The only real valuable thing is intuition. — Albert Einstein
Being born and raised in New York meant that I was raised in a family that valued intelligence, business, and type A ness over intuition. There is nothing wrong with these things of course. Yet, so many of us are sensitive souls who struggle to survive a childhood of feeling like our natural gifts are not valued. We want to fit in and live the life our friends covet. Marriage, family, and the white picket fence is a dream that so many Americans strive for. It is a great dream but it is not for all of us.
I was fifteen when I realized that what I wanted in my 30s was different from my friends’ dreams. They wanted to be married with four children. I wanted to travel. I wanted to live a much more exploratory life. I did not want to marry young. I wanted the guy who would do both of those things with me. So when my college boyfriend of 6 years told me he didn’t think I should go to graduate school and we should think about getting married, I kindly said no.
We can’t predict the future of our dating lives. We can’t predict whom we are going to meet. We can, however, change our perception and mindset around the whole process. We can learn to appreciate everyone we meet along the way, thank them for the lessons that we learn, and open ourselves up to a love we never knew could exist.
At this stage in my life, I have had a soulmate and more than one karmic relationship. My college boyfriend was definitely a soulmate. Had we met later in life, things may have turned out differently. Yet, to this day, he has been one of the most important relationships in my life. He was always supportive, emotionally grounded, and the epitomy of a great man. I feel so grateful that he has set the tone for dating in my adult life. He will not be the only soulmate I have but I am grateful for the lessons I learned about love at such an early age.
Karmic relationships, on the other hand, are some of the most painful lessons we need to learn. I anticipate that you as well have at least one of these relationships show up. They are often intense, all consuming and intensely painful. Yet, they are the biggest lessons and the mirror that we need to be brave enough to look in to see where our healing needs to take place. It has taken me many years to heal from the heartache of not marrying the man I thought I was going to in my late 20s (not my college boyfriend). Today, I’m grateful that this relationship did not go further and am grateful that he chose to end it. I had a tremendous amount of work to do and my healing would not have happened if I was not pushed to my breaking point.
I have always been intuitive. In all of my relationships, I have known that something was off or not right. When we are younger, we tend to ignore our intuition in favor of our mind. We think that by being logical we can spare ourselves from the pain. We think that by having a checklist and sticking to it will help us find the love of our life. We believe that we have full control over our relationship destiny. In reality, we are often presented with options but really miss the opportunities. Today we spend all our time swiping, using our mind to decide who our next date will be rather than simply being and feeling. Letting go of the control of our love lives is not an easy thing to do.
We hire dating coaches, matchmakers, and other professionals because we believe we are doing something wrong or do not feel like we have the time to do the search ourselves. The truth is, we don’t need to work so hard. We need to follow our intuition, build a life that is representative of who we really are and wait for the right people to show up. Yet, too many of us wear the mask of what our culture tells us is the right thing for us and few of us are really brave enough to become who we really are. We live in perpetual fear and anxiety.
It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover. — Henri Poincare
If you think you are brave enough to become who you are really meant to be, I want to hear from you. Those of you who are willing to explore your personal growth, examine your single life and make concerted effort to create the alignment that makes your soul sing, are the clients and future coaches I want to work with. Learning to live via your intuition means letting go of the illusion of safety that your mind creates.
I never thought that I would be a relationship expert. Then one day I woke up and realized that my life’s purpose is to help others stop judging themselves about a bad date, stop blaming other people for dating hiccups and begin to wake up to the lessons and the opportunities that are staring them in the face. Every day is a beautiful opportunity to be open to receive your next soulmate. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and realize that love is not something that can be owned but something that is experienced.
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This post was previously published on Medium and is republished here with permission from the author.
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