What is a soulmate, and how do you know if you’ve found yours? Meeting your soulmate is the stuff of rom-coms—and apparently of real-life, everyday individuals as well.
What Is a Soulmate, Exactly?
A soulmate, according to Dr. Michael Tobin, is someone with whom you feel intimately linked but not in a dependent or needy way.
The driving concept in a soulmate connection is that needs are satisfied equally since a soulmate relationship should challenge you to shift from selfishness to giving.
“It’s the understanding that this person with whom you live your life is a part of yourself,” says Dr. Michael Tobin, a family and marriage psychotherapist. “A soulmate is someone who has a lasting influence on your life.”
Your soulmate is a companion on your life’s journey; you need one another to grow beyond the constraints of your own self.”
How to Tell If You’ve Found Your Soulmate
If you’re wondering if you’ve found your soulmate—or are now with your unique flame, Dr. Tobin has good news for you: “I believe everyone could meet their soulmate.”
To find your soulmate, however, you must first know that humans are not designed to be alone and that the aim of a relationship is not only to meet our particular needs—but rather as a challenge to grow—and to assist our partners in reaching their potential.”
In terms of when you could meet your soulmate, Dr. Tobin believes there isn’t an ideal age or life stage for doing so—which is fantastic news.
“I know a 74-year-old woman who reconnected with her high school crush after a 56-year separation. She refers to him as her soulmate. They were meant to be together.
You may be wondering if you met your soulmate on a trip, at a subway station, or while you were out in the rain and a stranger asked you to share an umbrella—but didn’t recognize it at the time.
Yes, according to Dr. Tobin, this is possible. “Everything in life is based on time. I feel it is an issue of self-awareness.
When you realize that a relationship is more than just a desire for fulfillment or control, but is also necessary for our psychological and spiritual development, you’re more receptive to finding your soulmate.”
Knowing or comprehending the signs you met your soulmate is incredible in and of itself because there is no such thing as a single type of soulmate.
The phrase “soulmate” is commonly associated with romantic love. Here are the many sorts of soulmates and how to tell whether you’ve discovered one.
What are the types of soulmates?
Not all soulmates are worthy of a lifetime romance. Here are six distinct types to keep an eye out for in your own life.
- Romantic Soulmates
“Romantic soulmates inspire one other’s passion throughout their time together,” Dr. Tobin says. “They have the ability to elevate each other to new heights of physical and emotional pleasure.
“However, we’ve all had breakups, even if we were with someone who was hot and heavy. “Passion may be a fleeting flame that burns fiercely and then dies.
The flame burns continually for those rare love soulmates since they’re both determined to keeping the fire alive throughout their time together.”
- Soul Buddies
Has it been years since you last spoke with a primary school friend, but when you do, you immediately click? “A soul mate is someone you haven’t seen in years who, when you rejoin, seems as though time and separation have no influence on the strength of your relationship,” Dr. Tobin adds.
- Karmic Soulmates
When you and your karmic soulmate share common goals, you’ve found your karmic soulmate. “You’re both here to make a difference in the world, and your abilities compliment each other—you’re excellent partners to complete a common purpose.”
This type of relationship does not involve love or intimacy, but relying on putting your best self forward to accomplish something meaningful.
- Soulmates Companion
This is the yin to your yang, or the peanut butter to your jelly. Friends are a crucial part of our lifetime journey, and those of the soulmate kind assist us in laughing when we’re in pain, nourishing us when we’re hurting, flowing with us when we’re riding high, challenging us to be honest, loving us with our warts, and never forsaking us in anger.
- Similar Souls
When you find a similar soulmate, you pretty much agree on everything, large and little. “You enjoy the same things; laugh at the same jokes; agree and disagree with love and affection; compete with vigor but without bitterness or jealously. “These folks are on the same path toward truth and love,” says Dr. Tobin.
- Soul Contracts
This is a fascinating form of soulmate because it occurs when two individuals share a determination to speak the truth, be emotionally honest with one another, admit deceptions, and be real.
A soul contract may resemble a married couple in whom one spouse cheated, but they remain together not for the sake of the children or appearances, but because there is a profound law of attraction within them that is drawing them together for their lifetime.
Signs That You’ve Met Your Soulmate
The signals that you’ve met your soulmate are almost endless and can overlap with the many types of soulmates you meet during your life.
Dr. Tobin thinks that creating love and nurturing soulmate connections is a fundamental reality of relationships
“Love does not come to us because we feel we deserve it. We must practice being kind in order to receive love in return.”
- They provide a sense of calm and storm.
He also claims that a sense of peace, as well as a storm, is a warning sign. “Sometimes a soulmate comes to shake us out of our comfort zone, to challenge us to think and behave differently, to grow beyond our comfort zones.”
This is never easy or nice. Yet there are and will be times of perfect connection, calm, and peaceful coexistence with that same soulmate.”
- You understand each other’s pain.
The way you react to their pain is another clue that you’ve met your soulmate. “It’s difficult to picture soulmates who don’t suffer with one another, who don’t experience each other’s suffering, who lack empathy and compassion,” Dr. Tobin says.
“Soulmates may be like two strands of spaghetti entwined in such a manner that they don’t know where one begins and the other ends,” Dr. Tobin concludes.
Similarly, some soulmate relationships serve their purpose and then die. The good news is that we can all have a soulmate connection at some point in our lives.
