Bratty Girl

I wonder what love is…

Sometimes, it feels like sunshine on the perfect day. I just want to bask in it. But a shadow passes and it becomes a vengeful storm; I just want to get out of it. One day, I'm flying. Another day, I'm drowning. Then, I can't have enough of it – craving and bursting with insatiable desire. Soon, I'm sick to my heart and dying to tear away. Now, a welcome delight; streaming in like dawn through an open window. Quickly, a horror- ten thousand rivers washing my life away.

Tell me – which one of these tortured, conflicting emotions is love?

Is love an illusion then? An emotional blindfold that tricks you into a cruel commitment? If it has all ended so badly, tell me – what was it I felt when it was beginning? Love, eh? Fickle love. It teases you into deep waters and abandons you in the middle.

I'm sure all of that sounded quite familiar. Love is one wicked experience. After you've fed fat on a few romantic novels and watched a few movies, you go in thinking you are about to be launched up to cloud nine. “Cloud nine” turns out to be a tiny room with no windows, occupied by two people struggling to breathe.

How can something that felt so sweet at the beginning turn out to be so sour in the end? How can something that felt so natural at the beginning get to demand so much effort in the end? How can something that felt so filling at the beginning turn out to be so draining in the end? How can something turn out to be so different from what it felt like in the beginning?

The conclusion: love is left somewhere between dusk and dawn. It slipped out through the window, grew wings and flew away. Without its magic dust shading our vision, we see ourselves as we truly are – grossly inadequate, terribly irritating. It abandons us, strips the props from our beautifully constructed stage, leaving us to wallow in bare, grinding reality. It is, itself, like the wind – no telling when it will come or when it will go. So, when we commit to each other, we keep our fingers crossed, hoping that love stays to keep it sweet and beautiful.

I wish I could sit love down and have a chat with him. I'll tell him to stop popping in and popping out of peoples lives like it was a children's game. Don't you know lives are wrecked by your whimsical behavior? That's what I'll tell him. Stop picking people up, whirring them up to dizzying heights then letting them fall and dash themselves into a million pieces. Once you come, stay – damn it! We are at your mercy, o love! Once you come into our hearts, for heaven's sake – stay there forever.

Love is not a feeling, so don't bother asking which one of the million and one things you feel when you see an attractive man or woman – is love. None of them is. None of them is the sign that he or she is The One. Nothing you feel confirms the rightness of your urge to pursue them or guarantees the happiness of a future with them. The truth – the certainty you seek – is not in your feelings. They will always be what they are – temperamental, fickle and constantly changing. That is the eternal nature of our feelings.

Love is a choice. It is a decision you make after you've seen the facts. Love chooses. Love decides. It is not a mysterious charm or an over powering attraction that holds it down. Love is always free, never bound. It stays because it chooses to stay. It is not at the mercy of emotions it cannot control. It does not depend on feelings it cannot control. I tell you – love is the decision to be with someone and do whatever it takes to make it work.

It is not what you think in your head or feel in your heart. It is what works for the person you are living with. Deciding to discover what this is and to do it consistently, regardless of how you may feel on any given day, this is what love is. It is in this sense that the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:14). In plain English – God wanted to be with man and did what needed to be done to make it happen. We do not love because we feel; we love because we are willing and able to do what needs to be done to be with someone.

So the next time you wonder – is it love? Don't check how you feel. Look at the person – look at their needs and their expectations, their dreams and their aspirations, their weaknesses and their inadequacies – and ask yourself; am I willing and able to make this person happy?

We all think that love is all about the deep things in life – and that the strong bonds of love might be about the sacrifices that people make for each other. Well, love can be a little simpler than that.

A recent research conducted with 52 couples found that laughing strengthens the relationship. When people laugh at the same thing, they validate each other's opinions. Private jokes and pet names, things that others just don't get, strengthen ties between couples.

One of main reasons why people who laugh together find that they grow to have each other is because laughter is a pleasurable experience. The more positive memories you have, the more you love the other person.

