Over the years, I’ve had healthy relationships. Like many women approaching their 30s and 40s, there is a dramatic shift in dating opportunities in our modern culture. Ageism is a real issue fueled by our highly emotionally avoidant culture. And while I would never want to interfere with people’s preferences, I’ve come to learn personally and professionally that the number listed on an online dating profile is just a number.
Someone’s soul age matters more.
I have found that those people who make a huge issue out of age are typically here in this lifetime to work within the confines of rules and parameters that their culture is dictating. They are not the lineage breakers or the ones who will stand up on be brave enough to go after what their soul really wants. They are the ones that will use their mind instead of their heart often using the logic that a younger woman will make a better mother or an older man will make a better a husband. It’s unfortunate the way we have been trained by our culture to accept these limited views of who we are. At the end of the day, if you are looking for your soulmate you need to be open that that person is not who you think they are. Our preferences are really just the perception of our mind and it can be a long process to transcend the mind to be open to the people who are truly the right fit for us.
Many of us are also easily blinded by physical appearance. Which makes sense — It is tied to our biology. In our modern times, however, an over reliance on physical attributes usually indicates a high level of emotional avoidance and the unwillingness to be vulnerable to a truly intimate relationship. Many men discover, often after a first divorce, that their fantasies of being with a gorgeous, younger woman are not quite as good as the actual fantasy. Something is said for a soul connection and this often means that the souls have similar ages that may or may not align with biological age.
Sometimes someone who is vibrating on a higher energetic level will meet previous soulmates or soul connections and mistake these connections for love. These situations are heartbreaking when the reality is that the partner whom they’ve had a past connection with is not working out his or her karma in this lifetime. It becomes an opportunity for the higher vibration soul to assert themselves and continue walking toward the right connection.
In our modern culture, we judge women more fiercely than men for aging. It’s unfortunate that many of us don’t realize that a key to maintaining a more youthful appearance is in the alignment of the mind-body-soul connection. As a professional psychologist who sees many clients who are out of alignment, I have found that this accounts for some people rigidly seeking partners of a certain age. When you are out of alignment within yourself you begin to seek it outside of yourself. For thousands of years, the cliché has been older men with younger women. However, we are beginning to see a shift and I believe that this is due to a shift in perspective driven by the next generation who is more committed to seeking authentic connections than fulfilling society’s expectations.
For thousands of years, when women had no real power, men could use their money and older status to lure younger women in to be their wives. Things are changing and what woke people want is a partner committed to their mind-body-soul development. This type of goal is different than attempting to order a spouse via a matchmaker who is between 25 and 32 years of age. As our culture begins to expand its definition of a healthy relationship and as more and more people explore their spiritual development, their requests will change. I hope that one of the things that will change is the reliance on chronological age as a determinate factor in selecting a life partner.
Psychological research does not support a particular age or age gap making people happier. Wouldn’t it be nice if we got out of our own way and simply followed our intuition and instincts in finding the right life partner? Or if a life partner is not what people are seeking, to be open to the idea that the right energy between people may come from various aged partners? I think we would all be much happier if we stopped relying on such a metric for defining the most important decision of our lives. We all know 28 year olds who act a cranky 78 and 70 year olds with the energy and vibrancy of a 35 year old. Energy, at the end of the day, matters more than chronological age and they are often not in alignment.
—
This post was previously published on Medium and is republished here with permission from the author.
—
◊♦◊
Talk to you soon.
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash