind and then reappear and we also find that we have been moving along parallel paths, developing overlapping interests...

Where was I? Oh yes.  A passion coach is not a relationship coach - Vena works with people individually rather than with couples seeking ways to save or develop their existing relationship and her goal is to get people to come to terms with matters of the heart, what we call 'romance', and help them to grow and learn to love themselves first, to connect with themselves. She deals with the whole range of intersecting issues: passion, romantic relationships, sexuality.  These are often problematic in our society, we are not normally trained to manage them smoothly, we kind of go into romance and sex quite blindly yet there are skills that can be learnt to help us through. It can be devastating when romantic relationships/attachments  do not work. Often people keep on making the same mistakes all over and much baggage is accumulated which we inevitably carry with us into every new relationship.

Photographer: Xanadu Images

There is much that Vena talks about that really needs to be taken in and reflected upon. I was however particularly struck by her take on the soul mate idea, I felt it resonated with my own views. In a nutshell, there is no such a thing as a soul mate, it is a great misconception, this idea that there is only one person that is the perfect match for us is an oversimplification. What Vena suggests, drawing on the teachings of her yoga master and her study of the Indian erotic tradition (Vena has a PhD in Indian religions) is that we should instead think of soul love. When you are in soul love almost any person you meet you have a great connection with. "For me soul love is beyond duality, it is not about right and wrong and not about good and bad, win and lose". This means that truly a soul mate is made, rather than given, anyone can be transformed into a soul mate, this way you give yourself access to more possibilities. Whereas the idea that a soul mate is someone that is born as a perfect complement to you (and you may or may not find him/her) is pretty disempowering, the idea of soul love opens you up to connecting deeply and meaningfully to anyone. I do remember someone telling me once that we were not compatible, our characters and personalities were too different. I did say that compatibility is achieved, rather than being there from the start, provided both parties want to achieve it.  Most of all love starts when you can accept yourself and love yourself as you are. 

Easier said than done.

If you wish to listen to Dr Vena Ramphal's podcast please go here . You may have to become a member to access it but as I said it costs nothing.