If you have ever ate something and got sick and then decided from that time on not to eat the food again? Same thing applies to relationships that have a lot of negative images. Negative images add up to pull the relationship apart.

The second component of love is those secret little pet names and private jokes that no one else knows about. These little secrets help the couples feel that they are in a tight bond. It seems that they are likely in their own little world with their own language that no one else understands.

So, may I suggest that go ahead, create endearing yet funny and unusual pet names. Even "klunkhead" may evoke such giggling-inducing and warm associations with the moniker that only the two of you will hold dear.

As little girls we grow up dreaming of having the perfect fairytale. We imagine the man we’ll someday marry, how we’ll meet, how he’ll kiss, how he’ll propose. We have the complete love story planned out in our imaginations and, somehow, we believe every ounce of it. We have that remarkable innocence that allows us to see ourselves as grown women, trapped in a doorless tower with the longest blonde locks, awaiting our knight who will somehow rescue us and whisk us away to a castle in the clouds. Is it any wonder that, as we grow older and find our way through the minefield that is relationships, we end up disappointed? My question: is the man that we will eventually choose to marry ever going to be good enough to meet the high expectations we set as little girls? Will he ever be the perfect Prince Charming of our childhood dreams?

It is unclear why these unrealistic hopes are put into the open minds of us as children. Is it because childhoods are meant to be filled with hopefulness and happiness, regardless of whether it’s all based on a lie or not – just like Santa? As we grow into women and become experienced with the real dating scene, it is true to say most of us experience disappointment. The romance we had always imagined and dreamed of rarely materializes and our white knights are nowhere to be seen. We are forced to experience heartbreak, infidelity and loss – something never explained to us in those hundreds of fairytales. How do we ever expect to live Happily Ever After when we’re searching for something fictional?

In the past fifty years, the dating scene has changed dramatically. What once was white is now black and vice versa. But with these changes in society and acceptable behaviours, our fairytales have remained the same and not evolved with time, as they should. And so, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we rewrote the greatest stories of our childhoods. What if The End wasn’t at our first kiss but a couple of years on? What if we introduced the partner who cheated? The mother-in-law who thought we weren’t good enough for her son? An ex-love? Trust issues? A break-up? What then? It is my belief that we would go into our very first experience with love more open-minded with more realistic hopes of our future. We would know that it’s normal to have rough times as well as good times. And we would know not to expect – or even to secretly hope for – perfection, because nobody is perfect – not even our shining white knights.

What starts off as an innocent dream for six year-old girls results in discontentment and dissatisfaction. Many of us run at the first sign of trouble because ‘this isn’t how it’s supposed to be’. We somehow always believe that there is better out there, that we haven’t yet found our One – but that’s only because our vision of what should be is a work of our imagination and the memory of bedtime stories. Would it really be such a bad thing to face up the fact that love really isn’t flawless and simple? There isn’t always one bad witch who is easily defeated before we can run away and be happy; there are often more and they come regularly. Maybe we should be prepared for this as we grow so that bumps in the road are not unexpected and so that the men in our lives are valued and appreciated for what they are and not thrown away for what they aren’t.

The moral of the story: your foot doesn’t always pop with a first kiss and there is no such thing as a castle in the clouds. But learning your own special kiss – one that is just for the two of you – and building a home from scratch, together, and mending things after an argument, can bring much more happiness than even Snow White or Princess Aurora could ever have dreamed of. Now those are the things that fairytales should be made of.

A Heavenly Angel was created and formed by the hands of God, a perfect creation. God said, “This is truly a one of a kind. I must now break the mold, because there shall not be another. No two things will ever be made alike. I am well pleased.” God was so pleased, that heaven also rejoiced with Him.

The Heavenly Angel was unique, beautiful, and she possessed the gift of touch. Her touch could melt mountains, and turn the hearts of men into pure gold. Her presence demanded the very best, because she, herself, gave her very best. She would meet or exceed all expectations.

