I recently had the pleasure to interview Mali Apple and Joe Dunn on Conversations to Enlighten and Heal about their upcoming book The Soulmate Lover.
We explored many different topics for creating juicy love that lasts, including how sexy sharing a mango is, and how expressing your sensuality and sexuality in healthy positive ways opens your intuition and leads you to the soulmate experience.
Mali and Joe are authors of the The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships
Please welcome my friends Mali Apple and Joe Dunn, featured authors for today’s blog.
Mali and Joe are also hosts of the Facebook community The Soulmate Experience which has 64,000 members.
Mali and Joe’s Full Bio appears below their article. Enjoy!
Soulmate.
Although the word means different things to different people, most of us use it to mean a romantic partner. Someone we feel profoundly connected to physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Someone who accepts us completely, loves us unconditionally, and inspires us to be our very best selves.
We recently spoke with a young woman who’d been searching for her soulmate for seven years. Sara had done everything she could to attract him: made a list of all the qualities she desired him to have, cleared out space in her closet, and affirmed to herself daily that he would soon appear. She’d grown frustrated that, after all these years, he still wasn’t showing up.
Although Sara was eager for a relationship, she’d stopped dating.
She couldn’t see the point of going out with someone who didn’t match her list closely enough, who obviously wasn’t “the one.”
For example, she wanted her soulmate to speak Spanish, so she immediately dismissed any man who didn’t. With that one desire, we pointed out, she’d probably reduced the possibilities by 90 percent.
Ken, another seeker, had a similar list in mind for his soulmate, including his background, body type, and education level. Although he met great men all the time, they were never a close enough match to his mental image.
When asked, Ken admitted that the qualities on his list were unrelated to whether he’d be able to connect with someone on a soul level.
What’s important here is this: we can’t use our minds to define what our souls are searching for.
When we make our lists, all too often what we’re creating is a list of limitations.
With every item, we may be inadvertently restricting how the universe can deliver on our desire.
Rather than putting so much emphasis on finding the one, we’d be better off focusing on being the one.
Being the one simply means taking steps like these to make sure you’re truly available for the relationship you desire:
Practice being vulnerable and authentic.
Don’t stop dating just because no one seems to match your list. Use those opportunities to practice sharing yourself authentically. If you’re hesitant to really be yourself when you first meet someone, take a risk.
Someone who is attracted to the real you is much more likely to be a possible soulmate.
Seek out ways to accept, appreciate, and even love every aspect of yourself.
Practice quieting your self-critical voice, seeing yourself without judgment, and recognizing your gifts.
The more love you have for yourself, the more receptive you’ll be to receiving someone else’s love.
Open up to soul connections.
The universal spiritual truth that “we are all one” tells us we’re all connected on a soul level.
Although you can feel your soul connection to some people more than others, the more you open yourself to the soul connections all around you, the easier it will be to recognize someone with true soulmate potential.
Stay open to possibilities.
More important than making space in your closet is making space in your consciousness.
Be open to not knowing what you’re looking for.
Once you’ve found the love of your life, it’s just as essential to use practices like these to keep the life in your love:
Create an environment that encourages real intimacy.
A loving, supportive environment—in which you can share your innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires—will sustain and even deepen the intimacy in your relationship.
Take responsibility for your relationship experience.
When we try to make our partner responsible for our own experience, we can end up facing such relationship challenges as unmet expectation, disappointment, and resentment.
Stay open to not knowing who your partner is.
If you’re not paying attention, it’s all too easy to start viewing someone through the ideas you’ve developed about them.
Recognize that your partner’s freedom is not something you grant but something you honor. Remembering that you are each in this relationship of your own free will, and honoring each other’s unique path, will keep you in a state of gratitude for having this person in your life.
Create a shared context.
Develop a statement of the higher purpose for your relationship. This context will nourish and guide your relationship as it adapts to changing circumstances and expands in new directions.
Elevate your attitude.
By knowing that all your experiences—from the routine to the challenging—can contribute something positive to your relationship, you turn everything into opportunities for connection and growth.
Play leapfrog.
Leapfrog is the process through which partners assist each other in taking the next leap toward their full potential. Just as players in the children’s game support one another in moving forward, you can use leapfrog to help each other release limiting beliefs, rise above perceived limitations, and evolve into your very best selves.
Keep the passion alive.
Play with sensual intimacy, both in and out of bed. Almost any experience can be a catalyst for connection. Thoroughly enjoying an orange together— peeling the skin, separating the sections, biting into the juice-filled flesh—is a very satisfying sensual experience.
You can use the practices above to bring more “soulmate experience” into any relationship—whether you’ve been in it for three months or three decades!
CLICK HERE to listen to my recent interview on Conversations to Enlighten and Heal with Mali Apple and Joe Dunn authors of The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships winner of the 2012 Gold Medal International Book Award and the Silver Medal for the Living Now Awards.
Mali Apple and Joe Dunn are the hosts of the popular Facebook community The Soulmate Experience which now has almost 64,000 members. Mali and Joe have dedicated themselves and their relationship to exploring how to keep the magic alive in any relationship.
Their book, The Soulmate Experience: A Practical Guide to Creating Extraordinary Relationships
Mali and Joe are also the authors of the audio program Mantras for Love Making and are currently writing a new book entitled The Soulmate Lovers.
You can find out more about Mali Apple and Joe Dunn by visiting their website at http://www.thesoulmateexperience.com or join their community on facebook at The Soulmate Experience.
Did you enjoy this guest post by Mali Apple and Joe Dunn? Please leave your comments!
Until next time…relax and enjoy your life!
-KG
