Soulmate or Life Partner?

Soul Mates. Soul Reminders. Soul Connections. We hear about it, read about it and some of us are lucky enough to experience it. We are all curious and most of us want one.

“Your soul mate makes you feel entirely intact, like no piece is missing from the puzzle. A life partner, on the other hand, can be a great supporter and long-time companion, but is limited in his or her capacity to enrich your spirit.” ~ Dr. Carmen Harra

Soul mates differ from life partners. Some people, not ever encountering a soul mate or soul connection, settle down with a life partner. These relationships can be very satisfying. They are often built on mutual trust, respect and friendship.

You see, in life, we have no control over timing and sometimes less control of circumstance. Some cannot wait forever in hopes of encountering a soul mate, so they are satisfied with a mature life-partner relationship. For some it is about survival, security or simple companionship, and the word soul mate does not resonate. The concept may seem flighty, dreamy and unrealistic. Life circumstance, timing, availability, security and many other factors may all influence our relationship choices…

BUT…

Chances are if you are open, ready and blessed enough to meet a Soul Mate in this life time it will happen unanticipated and unexpected. It can feel unsettling, destabilizing and ungrounding because it is a different connection than any other you have had.

There are no words or explanations that can clearly articulate such a connection. It is a magnetic energy, an intuitive knowing and it just seems right. There is no matter of space or time, you have found your way to one another.

Actually, timing and way are quite often terrible. But when it arrives, you know. There is the “I get you feeling.” There is a flow and a rhythm that seems to be guided by something much higher. You step back to catch your breath because deep down you know this is special. This is different. This is genuine.

It is raw and it is so damn real you want to run away just to soak it up and take it in. The soul mate. The one you feel vibrate when they are a thousand miles away. The one you hear whisper when they think about you. The one who lets you move freely but embraces your shadow from afar. That one. The one you feel like you have known for a million years. 

When you finally settle into the WOW, you see the beauty, the rarity, and eventually the clarity. You know it is real, a keeper. Sometimes as a friend, other times a lover. Sometimes transient, other times permanent.

These beautiful soul reminders may too, just pop into our lives temporarily to remind us of what we have been forgetting; our writing, singing, creating, imagining, dancing or living. They light the spark. They get the fire going. They are the gentle nudge. Sometimes they stay, and other times move on. But they usually leave you appreciative and often breathless. They remind us to be alive, vibrant and hopeful.

“Have you ever met someone for the first time, but in your heart you feel as if you have met them before?”~ Joanne Kenrick, When a Mullo Loves a Woman

“We were not making love, we did not even kiss, but the inexplicable intimacy we shared left us wordlessly and hopelessly locked into each other’s gaze.” ~ Jasmine Dubroff 

“Soulmates are people who bring out the best in you. They are not perfect but are perfect for you.” ~ Author Unknown

There is a catch to encountering these deep connections. Before you can go to this depth and even be brave enough to notice it, you first must love yourself. Because when you have love times a million for yourself, it comes naturally and effortlessly, transforming through you and transfixing to another who too loves themselves and are ready and open for depth.

Intimacy requires an open-heart. Looking, searching, praying, visualizing and meditating does not bring a soul mate. I do not believe they can be summoned. No one can be your other half or fill your cup but you. Sure, a soul mate can remind, inspire and certainly enhance your life but no one can be your happiness — but YOU. Although, one can be prepared.

Do your work. Love and nourish yourself. Fill your own soul and fuel your own fire. And then when, and if, they do come along, you are ready to sizzle.

“Don’t worry about finding your soul mate. Find yourself.” ~ Jason Evert

Feeling curious? Read on and without over-analyzing, ask yourself — soul mate or life partner?

The 10 Elements of a Soul Mate

1. It’s something inside. Describing how a soul mate makes you feel is difficult. It’s a tenacious, profound and lingering emotion which no words can encompass.

2. Flashbacks. If your partner is your soul mate, chances are he or she has been present in your past lives. You might even feel an odd sense of déjà vu, as if the moment in time has already taken place, perhaps a long time ago, perhaps in a different setting.

3. You just get each other. Ever met two people who finish each others sentences? Some people call that spending too much time together, but I call it a soul mate connection. You might experience this with your best friend or your mother, but it is the telltale sign of a soul mate when you experience it with your partner.

4. You fall in love with his (or her) flaws. No relationship is perfect, and even soul mate relationships will experience ups and downs. Still, that bond will be much harder to break. Soul mates have an easier time of accepting, even learning to love, each others imperfections.

5. It’s intense. A soul mate relationship may be more intense than normal relationships, in both good and sometimes bad ways. The most important thing is that, even during negative episodes, you’re focused on resolving the problem and can see beyond the bad moment.

6. You two against the world. Soul mates often see their relationship as “us against the world.” They feel so linked together that they’re ready and willing to take on any feat of life, so long as they have their soul mate by their side.

7. You’re mentally inseparable. Soul mates often have a mental connection similar to twins. They might pick up the phone to call each other at the exact same time. Though life may keep you apart at times, your minds will always be in tune if you are soul mates.

8. You feel secure and protected. Regardless of the gender of your partner, he or she should always make you feel secure and protected. Your soul mate will make you feel like you have a guardian angel by your side. A person who plays on your insecurities, whether consciously or subconsciously, is not your soul mate.

9. You can’t imagine your life without him (or her). A soul mate is not someone you can walk away from that easily. It is someone you can’t imagine being without, a person you believe is worth sticking with and fighting for.

10. You look each other in the eye. Soul mates have a tendency to look into each others eyes when speaking more often than ordinary couples. It comes naturally from the deep-seated connection between them. Looking a person in the eye when speaking denotes a high level of comfort and confidence.

Those moments..

"They told me that to make her fall in love, I had to make her laugh. But everytime she laughs, I'm the one who falls in love." 

What is love?

A friend asked me recently. "What is love, to you?"

Lately I've been having a personal struggle with this. I've seen couples around me break-up, lie to each other, cheat, and it's very demotivating to me to know that love once shared can easily be broken.

If your love to someone destroys you, violate you, takes your freedom away from you, is it still love? Or is it just a desperate attempt to hang on to the idea of love that is no longer there? 

At the end of the day, we all can say love easily. Sometimes I wonder if it still has its meaning when everyone can say it loosely just for the sake of saying it. 

But there is no love without trust, kindness, patience, hope. And despite that love itself is a feeling, the rest of those things - trust, kindness, patience, have to be done actively and by choice. It's more than just a feeling, it's a way of thinking, an active decision day by day to be true to each other, never hurt one another, to forgive and not dwell on the past wrongdoings.

While it's easy to say 'I love you', it's more difficult to really follow through with everything else that comes with love. The feeling of love itself will not be enough.

After the novelty wears off, it's all about staying in love and making that decision every day. When you truly love someone, the other person's happiness becomes your own, and all those things: being honest, patient, always protects, always hopes, always perseveres - will not feel like a commitment. They will come naturally.

Let's spend time less talking, but more loving. Don't just say it, but show it.

Us.

Love is only a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.

London!

I haven't written much about my trip to UK, so I'm going to try now. I hope I'm not forgetting any important stuffs! I have a memory worse than a goldfish so yeah, bear with me here!

So, UK, yeah! Let me just say that it was like a dream being there! I had a big ball of awesomeness throughout my 2-weeks stay and I didn't want to leave! It was colder than I had anticipated too, and I realized now how crazy I was to think that the weather would just be bearable with just one thin jacket. I think I have the tendency to underestimate things, especially weather! In my mind I thought I was a thick-skinned (literally) wonder woman. "Jacket? NO! I don't need this shit!" (while continue packing tank tops and shorts)

Yeah, shame on me. Luckily my sister convinced me to bring along his winter jacket, and that ended up saving my stubborn arse! I would say London was still quite alright without that winter jacket, but as soon as we got to Manchester, goodness, we were welcomed by some crazy hailing action! Even Dearie had to buy a thicker jacket at Manchester United Store, cos the only jacket he brought was this one from Uniqlo. Well, the fact that it was a very cool, suave-looking jacket didn't hurt either.

Oh, sorry for jumping the gun here. Let's start from London, our first stop! I figured we can split this into a few posts so you won't have to read everything at once (read: I'm just lazy, give me a break!)

Our flight from here was like, 9 in the morning so we got there early for a quick breakfast first. I was so excited! Have I told you I love airports and flying in general? Anyway, I think I spent most of my time on the plane watching random stuffs on the entertainment system. (Yay to that!)

It was evening time when we finally landed in London and we actually took the train (or subway, or metro, as the Brits call it?) to reach our hotel! (Bless Dearie and his awesome navigational skills!) We reached our hotel late and most of the places were closed by then. We managed to grab dinner at one of the restaurants in the metro station, which wasn't far from the hotel.

The next few days seemed like a blur, really. We visited all the places we had wanted to see, and more! Tower of London and Tower Bridge were the first few places we checked out on our first day.

You know, just chilling out, at Tower Bridge. 

Second day, we went to Warner Brothers studio where they filmed Harry Potter (yes, I'm a geek that way!) and it was super fun! Seeing all the props and costumes and we even tried Butterbeer! (not so good, though.) If you're a fan, you would really enjoy checking this place out. I hope Dearie enjoyed it too. (I made him watch all the movies before our trip, and he seemed to like them, but that may have something to do with the fact that I might have given him the evil, threatening eye when I asked if he liked the movies. Psst.)