One day, God heard a desperate cry from a man, who was lonely and very depressed. The man was fair looking and he had a lot of potential, he also had lots of love to give, but no one to share it with. So, God decided to send the Heavenly Angel to earth to lift this man's spirit.

God's intentions, was that the Heavenly Angel would comfort the man and return back to heaven, however, while upon the earth, something very unexpected took place. The man and the Heavenly Angel had fallen in love.

As God watched from heaven, He realized that the two of them made beautiful music together, they were deserving of one another. So, He sent word to the Heavenly Angel that if she so desired, she could stay with the man whom she loved. God also told her that love, joy, and happiness would be with them for eternity; and that He was well pleased with their union.

“For what God has joined together, let no man tear it apart.”

The Heavenly Angel and the man, are you and I!

If you've ever seen The Notebook, Titanic, or Romeo and Juliet, you might believe that there really only is one soul mate for everyone. I mean, could you imagine Allie and Noah with anyone else but each other in the end? On the other hand, I'm sure you've been in more than one serious relationship where you thought he was the one, only to realize it was actually the guy after him that was. I go back and forth on this one but what I want to know is, do you believe that we're destined to only have one soul mate, or do you think it's possible to have more than one love of your life?

Love. Can it really be eternal?

The poet Robert Graves describes love as "a universal migraine", "a bright stain on the vision/blotting out reason".

If that were so, I must by now be quite blind and without reason, for I have been in love not a few times.

It is, after all, a thrilling sensation, with all the clichés about it ringing true.

When you're in love, you see the world with new eyes.

Everything feels almost unbearably light, and life can never be more right. Everyday concerns - the mortgage, job insecurities, and family problems - seem so irrelevant.

What matter is being with the object of your affection - that hot rush of anticipation as you wait for him, the warmth that engulfs you when you are finally together, and the smugness in knowing you are loved.

Can there be a nicer feeling than that?

The way I see it, there are four types of people when it comes to love.

The first finds a soulmate early in life. She marries him, they set up a home, have kids, and their life's pretty settled from then on.

The second type moves from one relationship onto another, and the relationships are more often than not fraught with woes. Life is one roller-coaster ride as she soars with joy and plunges into misery.

The third sort doesn't care for relationships, for she can be perfectly happy without a beloved by her side.

Then, there is the fourth type, who dearly wishes to be involved with someone, but can't find the right partner.

I suppose I fall into the fourth category, for I have always wished to be with Mr. Right.

Love, I have discovered, is seldom a one-way ticket to the moon.

The journey can be aborted half-way and you can find yourself hitting the ground with a bump.

Sadly, I have had my share of being brought down to earth. And, if I look back on my relationships, there are some lessons in love I have learnt:

It is better to be dumped than to dump.

Of course this is putting it simply. Life is more complex than that - there are people who deserve to be dumped.

But if both parties haven't done any wrong, I'd prefer to be the "dumpee" than the "dumper" any day.

Of course, it hurts like crazy when you discover that a person no longer loves you. But feeling hurt is any time better than feeling guilty.

The former fuels a range of emotions - wretchedness, anger and self-pity chief among them - which are, actually, rather self-indulgent sensations and not totally unpleasant. But when you're the bad one, there are no two ways about it - you've done something horrible to someone and the only way you can feel is lousy.

It's not love when it's stormy.

I used to think that true love had to be wrought with turbulent feelings. Isn't this what passion was all about? What is love without tiffs and spats, followed by dizzy kisses when you patched up?

These days, I regard a calmer life as the healthier option. Because, every time you quarrel with a loved one, you are tearing him down, and surely that can't be what love is. It should be about shoring up your partner, not bring him down.

Love just happens. You can't search for it.

There was a time when I went to parties in the hope that I'd meet someone I could fall in love with. Well, it never happened.

The relationships I treasure started from chance encounters, never through a blind date or an arranged meeting. And for those who are single, fret not. Serendipitous meetings do happen.

If you love a person, you would want to show him off.

