100. Soulmates

What is a Soulmate? How do you find one? More importantly, what do you do with such a unicorn if you find one? Step into a world you are likely unprepared for.

This article is not gender specific. Everyone is governed by its content.

What is a Soulmate?

If I asked 100 people this question I would likely get 100 different answers. While this might suggest it is mythological, I’m going to argue that it is not: From personal experience.

This seems like a good time to ask AI for a standardized definition:

While I’m going to argue that this definition is incorrect, and explain why, it makes a good starting point.

Often I hear people describing a Soulmate as a unique person that is out there somewhere. That person was made just for them, and that both people will experience irresistible love at first sight. It smells a bit of Divine Intervention. The problem here is that it depends too heavily on an external locus of control and an expectation that meeting this person is Fate dependent. Though of course some people think that if this person lives in their city they just need to date everyone in the city to find them. This sort of numbers game will leave you so damaged that your “Soulmate” might not recognize you.

Darker even, if the other person has no choice but to love you, that implies you can skip Consent. I’ve met more than my share of Stalkers and they probably had this sort of sentiment. But that path is the opposite of Consent Culture, and can stray into Rape Culture.

But all of these definitions are distractions because a Soulmate is not a person. It’s a State of Being.

Being a Soulmate

When I’m training an elite runner or Olympic hopeful I often have them not see themselves as an object that bounces up and down on the Earth. Instead, I have them imagine that they are not moving when they run, but instead they are moving the Earth below them while they are staying still. The Earth is almost infinitely massive compared to a person, so to do this you have to be almost infinitely connected to the Earth. This is important because to reach almost inhuman levels of speed, all of your force must be channelled into the Earth, with no movement wasted.

While there are a lot of technical aspects to elite running, this is more of a cognitive technique. A Way of Being, that governs your relationship to Earth. If a “Soulmate” is the pinnacle relationship state, it might be helpful to see it as the Olympics of relationships. Here I’m not talking about gymnastics ability, but one’s ability to Connect to another. Full Connection is so intense that it might be fair to say that 1000 or even a million times the normal amount of information is being transmitted between two people.

This is so intense that it can not only cause panic, but can be harmful if you are not prepared for it. Because of the training required to reach this state, it’s not something that you can realistically turn on and off. Such a way of being is tied to your Identity, and very few humans can make such radical shifts in their Identity at will, even top professional actors. This is a very advanced skill set that also might make people very uncomfortable if they know you possess it or use it. People won’t trust you if you switch Identities on them. So for the purposes of this article I am going to assume that for you to have any chance of being a Soulmate, you will have to make a Choice which will be very difficult to undo.

Being a Soulmate requires you to remove all of your armor, your shields, and make yourself entirely vulnerable to another being. The problem here is that since it’s a State of Being, it’s going to apply to everyone around you, not some person you have “picked”. Actually, there is no “picking”. Once you are in this State, you create what I can only describe as a Human Gravity Well that will attract people who desire to enter the same State. Most people are terrified of being Exposed, and will avoid your Well.

The idea of being vulnerable to everyone is such an anxiety producing thought that almost no one will attempt this, and they certainly won’t arrive here by accident. They will have to be exposed to the concept and then they will have to Consent with themselves to go down that Path.

Other than maybe some monastic orders, I’m not aware of any reliable formal ways to develop this State of Being. Monastic orders generally require celibacy and a total lack of heterosexual physical contact. So if you were to offer food to a monk, you have to put it in a bowl or on a cloth, and have to be very careful not to touch them. Thus if you are hoping to have a romantic relationship between two Soulmates (you being one of them), you are in almost uncharted territory.

But…How?

The most critical part is to maximize your empathy and sensitivity. This requires a combination of intense Listening and sensory deprivation. Maybe that last term might be confusing. You aren’t depriving your senses, you are maximizing them. But you have to avoid sensory overload to have any chance of success. This is why monks have Monasteries. Often in secluded forests. Being able to train yourself to hear a small flightless bug, or hear someone breath at rest, requires you to pick up very faint stimuli. If you are a typical modern person who is awash in near constant stimulation, this is exceptionally difficult to do. From my experience, people get very anxious if they become isolated or if their environment gets too quiet. They go through sensory withdrawal.