I even got up close and personal to Hedwig!

Third day was an eventful one! We were walking around the city, visiting Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square, seeing the Big Ben and London Eye from a distance, and ended our day watching Les Miserables at Queen's Theatre, which was really, really awesome! It was funny though, we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of guards, and there were tons of people there. There was this moment when the 'knights' actually rode horses to the palace, and one of the horses pooped on his way, so there was this pile of poop on the street for the rest of the procession. And one of the guards had to walk on that road, and you could tell he's trying to avoid the poop but it was right on his way. Haha. Damn horse can't hold it in!

Also, we caught a glimpse of the Queen twice! (I actually just saw her once, because I was too short. But Dearie saw her twice.) And, that day apparently there was this delegation going to the Palace too, and guess which country?

Indonesia! Ha! Indonesian flags were everywhere, and Dearie made me take picture with it, it was really funny. Overall, the whole experience was just really memorable. 

After seeing the ceremony, we made our way to the theatre to see Les Mis. It was actually quite a distance, but once again, bless Dearie, he managed to find his way (through the map!) and we got there with half an hour to spare. Because we haven't had our meal yet, we decided to step into one of the steak place nearby, and wanted to have a quick bite before the show. But it actually took a while for them to prepare our steak, and by the time our food came, we only had like 10 minutes before the show started and I just gulped my steak like I haven't eaten in one month and in the end left quite a lot of french fries. We rushed back to the theatre, and the show has started! We had to wait until the next scene before they could bring us in, as to not interrupt the show. 

Now, this is one of the things I regretted. When we went to see the show at that time, we didn't have much idea about Les Mis. The reason why we wanted to see it was because it was highly recommended by my sister, but we didn't know much about the story and songs and everything. But since that trip and as soon as we got back to Singapore, Dearie and I started watching the show through DVD and absolutely fell in love with it! There was a period of time when I just played the songs over and over again throughout the day until my younger sister once came in to my room when I was listening to the song for the hundreds of times and she said, "Maniac." Haha.

I made a mental promise to myself that I would go back again just to watch the live musical again because I can definitely appreciate it a lot more now and pay more attention to the details that I may have missed the first time around. 

What a majestic sight, huh? 

The next day, it was Dearie's turn to be geeky so we went to National History Museum to see some dinosaurs! 

Dearie and the love of his love. The T-Rex.

And afterwards, these two geeks went to 221B Baker Street! Woo-hoo!

You can't see it, but I was absolutely freezing here! There was a line of people queueing and it was really, really cold outside my teeth were cracking and I just buried my face into my scarf and I couldn't even talk! Anyway, finally we went in and basically inside they had all these Sherlock Holmes' artifacts from the costumes, pages of the books and the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, figures to re-enact some memorable scenes and a chance for us to snap some pictures.

Us, in Sherlock's living room and fireplace.

We bought some souvenirs from the shop, it was cool!

That was London. It was all I could imagine and more. I wish we could have explored more places and had more time to spend there. I got a bit sad now thinking about it, but hey I will be back, I'm sure of it! As soon as I'm back in Singapore, I'm missing the weather and the cute accents and my scarf and my boots! But most importantly, I'm missing the adventure I got to share with Dearie! It was priceless. 

So on that note, we continued our trip to Manchester. Until the next post, let me leave you with this picture of me with Darth Vader himself, built from Lego.

Quote of the Day

How do you know when you love someone?

I used to believe that love was a light switch. Something flicks on. You get an overwhelming sensation. It hits you like a bag of bricks. Or a strong arrow. When you know, you know. Right? Not so much. After 38 years and an expired marriage, I don’t see love that way anymore.  I’ve placed Cupid right next to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Love is a series of choices.  The first choice is based on many many factors, including chemistry, principle, logic, humor, intelligence, body type, where we are in our lives, what we want / need… the list goes on and on, and the weight of each factor varies depending on the individual.  Based on these factors, we either choose to begin the process to love or not. If we decide to enter this process, the action of loving can bring “light switch” moments. The way he looks at you. How hard she make you laugh. The notes he hides in your purse. The way she makes you feel when you don’t feel anything. But like an airplane flight, there is turbulence. The fights. The disagreements. The little things that bother you. His socks. Her shopping. You start wondering if you’ve made the right choice. Once you are in doubt, you have to make another choice. To continue to fly with this person or jump out of the plane. This choice is based on a thousand other factors, again depending on the individual and where they are in their journey.

If you decide to jump, the scary free fall will either make you stronger (grow) or miserable (depressed). But sooner or later, you’ll find yourself back at the airport waiting to board another plane. Then you hit turbulence. Or maybe there is no turbulence. Maybe you’ve changed your mind about the destination.  Either way, another choice. Fly or jump?