If you have any qualms at all about the person whom you say you love - perhaps you're embarrassed by the car he drives, or that he's balding or that he stutters or doesn't have a university degree - it can't be love.

When you love someone, you'd regard him as a trophy and want to flaunt him to the world.

A sharp knife cuts the quickest.

It also hurts the least. When love peters out and it's time to call it quits, say your adieus snappily.

Prolonging the goodbye only lengthens the misery and leaves a lousy aftertaste. Besides, a short and sweet farewell is the classiest exit.

Love scars heal.

Yes, amazingly they do, though it takes ages to forget someone who has forsaken you. You will alternate between fantasizing about looking drop-dead gorgeous and winning him back, and scheming to wreak revenge on him.

But one day, you'll wake up, gaze at his picture and feel - nothing.

If it's really love, he will marry you.

Bah, you say? You might think, what a stupid notion in this day and age! A woman doesn't need the man she loves to marry her. Besides, hasn't the institution of marriage been devalued?

I used to believe all that too. But now, I regard marriage as the ultimate test. If you truly love someone, wouldn't you want to belong to him and vice-versa?

When you find your The One, go for it.

When you least expect it, the thought just descends upon you - you have found your The One. He's the one standing in front of you and whom you've been staying single for all your life.

It's a truly amazing sensation, and if the other person feels the same way, then it is also a wonderful one.

And if you have found your The One, well, congratulations!

Life's great, isn't it?

When I was growing up I was force-fed the highly romanticized view that everyone had one soul mate out in the world and hopefully, you would find them even though the odds were 6 billion to 1 that you wouldn’t. From one perspective it’s very comforting to know that everyone has someone whose destiny is intertwined with theirs romantically. But on the other hand, it was highly depressing to think that if your one person was on the other side of the world or if they were in another culture or if they got hit by a bus, you might very well never meet.

Over time I developed a modified view. I started to believe that while not everyone was compatible with everyone else, there were pools, or small segments of the population that did get along well with one another. So, out of the 6 billion, instead of just one person that I could connect deeply with, there were 5 or 20 or maybe even 50 (depending on how much your personality can adapt to other personalities). Now, granted, finding 50 people out of 6 billion is still like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but it’s much more optimistic (and much less fatalistic) than the alternative.

So bet you’re asking yourself, “So what? How does that do anything for me?”

Well understanding that there are multiple people out there for you, rather than just one, creates a flexibility that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Obviously, with more options comes more freedom. If you are currently dating someone you think is the “one” and some other dude comes along that’s even more perfect, then using the old model, you would have to decide which one was your actual soul mate.

My theory allows you to know that while both may be your soul mate (defined as another human being that is so like you in personality, in preferences, in goals and outlooks, that your relationship is guaranteed to achieve the deepest level of intimacy possible for mere mortals), one may be incrementally better for you than the other. So you don’t have the extra added burden of thinking, “Well if I choose incorrectly, I lose everything.” It’s more like, “Damn, if I choose wrong I’ll still get a soul mate but maybe a slightly lower tier one, and that’s not all that bad actually.”

So, do I believe in soul mates? Yes. Absolutely.

Here’s how I define soulmate: That one person who completes you, body and soul. The one who fills your thoughts from the moment you awaken to the moment you drift into the bliss of unconsciousness. The one who, even in the bliss of unconsciousness, fills your mind to the brink with thoughts of love, understanding, strength, and desire. Your other half; the ebb to your flow. The moon that pulls your tide back to shore when you begin to slip away and allows you to drift back to sea when the shore becomes too much to bear. The wind that fills your sails when you find yourself adrift upon rough waters with no way to safety. The understanding that not only forgives and understands your brokenness, but feels grief at the fact that they were not present to prevent such trials and tribulations. The love that knows no limits, no boundaries, no expectations, and no forfeit.

