Today, I would like to share something which I learned of recently...

Soul Mates & Twin Souls

There is much confusion about soul mates and twin souls. Very often these two terms have been used synonymously. They are not synonymous. One can and do have many soul mates but one has only one twin soul.

What Are Soul Mates and Twin Souls?

Soul Mates are souls we have met and lived with in many life times. They have been our lovers, spouses, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, teachers, students, friends, and family, or even our enemies, victims or tormentors. We contract with these souls to return to earth together for greater learning and growth.

Twin souls, also called Twin Flames or Twin Rays, are the other half of your soul. This is based on the belief that we are all parts of the Divine Being, God, All That Is, Source, Spirit, Creator. The Divine Being, in order to experience Its Self, divided into many souls, each in turn divided into many others. The final splitting of the many neutrally gendered souls created male and female halves of a whole, the Twin Soul.

Soul Mates

We have many soul mates, the first larger splitting of souls. These souls resonate with us and there is comfort in that recognition. We evolve and reincarnate with these souls through many lifetimes, learning lessons in our many unions and partings, you can say on some level we are all soul mates one with another, learning and growing together. Not all these lessons are loving or comforting as lessons in forgiveness and unconditional love are challenging.

Sometimes we are the 'victim', and sometimes we are the 'darkness' that shows another soul their light. This is where free will and choice comes into the 'game', how we react or perceive our relationships. Someone can come into your life and cause you much pain and suffering, this is a soul contract between you to grow and evolve in love and forgiveness. This is one perception of karma, and one that will free you from the karmic cycle of 'I kill you, now you kill me' type of karmic dance some souls are involved in for many lifetimes. You break the cycle by acting rather than reacting, by freeing the ego from the soul and learning to love and forgive even in suffering.

Our greatest joy and greatest pain are both conceived in these soul mate relationships, our feelings intensified by our soul connections, whether for good or bad. You can often spot a soul mate or karmic relationship by 'love at first sight' or 'revulsion at first sight', depending upon the lessons you've contracted to learn from this soul.

One can live a lifetime in joy and harmony with a resonate soul mate and this is a beautiful, but rare gift.

Becoming 'Whole'

It is said that one does not meet their Twin Soul until they have learned many lessons of love, loss and forgiveness through close Soul Mate relationships, that the heart is made resilient and strong through pain and loss, and must be so to face the intensity of being with the other half of their soul.

Many people who have met their Twin Soul had experienced a 'Dark Night of the Soul', or a major spiritual transformation just prior to meeting, or upon meeting this soul. It's almost as if you need to be 'emptied out' emotionally, spiritually and mentally as a test of your spirit. Meeting your 'other half' can be magical, maddening experience that opens your perceptions. Some experience an opening of their physic awareness as their heart expands in this unbounded and unconditional love. The fact is, your life will not be the same, and whether you perceive this as a gift or a curse is the challenge of your soul's evolution. The Twin Soul connection is always a triad involving the Divine Spirit / All That Is, two people connected by soul, connected to God.

Before one can physically unite with their Twin Soul, one must do the conscious work of healing and becoming whole within their self. Twin Soul love cannot exist in a codependent, ego-based relationship, or from a perceived 'need' that the other person will make you whole.

Whether or not you will meet and stay with your twin in a particular lifetime depends on how advanced your soul is and how much of your karma has been worked through from this lifetime and previous ones. Through interacting with your twin all emotional baggage is brought to the surface as there can be nothing hidden from each other. Many twins part in different lifetimes because they cannot handle such intensity arising.

Both must often face separations while they strengthen their own connection to Spirit to find their strength and purpose on their own. Each half will find balance in their male / female, yin / yang before union.

Synchronicity plays an important part in twin soul meetings..You may find similar experiences in the same time frames before you even met, marriages, births, divorces, illnesses.

How Do You Know if You've Met Your Twin?

Meeting the 'other half of your soul' is generally so life changing and profound that this question is unnecessary.. you just know. Twin Souls will both recognize this extraordinary bond, whether they are evolved and whole enough to acknowledge and act upon it is another thing.

Meeting with your Twin Soul brings about an internal spiritual revolution, a deeper connection and understanding of the Divine and the Universal Oneness, this is the greatest gift of knowing your Twin. Twin Soul love is not to be confused with an obsessive / compulsive disorder, it's not a desire to 'possess' another, but truly a challenge to love unconditionally and without expectation, to be whole and complete within yourself before joining the other whole and complete side of your soul. The longing and desire to be with your Twin Soul is intense, but through growth and perception can be seen as the greater longing to join the Divine, and that is the true lesson, you are two halves of a much greater whole.

When you meet twin, there will be no 'game-playing' or manipulation, you will have the need to be transparently honest in your relationship and communication with one another. If there is karma from past lives to work out between you, it will be apparent and consciously worked out. If you or your twin is committed to another relationship, you will respect and honor that bond and realize the tests of unconditional love.

Meeting your Twin Soul challenges you to grow spiritually, heal mentally, emotionally, physically, and to see beyond time, ego, and physical limitations. You will be driven with the desire to be the best manifestation of your soul on Earth. This is not a relationship of hearts and flowers, but one that will be tested in fire and will endure beyond time and space.