Finding your soulmate, finding yourself.

The concept of the 'soul mate' means finding somebody who 'completes' you, like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together or a lock and key that opens the door to a new world. In a way this is true - there are relationships that push you through personal growth and transformation. Once you have walked this path, everything is different - you have changed and the world has changed for you. These relationships can be like catalysts - whizzing into your life and turning everything upside down. But what happens next? Do these life-changing people have to disappear out of your life?

Why do we crave the other half?
What is it we find in this other person that makes it so hard to exist without them? Just like Romeo and Juliette, we cast ourselves as one half of a whole that can't function independently. After entering into such a deep affair, being left can make you feel suicidal, despairing and deeply depressed. Going back to a 'normal' life seems like going back to watching black and white television instead of plasma colour. It is unappealing to say the least. However, we all know in the end 'time heals’ and life goes back to normal. You wonder how you will live without the intensity of your lover, but of course, you do.

This is the most frightening thing of all: should you even give it a chance. Usually after such an experience of being in love, the answer is NO. Or even if you want to, there are many walls and fortresses around you. It is never the same the second time around. We become frightened and resistant to the experience we no longer trust. If you do happen to fall - all you want is reassurance: Will it be worth it in the end? Will we end up together? Will it last? The need to hold on to this love object can become almost obsessional. The thought that they may sail out of your life, never to be seen again, is terrifying. You imagine going through the rest of your life with unresolved feelings. Somehow, the plan is that if you can get through the challenges, fears, difficulties, break-ups and make-ups, you will then be able to establish a solid ground upon which to build a future. It seems like a pipe dream, but in a way it is the only dream you have. Cutting off the feelings is akin to cutting off one of your limbs - purposeless and unbearably painful.

What is this psychological process so powerful that can grip our hearts?
You may think you can release yourself simply through struggle or persisting in your efforts to bring the relationship together - but you will only sink further into the quicksand you are standing in. There is a way - but it is not an easy path. It requires you to let go, to be honest with yourself, to have the courage to open your heart and strength to rise above the games and petty power struggles. Many books have been written: ‘He's just not that into you’, ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, and the advice within these books will just crumble in the face of the intensity of feelings you experience in this sort of bond. Pop psychology has its place and can at times be very empowering to help you to shift your perspective on things. However deep emotional changes require a deeper level of insight.

What Jung says about projection?
Psychologist Carl Jung reveals a hidden psychological process, which he calls 'projection'. This process can explain a lot of behaviour and psychological distress. Essentially, Jung felt that we all project aspects of ourselves out there into the world, into other people, and then struggle to unite with these missing parts.
Jung argues that we project the qualities that we ourselves possess out there into someone or something else. He names two major projections that people possess: the Anima and the Animus. The Anima is a man's projection of 'woman' and the Animus is the woman's projection of 'man'. So where do these projections comes from? Well, the anima and animus, for example, develop during childhood. As you grow up as a little boy or little girl, you develop your gender identity as male or female. In order to be female, you must block off the male aspects / qualities that you possess and identify more strongly with the female qualities, and vice versa for the male. This process of denying, suppressing and controlling these other unexpressed feelings, qualities and parts of the self, lead you to feel incomplete, empty and unfulfilled. In effect, you are not truly being your whole self.
Jung believed that this leads people to see in an 'other' what is denied, repressed and controlled within themselves. So you search for your missing self in the other.

Do soul mates really exist?
I am not saying that a soul mate is simply a projection of a part of you into someone else. I think this explanation misses a very essential and important aspect to our existence: Our Oneness.

The Oneness is a strange concept in our modern individualistic world view. Yet the idea of the oneness of all things exists in all major spiritual and religious traditions. In the Oneness, we do share qualities. We are everything but we also share everything. So it is true that I may be a woman and you may be a man. I am not stuck in this identity and neither are you - because in the Oneness we are everything - but at the same time we’re not only One. Jung suggests that the psychological is all there is. Everything is within and there is nothing without. I agree that everything is within, but also there is a sharing with the universe too. It is this state of open sharing that we are trying to return to.

Obsession, attachment, possession, loss, abandonment - all these feelings are related to a sense of separation from the whole. I see the process of healing as two fold:

1. To connect with the universe through relationship with yourself
2. To share with the universe through relationship with others

Effectively this means releasing attachments, identifying areas of suppression, control, and knowing your projections so you can then create a clear pathway of interaction with an 'other'. In a word: it means self-knowledge. You can't know if you are connecting with a real feeling for someone else until you know yourself. Then when you form relationships, they are based on real creativity and appreciation of another person rather than being drawn to them because they are a reflection of your 'lost' self.

Ultimately, this is the goal of all relationships - to join together in a way that honours both people and in a way which is creative and harmonious. Once you feel that sense of connectedness, you can embrace love, be in harmony with your lover, and see the big picture of your destiny once more. But in order to reach this 'light' you must enter into the tunnel and discover its depths and follow its twists and turns. This is not a journey to take lightly, but one we are all destined to make at one point or another - because the pull of love is simply too strong.