Do I think there is more than one soulmate? Perhaps. I believe that every person we love leaves an imprint on our heart. I have no doubt that we are designed to love and love again. It’s a process. Every time we give the gift of our love and ourselves to another person, they become a link in the chain of life and love. They enable us to be better lovers, more compassionate friends, more understanding partners, and more fulfilling other halves. Each of these people is, in a small way, our soul mate. However, I believe that everyone is intended for one other person. Who that person is, while not predetermined, is very limited in possibility. We are designed to be compatible with a very select number of people. These people, maybe a dozen in number, are spread all over the map, and finding that ONE is what drives us to love over and over again. But knowing that there IS that One, that’s what makes the loving worth while.

Most of us know the type of men to stay away from. The Bad Boys, the Mr. Unavailable, the Players, the Momma’s Boys and the like. These are the ones that come to us with an automatic grade A heartbreak label and yet we choose to consort with them anyway. Why is it that we constantly do this to ourselves? I mean, there are tons of super cool guys out there, however, we will prefer to bypass them and choose the most disreputable of the bunch. What’s up with that? Well, here are some of my reasons why I think we want Mr. Wrong each and every single time.

1. We like the drama: Yeah, you might say that you are drama free and want no drama; however, humans have a thirst for adventure and action on a consistent basis in order to stimulate their humdrum lives. Mayhap seeking out the wrong guys helps alleviate this thirst. My suggestion: take up bungee jumping or some other thrill seeking sport and give up the man drama.

2. We like to fix stuff: There is nothing greater than the sense of accomplishment one gets from taking care of a problem or fixing something. Or someone. We seek the emotionally unavailable man, the bad boy, or the one with a broken heart in the hope that we might be the one to reform and fix him.
Imagine what a coup it will be to be the one lady who tamed the prowling, philandering tiger! This ideology does have its merit; however, not every tiger is ready to be tamed. Also, did you consider the ramifications if you didn’t tame him and he turned around and took a huge chunk of your heart? In our quest to setting the world to rights, sometimes you have to overlook the men that need babying, nurturing and mothering. Let’s stop playing nurse/mommy and deal with mature men. Ok?

3. We need to be fixed: Sometimes, we start dating while still having unresolved emotional issues of our own. You really aren’t ready for love until you truly love yourself. We search and seek for love in all the wrong places and wrong men in an attempt to punish ourselves for some real or imagined slight in our lives. We feel that we don’t deserve a good man and so pick the wrong ones on purpose. Look, you have to be able to move past your guilt and FORGIVE yourself for what happened those many years ago. Let’s stop the self-inflicted punishment here and now. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have true love. You are human and made mistakes, but it’s your right to have a happy future. Only you can forgive yourself. And until you do that, you won’t be ready for Mr. Right. Also bear in mind that continually dating Mr. Wrong just adds more grief, pain and turmoil to the heavy load of guilt you bear. Let. It. Go.

4. We don’t know what we want: You cannot get the man you are looking for if you have no idea what you are looking for. You have to be honest with yourself – as in painfully honest. Do you want a boyfriend, or do you just want a guy to sleep with? Do you want to get married, or do you just want someone to ‘chill with’? Sure, everyone thinks that the kosher response is to say,” I just want to be friends with a guy and get to know him first.” That is a load of hogwash. Why can’t we just make up our minds about what we want and work towards that? Let’s stop being polite and politically correct. Be real. Affirm what your true desire is, and if a guy doesn’t make the cut, cut him from the running. Enough with the ‘working on him’ and ‘trying to make it work’. Enough with taking scraps and crumbs of affection when what we really want is love. Let’s be real.

5. We look in the crappiest places: Ok, so you might be ready for Mr. Right but do you honestly believe that your dream guy is hanging out in a club or bar? Sure, he might go there for drinks and a party once in a while, but why are you frequenting the dung pit to find your true jewel? In order to get better men, you have to be at the places where the better men hang out. Keep your eyes peeled, for all you know, he might live across the street from you and drops off dry-cleaning the same time you do. The most relationships that I’ve seen last, the couples met at some social event, randomly on the street/park or were introduced by friends. So start broadening your horizons beyond the internet and the bars.