Love is making a choice every single day, to either love or not love.  That’s it.  It’s that simple.  Either to continue the process or not. We fall in and out of love.  Even in relationships, especially in relationships.  This doesn’t mean we don’t love the person.  It means we are left with a choice.  There is a difference between feeling love for someone (caring about a person), and loving someone (choosing to love that person).  You may have love for someone forever.  But that doesn’t mean you choose to love that person forever.  The choice to love is not a feeling, it is an action.  That is why it is so difficult.  It requires you to do something and I’m not just talking about buying flowers.  It might mean putting your wants aside.  Also, like chemistry, the ability to love is not a constant. It is a variable. It fluctuates, depending on where you’re at in your life and what you’re struggling with. Sometimes it is easy to love. Sometimes it is extremely difficult. But at the end of the day, it’s always a choice.

Although love varies, it also deepens. This means the longer you stay on that flight and embark on the journey together, the more fruit the process will bare. Your investment pays off. Your choices become easier. You not only become stronger as a couple, but also as individuals, assuming the love process is healthy – which means you guys are both doing work. The choice to love creates opportunity to hit notes in life that you could never hit alone and THIS is what makes your choice worth it.

So how do you know if it’s love? That is not the question to ask. The question is do you choose to love this person or not? Right now. Not tomorrow. Today. Make a choice. Yes or no. If the answer is yes, love as hard as you can. Love with everything you’ve got (your capacity right now at this point in your life). If the answer is no, promise me one thing.

Let the fall make you stronger.

Sibohan Harrity, ‘Love Poem’

In a month’s time I may feel differently,
But at this moment I am prepared to swear
That I would like nothing better than to spend
The rest of my life picking the fallen hairs from your shoulders.
I would grow out my fingernails just for that purpose.
I would give up the ocean for the mud puddles of your eyes.
We could move to South Dakota
And howl among the tornadoes
And stomp across the prairies
And fall asleep in each other’s arms
As sweat pools in the crevices of our elbows
And crop-dusters drone overhead.

New Year, New Beginnings.

Who doesn’t love New Year? I always find it incredibly hopeful – the mere impression that we could wash away any negative and bad experience we had in the past, and start fresh again. This year has been really kind to me, a much better one that the previous, and for that, I’m superbly grateful. I feel like at last I can rest at somewhere constant. This is true in terms of job, family and friends.

In the upcoming year, I’m sure I’m going to find new challenges. As of now, I’m already thinking about getting a new job although hearing about all the plans my boss has for next year is actually pretty exciting, so we’ll see about that. Some of my friends are getting married and it seems like everyone’s moving ahead. Or at least, just moving. Although it has been a blissful year, but I know I have to get out of my comfort zone and try something different too.

My hope for the new year is to have the courage to do just that.

Sometimes I wish I could just fast-forward the time just to see if in the end it’s all worth it, but since such time machine has yet to be invented, all we can do is continue doing our best in everything.

Happy New Year, everyone!

My prayers are with you.

Today I received a bad news about a dear friend of mine. His father just passed away, and I'm not saying I understand fully how he feels, but I can somewhat relate. And I just feel an overwhelming sense of sadness about what he's going through.

As if the death of a loved one is not devastating enough, I remember after it happened, just like a whirlwind, we still have to deal with a lot of administrative stuffs. That was the worst. From the hospital, we went straight to the funeral home and had everything arranged for the wake sessions. We didn't even have time to stop and feel what's just happened.

Anyway, it's not about me. My thoughts are gonna be with my dear friend. I know I'm not the praying type these days, but I am going to pray for you and your family. Please be strong. I guess we can only take comfort in believing that our dad, our mom who passed away, are in better place right now. That's all we have to believe.

Happiness Project - Day 1

1. Woke up late at 12 noon and sleeping makes me happy! It's such a luxury to be waking up late these days.
2. Had an amazing lunch at IMM, we tried out this Chinese restaurant and I ate so much good food!
3. Had pedicure with Sis. I love being pampered!
4. Got myself a new read! "One Day" by David Nicholls. So excited for the prospect of being engrossed in a book.
5. Talking to you now. :)

This picture brings a smile to my face, so I thought I'd share it here too. Seth and Summer are the cutest couple ever.

gorgeous, alluring skylines

“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert, and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them: the mindless luxury of a rich civilization”

These pictures are so beautiful, I can picture myself sipping hot chocolate while sitting behind that wet glossy window overlooking the city. I can't say it enough that there's just something magical about city skyline.

December 25

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy holidays! I may not celebrate today with extravagant parties, but I have with me everyone I love, and those who love me unconditionally, and that's what matters. I hope all of you are having a blessed day with your loved ones too.

Let us count our blessings and be grateful for everything we've had until today.

Merry Christmas!