So a first step is to limit your exposure to normal sensory bombardment. Take long walks in nature without any electronic devices, and no talking. Stop frequently to look around and listen. If you are in nature likely there are 100 critters and thousands of bugs watching/hearing you, that you don’t even know are there. But if you stop to listen/watch, and if you have practiced your sensitivity, they appear to you.

Because I grew up feral and had to hunt/forage for my own food as a small child, this all was second nature to me by the time I was learning my first human language. But anyone can do it if you have any nature around you. It can be very difficult in a large city like Los Angeles. But, practicing this in a large city can save your life. Likely there are all sorts of people watching you that you won’t notice unless you are very sensitive. Some of those people may not be friendly. But if they know you see them, then you are not a “soft target” and will likely be skipped over.

You also have to stop perceiving people and animals as threats. Consider them family. This is especially true if you are going on a date with someone. People will respond to how they are treated. If you act threatened, that’s a bad start to any conversation.

One one date I was sitting with a woman in her mid 30s who had a PhD in English and was very pretty. Early in the conversation she seemed a bit anxious and made a big deal about my “IQ and EQ being so much higher than hers”. This seemed to make her uncomfortable. So I decided to help her out and speed up her thought process by asking her “If that is true, then how would you know if I was controlling you or not?” There is actually a correct answer to a question like this but I doubted she knew it. She didn’t have an immediate answer for me but the next day she told me she couldn’t see me anymore. Her fear of control would have just festered and caused her to act against me later on so it was best to bring that to the surface early.

I ended up getting into a relationship a few months later with a woman at least 10 years younger than this Professor that lasted for years and we are still good friends. But that person was a Class S NNT so cognitively she was at least twice her biological age. She also knew how to answer a question like this. She trusted her intuition and knew when she was or was not in danger. And this was not blind trust. She had endured at least as much child abuse as I had, so she didn’t just trust everyone.

Thus blind trust is not what I am advocating for. You need to raise your empathy level so that you can tell when you are with someone safe, or with a predator. Predators can talk pretty sweet, and if you aren’t empathic enough to detect them, things can get bad for you in a hurry. You might be like “Oh that person is so nice!” And all the dogs nearby are barking like The Thing is about to eat them. Making these distinctions is an essential baseline survival technique for modern living.

Cautions

Even if you manage to become a Human Gravity Well or meet someone else that is (either situation is very rare in modern society outside of Monastery life, but used to be quite common when we lived in Tribes), it may not be what you were hoping for. Having a potent Connection with another person can be overwhelming. When I got pulled in by such a person at the age of 20, the experience was intense enough to put me into something of a panic. The other person was Native American and grew up in Tribal life so it came somewhat naturally to her.

This also was scary for her and we didn’t plan that Connection of course. I ran into her at my work and our first exchange caused quite a stir and a major audience during work hours. I won’t go into details as you wouldn’t believe the story. It’s crazier than anything I’ve seen Hollywood produce. What I will say is that she died of cancer about 30 years ago and I was grateful for what she taught me in the limited time we had.

But since we both got so overwhelmed by the thought exchange, we would only spend a week or so together a year and take the rest of the year to recover. We both had other relationships during these times away, but that was hard on our other partners as you can imagine.

I’m not trying to discourage you, but at least knowing a path towards what you say you want makes it easier. Just because you have an intense Connection doesn’t mean you both will agree on everything. And both of you will still need Boundaries. Maybe extra Boundaries due to the intensity of sharing. And if you have other relationships that’s going to require all sorts of ground rules.

Note that nothing I’m describing here need be sexual in any way. Having a Strong Connection with another person is better than sex anyways. This isn’t subtle. Observers can tell right away something is going on even if there is no PDA. From my experience the Universe likes to give us what we say we want, and then punishes us severely when we reject what we get. So be careful what you wish for, and also be careful before rejecting it.

What I DO want to discourage you from is sleeping with hundreds of people trying to “find the one”. That’s not how this works. You will just end up with more armor. This sort of joy comes from within you, not from something happening to you.