6. We aren’t ready: This is really where a lot of ladies will fall into. There is so much that we have planned, so much in our lives that we still want to attain before we ’settle down’ with a passel of kids and the 2.4 children dream. We still want to hit that promotion, buy our house, travel around the world, learn a new language and scratch off items on our ’30 Things to Do Before We Hit 30′ list. We think that marriage is the natural conclusion of our life as we know it and the end of our dreams. So we want to reach all those dreams before we even start looking for Mr. Right. Therefore we keep dating Mr. Wrongs knowing that these relationships aren’t going to work out and we can still live our fabulous lives of Singletons. Ok, I agree with the idea that we might not be ready for marriage and all that it entails, but we have to stop thinking that getting married is the end of the world. Our generation has the power to change the image of the Married Couple. Enough with the play dates, Sunday BBQ dinners, poking fun at single friends, popping out kids the every year and dedicating ourselves to fostering the Stepford Wife image. We can still live our fabulously fun lives, travel and pursue our dreams; only we have the support of our loving spouse. We just have to readjust our status from Bad Girls to Bad Girls who are Married. What’s so wrong with that?

7. We are scared: We refuse to claim Mr. Right because we are scared that it’s not going to work out. We’ve been through numerous heart breaks, Mr. Almost Right, Mr. NotQuiteRight, Mr. RightNow and other types of men and yet haven’t really succeeded in the quest to find true, lasting love. So we’ve become scared and cynical deciding that all the good ones are taken or not yet born; deeming ourselves to eternal spinsterhood. What’s worse, we are scared of taking the plunge only to end up like our parents (very few of them being good role models for the ideal marriage) or divorced. There is no guarantee that meeting Mr. Right will last forever and ever. Even I can’t promise that. Love is the biggest gamble of all, but when it pays…it pays BIG time. The only way that I’ve found to bypass the fear is to actually be with Mr. Right. He is the one that will open your eyes to the deepest levels of intimacy, commitment and love that you have ever known and make you realize that the gamble is well worth it.

What exactly is a soul mate? The one person in all the world, in all your life, who is meant to love you and only you? Who understands you deeply and fully and accepts you for who you are? Who you are destined to be with, if only you can find each other . . . in this lifetime?

I understand the draw to the idea of a soul mate: it carries with it a mystical, larger-than-life quality, as if a person were sent to you from the past or the future, a divine emissary, cast from the hand of God. It's also a great romantic idea: how better to re-imagine our lives or current relationship than through the lens of "if only I knew my soul mate." With this soul mate by your side, your life would be perfect, right? You wouldn't feel sad, stressed, or alone? Everything in your life would fall into place . . . as if my magic.

You've probably guessed that I am a reluctant believer in the concept of a soul mate. I think it's an abstract ideal that can often be a distraction to us, keeping our heads in the stars rather on what is real, and full of life in the here and now. If someone gets attached to such an ideal, they are less likely to feel motivated to accept and love the people who are in their lives. They are less likely to accept themselves as imperfect as well. They are also less likely to try to make a loving relationship work.

Dreams of Hugh Grant and me getting into some devilishly great fun, George Clooney gazing at me with that wickedly sexy grin, or Jake Gyllenhaal's lips on mine...yeah, every single one of us girls can step up to the plate and claim those delightful daydreams! Certainly helps those slow moments pass more quickly and everyone always wonders what my mischievous grin is hiding!

In the words of one of the cutest spitfires in country music "The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little FUN." We all need that kick in the butt reminder to get out there and enjoy the scenery! So map out your plan and roll with it.

Which guy do you want? Smart, sexy, humorous, devoted and sweet! Yes! We all want that! But it's going to take a bit to actually attract it. Pen, paper and head scratching time are in order! One of the most fun exercises of the workbook that I wrote is to actually write down EXACTLY what you would like in your guy....a bottle of wine chatting it up with my girlfriends and mine was three pages long! And yes, I prefer a boxer brief guy over a tighty whitey guy every day of the year!

