We’re all a little damaged, aren’t we?

One of the life lessons I think I've always had trouble with was not letting a relationship consume me. Whenever I fell in love with someone, my dreams and aspirations would go on the back-burner. I think life attracts us to similar situations over and over again, like a magnet, until we learn the lesson that we are supposed to learn and grow as a soul. With some of us, the lesson lies in matters of the heart (or perhaps that's the avenue that is best to reach us through), and with others it might be getting along with certain personalities of co-workers and learning what it is that is blocking us from understanding one another.

I've realized that I seem to gravitate toward others who seem to be “damaged” in some way or another. These particular souls attract me over and over again, and I think that it’s my own shadow that I am  projecting onto others in an attempt to alleviate my own damages. (And by Shadow, I mean the archetype in Jungian psychology that represents all that is repressed, denied and undeveloped in our subconscious mind.)  Until I love myself as a complete individual, not needing completion from anyone or anything, I will probably still be attracted to the darkness in others until I fix the darkness in myself.  If I focus on the good in myself and in my life, maybe I will attract people with those qualities into my life instead of encountering doubt, fear and insecurity.

I have a feeling that my soul has been around for a long time, and I have an overwhelming feeling that this time around, I want to get it RIGHT, but maybe there is nothing to get “right”. Perhaps I need to stop dwelling on my old soul and why it is here and relish the fact that I AM young and alive. That my soul is fresh with opportunity, to learn new things, to love other people and to BE HERE NOW.

Souls have no age or gender. Energy cannot be quantified by a number, nor identified by a name. Energy has no timeline… it is eternal. WE are eternal.

I used to believe that everyone has one soul mate--a person whom they are destined to be with--but I have since reconsidered my theories regarding that concept. I think that we have MANY soul mates. Soul mates from past lives, soul mates from future lives, and many souls in this lifetime that teach us important lessons in our present physical lifetime. We may come in contact with these souls over and over again. Every relationship is a soul-growth experience. In our physical existence, with a lifespan of 80 or 90 years if we’re lucky, are we really supposed to confine ourselves to one other soul? Are we SUPPOSED to be monogamous? We certainly aren’t penguins that mate for life. For the same reason pandas don’t mate in captivity and we don’t find our family members sexually desirable, if we spend 10, 20, 30 or more years with a significant other, don’t they just become family and not so desirable anymore? No one wants to die alone and lonely, so is it our fear of death that makes us want to find someone “permanent and stable”?

I think that we should not confine ourselves to one other, but try to love as many people as possible while we are here on this earth. We have the opportunity to learn a life lesson from every experience, and guess what? We’re writing the curriculum. Life does not throw lessons into our lap. We weave our own lessons to be learned through our own choices, and it is also our choice whether or not we actually learn anything from them.

Don’t ever be afraid of falling in love. It is wonderful. Just feel it. Let it flow through you and just let it happen. Even if it doesn’t work out or nothing comes of it, don’t deny yourself the feeling of falling in love. That’s why we are all here, really. To love one another. To love as many other souls as possible.
Love unabashedly.
Love recklessly, even.
It’s the most important thing we can share as human beings. Every time we fall in love, we learn something new about ourselves.

We should stop defining ourselves by our age, what we wear and what we look like. None of that matters. We should just learn how to BE HERE NOW. In the moment. That is all that matters. To feel the warmth of another person’s cheek pressed up against our own. Don’t think about forever. Don’t dwell on the past or spend too much time contemplating the future. The present is so precious. Just be here now.