But you're too strapped to get the free workbook. Hmmm....well here's a another freebie for you. Spend a few days observing people. List out the: things that you like, mannerism that you find cute, the looks, movements and gestures that peek your interest, everything that catches your attention through and through. Get a little deeper with it and think about everything from attitude to morals to plans for the future. If you want a great package you are going to have to commit it all to paper so that you firm up exactly what you want and quit wasting your time wavering. Like this summer when you dated the guy that had all of the great qualities except for those damn cancer sticks that he constantly had up to his lips...and kissing that afterwards. Ugh!

Then take a look at yourself and see how you compare. You attract what you are, so if you are in la-la land thinking that your broke, baggage laden, mentally deficient butt is going to attract Mr. Wonderful then you really do need to start medicating! Start changing up YOU and your life. Get everything started towards the right track. You don't have to have everything in absolute perfect order before seeking out Prince Charming (if that were the case EVERYONE would be single!) but you do need to be running towards the finish line.

Now the fun part....the search. Where will you bump into him? What will be happening? Who will be with you? Life is a huge swirl of fun and you never know when or where something will happen. So you have to open up your mind, always be ready, and have fun with any and everything you do...even the things that you normally don't. Because as Murphy's Law goes, you will most likely end up meeting the love of your life on one of those days when you least expect it, not dressed to the nines, and just being "plain 'ol you."

The main point is to find something that really grabs your attention about the person you are striking up a conversation with, their bit of flair and compliment them on it. WE all like compliments...we just forget to give them. But do it in a true and heartfelt manner (no Velvetta is allowed) in order to actually be able to continue the conversation. Say something stupid and cheesy, and, yes girls (and guys), the other will look at you as though you are a strange alien creature, turn their back, and continue along with the conversation that you interrupted to meet them.

Follow your prerogative and have fun with it all. That is the way the life and love should be. But you do have to prepare yourself for it all. Work through the exercises in the workbook and get your date to play the game with you....you'll learn so much about each other! Once you have made up your mind as to exactly what you want it makes it so much easier to find!

It is the chorus of the romantic. My soul mate is out there some where looking for me and when I find them, they and that relationship will… complete me!

Have you ever heard these words from someone in love?

We must be soul mates, we like the same things, we like to eat the same things, he/she cuts their carrots the same way that I cut my carrots, when ever they go to say something, I say it at the exact same time. We both love the colour yellow. He reach out for the salt at the exact same time that I reach out for it… yadda yadda yadda.

The most interesting definition of a soul mate that I have ever heard (and the most entertaining) was this:

Look around for the person that is causing you the most anguish, the one that is testing your resolve the most and has you pushing through your comfort zone to grow, and to think outside of your normal paradigm. Now THAT person is your soul mate! Who wants more of who we are? Wouldn’t it be fair to say that we experience the most growth when tested, pushed, cajoled and challenged?

I had always been of the idea that my soul mate would be the one that made me feel most comfortable to the point that… they were exactly the same as me and so accepted me for all that I am. I have been in relationships like that and although they were fun for a while and also filled with love, but if I was honest, they were also unchallenging and eventually claustrophobic. Where is the growth in that?

I have also heard from some couples who say that they have never had a crossed word in their time together. I can’t help but wonder if that relationship grew in any way in the time that they were together?

Now please note that I am not an advocate of hostility or constant fighting but all harmony should be questioned from time to time so one can determine that the couple are on course with where they want to go and not just drifting on the winds of time.

Although I do believe that there should be “harmony” in a loving relationship, I also feel that “love is not about two people looking into each others eyes forever but two people looking in the same direction together.” Two separate people, with independent thoughts and ideas but similar ideals. Two people challenging each other as well as nurturing one another.

In the immortal words of someone very famous, I'm sure, “To make an omelet one has to break a few eggs!” And I for one (who loves harmony) am partial to an omelet, especially when made and shared with and from love.

Bon appetite